J.I. Packer: A Rookie Anglican Guide
J.I. Packer was a prominent 20th-century evangelical Anglican minister, theologian, and institution builder. Born in England and educated at Oxford in the 1940s and 1950s, Packer became an international figure through scores of pamphlets and books, especially his 1973 bestseller, Knowing God. Packer’s institutional engagement is less famous than his books but arguably even more influential. Multiple projects in which he took a leading role, including the English Standard Version of the Bible (ESV) and To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism, now shape the church of the 21st century.
Packer is especially significant for orthodox Anglicans in the United States and Canada. In the second half of his career, he relocated to Vancouver to teach at Regent College, training a next generation of leaders. Most dramatically, in 2002, when his diocese of New Westminster became the first ever to bless same-sex unions, Packer’s dissent catalyzed the church worldwide. Suspended and deposed by his bishop in 2008, he joined the ranks of Athanasius and Luther, theologians who stood firm in the faith and charted the course for generations to come.
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Packer’s writing was often polemical, vigorously defending the authority of scripture, God’s sovereignty in salvation, male headship in family and church, and the priority of catechesis. But amidst the arguments, Packer also revealed a deeply spiritual sensibility, honed by his lifelong love of the Puritans, which prized an authentic personal relationship with God. As Packer himself put it:
A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about him.
Knowing God, 15
J.I. Packer: His Life and Work
It’s helpful to situate each of Packer’s books in the context of his life, since he lived for nearly a century and published over seven decades! With that in mind, in this guide, we’ll look at Packer’s life in four sections, roughly corresponding to the four quarter-centuries of his life:
- Childhood, Conversion, and Education (1926–1957)
- Defender of Scriptural Authority (1958–1978)
- Popular Scholar in North America (1979–2001)
- The Anglican Athanasius (2002–2020)
For details of the life I draw especially upon two biographies written by fellow evangelicals: J.I. Packer: His Life and Thought by Alister McGrath and J.I. Packer: An Evangelical Life by Leland Ryken.
Childhood, Conversion, and Education (1926–1957)
Packer was born into a nominal Anglican family in Gloucestershire. The decisive event of his childhood was an accident, at age seven, in which he was hit by a bread van and required brain surgery. Subsequently, he was not allowed to play sports and turned instead to reading, writing, and typing on his prized possession, a typewriter he received on his eleventh birthday. These skills brought Packer to Oxford in the 1940s.
At Oxford, Packer experienced an evangelical conversion. During a Sunday evening service at St. Aldate’s, occasioned by the preaching of the Rev. Earl Langston, Packer heard the gospel in a fresh way and committed himself to Christ in repentance and faith. As Packer would later put it:
All who hear the gospel are summoned by God to repent and believe.
Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God
While at Oxford, Packer also attended C.S. Lewis’s lectures and read his books, including Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters. Here was a providential alignment of two men who would become the most significant Anglican authors of the 20th century.
In the 1950s, Packer wrote his doctoral thesis on Richard Baxter, reflecting his lifelong passion for the Puritan movement within Anglicanism. After his ordination and two years in parish ministry in the Church of England, he began teaching at Tyndale Hall in Bristol, and helped found Latimer House, an evangelical Anglican think tank at Oxford, from which he launched his career as a popular speaker and author. This was the first of his major institutional projects, and Latimer House continues to this day.
Defender of Scriptural Authority (1958–1978)
Beginning in the late 1950s, Packer followed C.S. Lewis as an apologist, or defender of the faith. The particular focus of this period was the authority of the scriptures, which he defended against rising theological liberalism and the claims of the Roman and Orthodox churches. His first three books dealt with the doctrine in various ways.
- Fundamentalism and the Word of God (1958). Packer’s first book defended scriptural authority amid the controversy between “Fundamentalism” and “Liberalism.” Its conceptual center is Packer’s argument that Jesus himself believed in the authority of scripture and used the scriptures as the inspired word of God.
- Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (1961). In this short volume, Packer defends both God’s sovereignty in salvation and the urgent necessity of evangelism, arguing that both principles are clearly taught in the scriptures. If you’ve never read anything by Packer, this is a great place to start.
- God Has Spoken (1965). In my opinion, this is the hidden gem of Packer’s whole oeuvre. Packer defends the authority of scripture from scripture and situates his argument within the broader Anglican tradition. This is essential reading for every clergyman, seminarian, and interested lay reader.
Packer insisted that scripture was the verbal revelation of God, given by God and received by the church. To the claim that the church gave us the scriptures, rather than God, Packer responded with his typical wit:
The church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity.
God Has Spoken, 135
The Breakthrough Success
Packer’s growing reputation put him on the radar of multiple publishers, one of whom asked him to write a primer on the character of God. The result was Packer’s bestseller and most famous book:
- Knowing God (1973). This volume is an introduction to God’s character and qualities. Each chapter identifies a specific attribute and presents a concise summary of the scriptural witness on that topic. Along the way, Packer quotes extensively from hymns and other devotional material, always demonstrating that the point of theology is doxology. To know God is to worship God.
In addition to these books, Packer made a major institutional contribution to the defense of scripture as a founding signer of the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Packer drafted this document with a multi-denominational group of evangelical pastors, including figures such as Francis Schaeffer, R. C. Sproul, D.A. Carson, and James B. Jordan. This showcased Packer’s ability to collaborate across denominational lines and his constant advocacy for the authority and the truth of the scriptures.
