THE HERITAGE OF ANGLICAN THEOLOGY
By J. I. Packer
Crossway Books. 384 pages. £29.99 (HB)
ISBN 978 1 433 560 118
This was the last book Jim Packer wrote before he died last year and it is a seminal book for which Anglican evangelical leaders (and all evangelical leaders) should be very grateful.
It started life as a series of lectures to his students at Regent College, which have been transcribed and finally edited by the great man. It is a cataloguing of all the key theological and cultural influences on the Church of England (and later the Anglican Communion) for good and ill since the Reformation.
He connects three streams of thought that have been influential. 1. The Reformation, the Puritans, the Evangelical Awakening, and the modern Evangelical movement. 2. The Laudians, the High Church, the Anglo-Catholics, and liberal Catholicism. 3. The Latitudinarians, the Broad Church, the Modernists, and the current Liberals.
He says that his job is to educate his students, not to indoctrinate them, so he is scrupulously fair to views other than his own while clearly indicating his own convictions and preferences, which are as you would expect with stream one.
His evaluations and criticisms are on the button and very informative. He has little time for an emphasis on good works without conversion, nor for establishment religion. But the chief enemy is the liberalism that undermines the supreme authority of Holy Scripture and kills the spread of the authentic Biblical gospel. He explains the place of reason and tradition under Scripture very helpfully and lays a clear foundation for dealing with controversies in the church today. The last two chapters are gold dust, as we face a challenging future.
This is a must-read book for any evangelical leader who wishes to understand where we have got to in the church scene and how to respond to the current challenges.
It is vintage Packer – listen to the following: ‘Evangelicals should not allow themselves to say that the top priority is evangelism so that worship becomes secondary – something you invest yourself in if you have time and energy left over from your evangelising. No, that is not it. Task number one is that we worship our God, and task number two is that, out of the strength we find as worshippers, we witness and evangelise and spread the knowledge of the Lord through the world’ (p.343). Or again, ‘Comprehensiveness in which contradictions are embraced cannot be to the glory of God or the health of a church. Toleration of everything on the basis that there is something to be said for everything cannot be a trustworthy guide to truth and wisdom’ (p339).
Well written, sometimes more generous than I would be, but firm and clear, he shows us how to engage with those with whom we fundamentally disagree. Read and benefit!
