James Innell Packer: a Brief Appreciation, and Interview.

I was doing some writing yesterday, and it including reflecting on the significant influence of James I. Packer on my theological formation. The years in question were the late eighties and very early nineties.

“…Anglican priest and theologian, James I Packer, and in particular his classic book Knowing God, had a profound effect on me. Later he would introduce me to the English Puritan’s through his book A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. Reading the Puritan’s introduced me to Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a Welsh Protestant Minister and Medical Doctor, who for thirty years was the highly influential Minister of Westminster Chapel, in London, which I was to visit many years later to see and feel where he had preached. I was profoundly influenced by his Reformed Evangelical teaching, both his books, and his sermons, many of which I’d collected on audiotapes, to listen to as I drove out of town for work. I slowly started to collect the written works of those who influenced and shaped him, or who were positively endorsed by him. In particular, these works included those of many English Puritans, and American pastor / preacher Jonathan Edwards. Specialist publishers like, for example, Soli Deo Gloria Publications were re-printing, in fine hardcover editions, the classic works of the Puritans…”

Packer was later to introduce me to Regent College in Vancouver, and that introduction marked another important stage in my journey. I’d purchase audiotapes (and later CD’s and DVD’s) of lectures and talks given by the faculty of Regent College, and visiting lecturers. I discovered the writing and thinking of James Houston, Eugene H. Peterson, Gordon Fee, Bruce Waltke, R. Paul Stevens, in particular. Houston, Peterson, and Fee were to be particular influential and each contributed in significant ways to setting the trajectory of the next chapters in my story.

Anyway, I was visiting Regent’s website yesterday and came across this July 2018 written interview with Packer as he talks about the Puritan’s. Packer, born in Gloucester England on the 22^nd July 1926 has just marked his 92^nd birthday.