Some Reflections on the Death of JI Packer

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/july/j-i-packer-died-evangelical-theologian-knowing-god.html

Whenever someone of the older generation of Evangelical leaders dies off, it's always a time to reflect. For me, I am forced to look back to my early days as a Christian in the mid-1990's and consider where I was then versus now and how things in general have changed.

At the time Packer's name was quite controversial as he had in 1994 signed the Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) document. It's interesting to note that 26 years later his name has been largely rehabilitated. The reasons for this are plain enough. While many are still resistant to a formal ECT-type document, the ethos behind has been accepted. I pointed this out last year while listening to Albert Mohler lavish praise on Attorney General William Barr for his pro-Christendom and pro-traditional values stance.*

And yet despite my doubts over Packer's rapprochement with Rome I still valued Packer for his other works. Knowing God affected me to be sure but I was also among those that treasured his other writings and I still have not a few of his tracts and pamphlets.

But along with other men I revered at the time such as RC Sproul and Iain Murray, my estimation of Packer would continue to wane as the years passed. By the late 1990's and early 2000's I had started to have real doubts with regard to his wisdom. As I began to understand more regarding the controversy with Lloyd-Jones and Packer's place in the larger Evangelical world I started to back away from him. The more I learned of the Evangelical movement within Anglicanism, its many compromises in terms of doctrine and Scripture and the way Packer's name was continually tied to the likes of John Stott – I found his books began to collect dust (as it were). Formerly I had read Knowing God ever year or two but then a dozen years or so went by without me reading it. Not long ago I read it one more time and I must say it had lost much of its lustre. I was able to see a lot of things in his writing and thought that I had not picked up on before. It struck me as somewhat mediocre and even disappointing at times. In other instances I found it erroneous. I always remember being troubled by all the Evangelical endorsements on the back cover from figures like Billy Graham, Jack Hayford, Charles Swindoll and the like. I thought – they must have never read it. And perhaps they didn't but Packer was on their team and their endorsements helped his sales.

A friend of mine honed in on Ryken's statement in the Christianity Today tribute – that Packer 'was a traditionalist that looked to the past for truth'.

A strange statement made with regard to one who by many estimations proved far too tolerant of theological liberalism, embraced a quasi-modernist or Critical view of Scripture and compromised the deepest and most traditional Protestant convictions with regard to Roman Catholicism.

The truth is that Packer was first and foremost an Evangelical – a category that has really nothing to do with tradition or Confessional conviction. Was he Calvinist? To be sure but really one that resonates more and more with the ethos of New Calvinism even though his is a name not usually associated with that movement.**

Of course one could also point out the possible dishonesty in the Ryken piece in that he completely ignores Packer's controversies such as his signing of ECT and his fallout with Lloyd-Jones. I understand Ryken wants to remember the man at the time of his death but the controversies place him in a context – an Evangelical context and one in which more conservative and traditionalist voices opposed him. I suppose for a mildly Calvinist professor at Wheaton College, Packer's stands were not controversial in the least. I cannot pretend to know Ryken's mind. Again though, as one understands ECT as a manifestation of Francis Schaeffer's co-belligerence, the ecumenical stand taken by Packer isn't really that controversial.

Packer definitely represents the Evangelical side which won these debates. The larger movement opposes the stand of Lloyd-Jones and has certainly (and at least functionally) embraced ECT. Albert Mohler probably wouldn't sign ECT but so enamoured is he with Roman Catholic Attorney General William Barr that he has argued that Evangelicals and Catholics are functional allies with Catholic conservatives and traditionalists. Of course the Evangelical endorsement of Rick Santorum in 2012 was also a watershed moment. Santorum was not just a Catholic but one very much in the vein of Opus Dei. The fact that Evangelicals rallied behind him in the primaries was also an indication that ECT had done its work.

In reflection I have come to understand that the many 'stalwarts' of the Evangelical world are not stalwarts at all but in fact are the very architects of the 'Great Evangelical Disaster' – a point Iain Murray was trying to make back in the year 2000 when he published Evangelicalism Divided. And while I think that was Murray's best work, his own clarity of thought and wisdom with regard to some of these issues has been lacking.

