Faculty Focus: J. I. Packer
RELEASED FEBRUARY 2005
What
do J. I. Packer, Billy Graham
and Richard John Neuhaus have
in common? Each was recently
named by TIME magazine
as among the 25 most influential
evangelicals in America.
Dr. Packer,
the Board of Governors’
Professor of Theology at Regent
College, was hailed by TIME as “a doctrinal Solomon”
among Protestants. “Mediating
debates on everything from
a particular Bible translation
to the acceptability of free-flowing
Pentecostal spirituality,
Packer helps unify a community
[evange licalism] that could
easily fall victim to its
internal tensions.”
Knowing
God, Dr. Packer’s
seminal 1973 work, was lauded
as a book which articulated
shared beliefs for members
of diverse denominations;
the TIME profile
quotes Michael Cromartie of
the Ethics and Public Policy
Center in Washington as saying,
“conservative Methodists
and Presbyterians and Baptists
could all look to [Knowing
God] and say, ‘This
sums it all up for us.’”
In a similar tribute to Dr.
Packer almost ten years ago,
American theologian Mark Noll
wrote in Christianity
Today that, “Packer’s
ability to address immensely
important subjects in crisp,
succinct sentences is one
of the reasons why, both as
an author and speaker, he
has played such an important
role among American evangelicals
for four decades.”
For
over 25 years Regent College
students have been privileged
to study under Dr. Packer’s
clear and lucid teaching,
and our faculty, staff and
students celebrate the international
recognition he rightly receives
as a leading Christian thinker
and teacher.