Canadian pro-life newspaper The Interim caught up with J.I. Packer at last November’s Anglican Network conference in Burlington. The interview appears in the January issue and is now posted online. Here’s the opening bit.
The Interim: Why are you here at this conference?
J.I. Packer: I am a delegate from my own home church and was asked to give a major address, which I did yesterday. I am in full sympathy with the agenda of this conference, which is an extended briefing on a realigning of a group of churches calling themselves the Anglican Network in Canada. We are realigning, or attempting to realign, by accepting an invitation from the primate of the Southern Cone, in the south of South America. He has invited us to come under his jurisdiction.
What has prompted his invitation is the fact that we in our diocese – and, in fact, in some other churches increasingly in other Canadian dioceses – are being penalized by our own bishop for the views that we hold contrary to his. (They are) views that we hold on one particular issue; namely, whether it is right to see any form of same-sex union, (or) homosexual partnership, as a mode of holiness and to bless it in church on that basis. I am one who cannot accept that policy. I can’t accept that view of gay unions.
The Interim: You’re a theologian. How has it come about that other learned people in the Anglican church somehow feel that this is scriptural or according to God’s will?
J.I. Packer: In the Anglican world, liberal theology of a particular type has taken over pretty much theological control of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church in the States. North America is more radically committed to this form of liberalism than any other part of the Anglican communion anywhere.
Now, the basic principle of liberalism is two-fold … On the one hand, the Bible is regarded only as human religious expression – fallible, uneven, plain wrong on certain matters. On the other hand, the human judgement – that is, the judgement of religious persons today – is regarded as definitive in telling us what to believe and what to do.
In 2005, Time magazine named J.I. Packer one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in the US, which seems odd to me because he lives in Canada.
Dr Packer is Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Canada’s leading evangelical theological college Regent College. (But I may be biased because it’s my alma mater.) A few of his many books are shown at this page at Regent College Bookstore.
I found this interview with J.I. Packer to be especially interesting , based on the fact that Ihave been on staff at Health Sciences Centre -UBC for over twenty years , which isn’t terribly relevant , but also ; because I have submitted several requests to Regent College enquiring as to what funding they receive from the public purse . I’ve never received a response. That is arrogance , personified .
Bart, so we know where you’re coming from, can I assume that you believe that only institutions that teach liberal theology (as discussed by J.I. Packer) are worthy of public funding? Are you okay with privately-funded institutions that teach orthodox theology, or do you want them silenced entirely? Do you agree with J.I. Packer, or do you think he is out to lunch?
Regent is a big college. Why would you assume that failure to answer a letter is arrogance personified – especially since the information you are asking for is probably available from other sources??
Hugh, I’m a Regent College alumnus and I can tell you that Regent receives nothing from the government. It is entirely privately funded. Also, that’s certainly no big secret—I’d imagine every student knows that—so I wonder about the accuracy of your comment. I find it very hard to believe that you submitted “several requests” for common knowledge and received no answer.