Popular Scholar in North America (1979–2001)
In 1979, Packer moved from England to Canada, taking a teaching position at Regent College in Vancouver. There he trained the next generation of North American leaders, including Bishop Felix Orji. Packer also wrote scholarly books for his expansive popular audience, calling everyone to spiritual growth in Christ:
There is no holiness without a Christ-centered, Christ-seeking, Christ-serving, Christ-adoring heart.
Rediscovering Holiness
A partial list of Packer’s books from this period includes:
- Growing in Christ (1977, 1994). Described as a sequel to Knowing God, this book shifts from the attributes of God to Jesus Christ. Originally titled I Want to Be A Christian, it is organized around the Apostles Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the 10 Commandments.
- Keep in Step With the Spirit (1984). This book focuses on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and offers a critical engagement with the charismatic movement. The volume thereby completes a trilogy with Knowing God and Growing in Christ.
- Rediscovering Holiness (1992). This is another hidden gem of Packer’s work, which focuses on the necessity and joy of personal holiness, and the sanctification by which God achieves holiness in us. Highly recommended.
- A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (1994). This volume presents a high-level overview of a number of Puritan themes, including the theology of election, the mortification of sin, the keeping of the sabbath, and the complementarian approach to marriage and family life.
An Institutional Legacy
Packer also spent significant time on three institutional projects that may be his greatest legacy. First, beginning in the 1980s, he became an editor at Christianity Today, contributing articles, advising leadership, and making quarterly visits to headquarters outside Chicago. This gave Packer a platform and connected him to institutions, including Wheaton College and Crossway Publishers.
Second, Packer served on the Advisory Board of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, arguing for the complementarian view of male headship in the family and church, summarized in the Danvers Statement. In addition to writing for official publications, he advanced this view in Christianity Today, most notably in his famous 1991 article, “Let’s Stop Making Women Presbyters.”
Third, Packer served as General Editor of the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible, leading scholars from 1998 until its 2001 publication by Crossway. The process drew on Packer’s Biblical languages, scholarship, and collaborative capacity to produce an essentially literal translation in the tradition of Tyndale, the King James Version, and the Revised Standard Version. Today, the ESV is a leading translation, with more than 350 million copies published. Packer called this work the most significant of his life.
The Anglican Athanasius (2002–2020)
In 2002, the Canadian Anglican Diocese of New Westminster became the first in Anglican history to approve blessings for same-sex unions. In a remarkable providence, this was the home diocese of J.I. Packer! Together with a group of Bible-believing clergy, Packer walked out of the diocesan Synod, and later explained his thinking in his Christianity Today article, “Why I Walked”:
Why did I walk out with the others? Because this decision, taken in its context, falsifies the gospel of Christ, abandons the authority of Scripture, jeopardizes the salvation of fellow human beings, and betrays the church in its God-appointed role as the bastion and bulwark of divine truth.
J.I. Packer, “Why I Walked,” as printed in Pointing to the Pasturelands, 230
For international Anglicanism, Packer’s action and article were the “shot heard round the world.” They catalyzed a global Anglican realignment that culminated in GAFCON 2008 and the Jerusalem Declaration, a confession for realigned global Anglicanism.
When Packer himself and his home parish realigned under orthodox bishops in 2008, his Canadian bishop suspended and then deposed him. This lifelong churchman, scholar, author, and evangelist, thereby became an Anglican Athanasius, holding to Christ and the scriptures against the heresies of the world.
The Birth of the ACNA
As a key leader in the Anglican realignment, Packer contributed to the formation of the Anglican Church of North America. He served as theological editor for the ACNA Catechism, “To Be A Christian,” served on the task force that produced the 2019 Book of Common Prayer, and lectured on Anglican theology from the perspective of this realignment, material posthumously collected into a book of its own:
- The Heritage of Anglican Theology (2021). Edited from Packer’s lectures, this volume provides an overview of Anglican theology from the Reformation to the present day. The value of the volume is in Packer’s unique voice, and in his explanation of how Anglican theology took a wrong turn in the modern era.
Packer continued to write in his final years. Two short volumes are some of his most accessible and appealing works:
- Weakness Is The Way: Life With Christ Our Strength (2013). This short study of 2 Corinthians explores Christian weakness in relation to God’s strength, and how weakness empowers our calling, giving, and hoping. It is especially poignant given the lifelong consequences of Packer’s boyhood accident.
- Finishing Our Course With Joy (2016). Packer’s final book reflects on the process of aging and encourages Christians to continue serving the Lord in their final years. The text is all the more compelling because Packer practiced what he preached.
Conclusion
This guide has primarily focused on the life and work of J.I. Packer through his monumental writings and institutional projects. But I’d like to conclude with a short vignette from a remembrance by Chip Edgar published here on Anglican Compass after Packer’s death in 2020.
Chip recounts a phone call that revealed some of Packer’s character:
I was in my office at the church one afternoon when the phone rang. I answered and heard a soft, British voice say, “Hello Chip, this is Jim Packer. I hope you remember me…” I hope you remember me? Are you kidding me? But there you are, Jim Packer was perhaps the least presumptuous person I have ever known.
We must ask ourselves how Packer could write so much, teach so authoritatively, and wield such influence, without puffing himself up. The answer seems to be that J.I. Packer knew that he was more fundamentally “Jim,” his identity grounded not in himself but in God:
What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—the fact that He knows me.
J.I. Packer, Knowing God
Image: Composite of photo of J.I. Packer (fair use) and library (by Batke from Getty Images). Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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