Are there 'worse' figures within the Evangelical spectrum? Of course there are but it's compromising figures like Packer that provide the 'big tent' ideology that keeps the larger socio-political-theological movement together and gives the out-and-out charlatans a place at the table. Of course Packer lived long enough to see the movement fall into serious fragmentation. I'm left wondering if he had his regrets.

Returning to Murray, I have already noticed a new (if slight) Evangelical tilt to the Banner of Truth. Twenty-five years ago I do not believe they would be collaborating with the likes of Alistair Begg and yet the New Calvinist/Evangelical style continues to gain ground and no one can deny they bring in the numbers.*** Additionally the general frustration with the secularisation of society has driven many of the old Puritan stripe to form alliances with Evangelical leaders and para-church organisations. Their styles of Dominionism may be quite different but practicalities drive them together and one may find that in another twenty-five years Packer's ideology and approach may prove more popular than what the Banner of Truth has tried to stand for. And as I'm suggesting, it would seem the Banner of Truth has already commenced a process of compromise – a startling thing in some respects considering some of its founders (like Murray) are still alive.

As I wrote to my friends on the day I learned of Packer's death – while I walk in the woods I will contemplate Packer and his influence on my life and certainly on the Church. But I will also contemplate passages such as Matthew 7 and 1 Corinthians 3. One wonders if many will find their lives wasted and their energies misspent. It's sobering to be sure. God's grace is great but many have abused it and twisted the Scriptures – stripping them of their warnings and calls to finish the race faithfully. That is of course assuming that one is in fact running in the right race to begin with.

For my part I can say this. I discovered Packer in 1995 and Lloyd-Jones not long after. Twenty-five years later I don't bother with Packer anymore but I still read Lloyd-Jones and in some respects appreciate him more now than I did back then.

----

*It was but one of Mohler's many and sometimes glaring failures in judgment. Barr is in fact a deeply corrupt figure tied to obstructing investigations in the 1970's when figures within government were attempting to hold the FBI, CIA and other agencies accountable for their crimes and constitutional violations. Barr was also instrumental in blocking the investigations related to the BCCI scandal and the Iran-Contra affair. He also was involved in the pardoning of some of its key actors. This has led some to ponder Barr's connections to the Deep State. Amoral at best, desperately evil at worst he's hardly a figure to speak about rule of law, principle and morality in society. In fact for one such as Barr to speak of such things strikes many as obscene.

** It's a great irony that many New Calvinists have latched on to Lloyd-Jones who broke with Stott and Packer over ecclesiastical accommodation – their tolerance of theological liberalism in the Anglican Church. Lloyd-Jones was painted as a fundamentalist-separatist type who was opposed to the broad approach of Evangelicalism. New Calvinism is Evangelical in its posturing and I have to believe the Lloyd-Jones fans in its ranks have not properly understood him or what motivated him. The many New Calvinists represented in the Lloyd-Jones film 'Logic on Fire' demonstrated this – at least to me. Or rather they demonstrated an affection for part of the Lloyd-Jones legacy and testimony and yet in many respects they have either avoided or chosen to avoid his role as a controversialist and the nature of the stands he made against the likes of Billy Graham and John Stott – and more importantly why.

*** I have tried and tried to listen to Begg's radio broadcasts but I quickly tire of his pop culture allusions and his comedic style. I end up shutting him off every time. And then when I discovered that his Truth for Life pays him $260,000+ (as per their form 990) a year which would be in addition to all the other expenses he can claim – not to mention his probably significant pastoral salary! – I realised what he really is. He's a charlatan and I turned him off. That's not a ministry, that's a business. He's a mammon servant and in addition to failing to hear Christ's words and warning on that point he has also failed to understand what Paul meant when he referenced those that measure and compare themselves by themselves.

For indeed one can always point to someone more corrupt and say, at least I'm not like that. Begg can point to the woefully corrupt and deceived figure of James MacDonald and say to himself – after all, I'm not that bad. But of course MacDonald (I'm sure) convinced himself that he was still standing solid because after all he didn't have a private jet. The culture is not the standard. The bottom line is Begg's financial avarice is obscene and disqualifies him from office. The Banner of Truth was if I recall not about seeking money. Its beginnings were humble. If they're collaborating with corrupted teachers like the pop-style Begg – then they might as well have gone the route of Packer and eschew the legacy and testimony of Lloyd-Jones.