James I. Packer M.A., D.Phil
James Innell Packer (born July 22, 1926 in Gloucester,
England) is a British-born Canadian Christian theologian in the
Calvinistic Anglican tradition. He currently serves as the Board of
Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver,
British Columbia. He is considered to be one of the most important
evangelical theologians of the late 20th century.
The son of a clerk for the Great Western Railway, Packer won a
scholarship to Oxford University. It was as a student at Oxford where
he first met C.S. Lewis whose teachings would become a major influence
in his life. In a meeting of the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian
Union, Packer committed his life to Christian service.
In 1979, Packer moved to Vancouver to take up a position at Regent
College, eventually being named the first Sangwoo Youtong Chee
Professor of Theology, a title he held until his retirement. A prolific
writer and frequent lecturer, although best known for a single book,
"Knowing God," Packer is widely regarded in conservative Protestant
circles as one of the most important theologians of the modern era. He
is a frequent contributor to and an executive editor of Christianity
Today. In recent years, he has become an outspoken proponent of the
ecumenical movement but believes that unity should not come at the
expense of abandoning orthodox Protestant doctrine. Nonetheless, his
advocacy of ecumenicism has brought sharp criticism from some
conservatives, particularly after the publication of the book
Evangelicals and Catholics Together : Toward a Common Mission (ed.
Charles Colson, Richard J. Neuhaus) in which Packer was one of the
contributors.
Packer served as general editor for the English Standard Version, an
Evangelical revision of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. He
is now at work on his magnum opus, a systematic theology.
From; Wikipedia