11 The Move to Canada: Regent College, Vancouver
11
The Move to Canada: Regent College, Vancouver
The enormous success of Knowing God established Packer as one of the most significant evangelical theological and spiritual writers of his day. His reputation continued to grow within the evangelical constituency, particularly as a result of his Tyndale Biblical Theology Lecture delivered at Tyndale House, Cambridge, on 17 July 1973. This lecture dealt with the question of what the cross achieved, and set out what many consider to be the most sophisticated defence of a substitutionary approach to understanding the death of Christ. It was, to many observers, now inevitable that Packer would be drawn to a position in North America, where he would find more time to write, speak and teach.
Packer was increasingly sought after in the United States as a figure of wisdom and maturity, particularly in the midst of the heat of some of the controversies which broke out within American evangelicalism during the 1970s, most notably over the issue of how biblical authority was to be defined and defended. Harold Lindsell’s highly polemical Battle for the Bible (1976) advocated making commitment to biblical inerrancy a criterion of evangelical identity, even going on to suggest that the term ‘evangelical’ should be abandoned in favour of ‘fundamentalist’.
Packer became embroiled in this vitriolic and largely unproductive debate – the only British evangelical writer to do so. His status as an outsider to the world of American evangelicalism was unquestionably an asset. Some saw the divisive dispute about biblical inerrancy as a bid for theological and institutional influence over the future direction of American evangelicalism – an attempt by the northern evangelical establishment to impose its technical language on the entire evangelical coalition in the United States. Packer had no vested interest in the controversy and was able to focus on genuinely theological issues, rather than get involved in power-bids for authority and influence dressed up as theology.
For Packer, the issue under discussion was about the ‘total trustworthiness’ of the Bible as a consequence of its ‘entire truthfulness’. Debates about terminology – such as ‘inerrancy’ and ‘infallibility’ – can thus be seen in an informing context. Packer commented on this issue in his lectures at Regent College, Vancouver, in the fall of 1988, at a time when the debate was fizzling out: ‘Inerrancy and infallibility thus become synonyms, differing only in nuance and tone (the former accenting trustworthiness as a source, the latter accenting trustworthiness as a guide). Neither word need be used; both may be used to advantage.’
In part, Packer’s anxiety about such overheated theological disputes was the tendency of some of their leading figures to portray opponents whose ideas they found threatening as enemies who needed to be vanquished. There were, he pointed out, real theological questions that evangelicals needed to address, and polemics got in the way of necessary theological reflection on issues such as revelation as communication, hermeneutics as a theory of understanding, the use of Scripture in preaching and theology, and how the historically relative may have absoluteness and finality for all time.
Yet Packer also found himself enmeshed in controversy back in the United Kingdom, where evangelicals were increasingly under attack. James Barr’s aggressively anti-evangelical Fundamentalism and John Hick’s edited collection of essays The Myth of God Incarnate were both published in 1977; taken together, they constituted a formidable broadside against evangelicalism. Many British evangelicals hoped that Packer would stand up against such threats. However, paradoxically, some came to see Packer as part of the problem. Why so? The answer lies in the Church of England’s Doctrine Commission.
Packer became a member of this Commission when it was chaired by the Bishop of Durham, the distinguished philosopher of religion Ian T. Ramsey. Following Ramsey’s sudden death, the Chair passed to Maurice F. Wiles, who shortly afterwards published a work entitled The Remaking of Christian Doctrine, which reflected a strongly sceptical stance towards traditional Christian teaching. Two other academic members of the Commission were strongly critical of traditional Christian orthodoxy: Dennis Nineham declared that there was no point in trying to ground Christianity in anything that was specifically linked to the person of Jesus, while Geoffrey Lampe argued strongly against traditional views of the atonement. For Wiles, Nineham and Lampe, the central dogmas of the Christian faith required radical restatements in the light of their increasingly sceptical attitude towards them.
Packer was thus in a decided minority on the Commission, unable to influence its decisions or declarations. Its 1976 report Christian Believing was widely seen as anodyne, vague and lacking in the basic features of what C. S. Lewis described as ‘Mere Christianity’ – a generous consensual Christian orthodoxy. Some, unaware of the impossible situation in which Packer had found himself, suggested he had failed to represent biblical orthodoxy. For Packer, there was little that he could have done. He was convinced that it was right to represent evangelicalism on the Commission. Once the decision had been taken by the majority of members to use the report to describe what its members believed (rather than prescribe what ought to be believed), the outcome was inevitable. Yet it was an uncomfortable time for Packer, who began to sense he was no longer valued as a theological voice.
The Charismatic Movement
Although the origins of the charismatic movement are generally traced back to the ministry of Charles Fox Parham and events at the Azusa Street Mission, Los Angeles, in 1906−8, it was not until the 1970s that it became a major force in Western Christianity. Packer was a close observer of this development, and became an astute analyst of its significance for evangelicalism. The rediscovery of spiritual gifts is linked with the movement known as Pentecostalism, generally regarded as the first modern movement to demonstrate clearly charismatic inclinations. The full impact of the charismatic movement within evangelicalism, however, dates from the 1960s. The incident which brought it to public attention took place in Van Nuys, California, where the Rector of the local Episcopalian church, Dennis Bennett, told his congregation that he had been filled with the Holy Spirit and had spoken in tongues. Reaction varied from bewilderment to outrage; the local Episcopalian bishop promptly banned speaking in tongues from his churches.
However, it soon became clear that others had shared Bennett’s experience. Philip E. Hughes, a noted evangelical theologian and friend of Packer, witnessed the phenomenon at first hand, and wrote up his experiences for both the North American Christianity Today and the September 1962 edition of the British evangelical journal The Churchman. Hughes reported that he was convinced that ‘the Breath of the Living God is stirring among the dry bones of the major, respectable, old-fashioned denominations, and particularly within the Episcopal Church’. From that moment, the Holy Spirit was firmly on the agenda of British evangelicalism.
There was initially some confusion in England over what was happening though. To some, the new experiences being reported seemed capable of being explained on the basis of the Keswick holiness teaching, which interpreted them in terms of an intensification of an existing spirituality. Martyn Lloyd-Jones introduced the subject for discussion at a meeting of the Westminster Fellowship on 8 October 1962. It soon became clear that a number of younger Anglican clergy had experienced some form of charismatic renewal, with St Mark’s, Gillingham, in Kent becoming an especially significant centre of renewal.
Four Anglican clergy, three of whom had served at St Mark’s, Gillingham, arranged to meet Martyn Lloyd-Jones in London on 9 April 1963. At this time, Lloyd-Jones was held in high regard by many within the evangelical wing of the Church of England. Lloyd-Jones listened carefully to the four describing their experiences, before telling them of something similar which had happened to him during a visit he had made to the Hebrides in the summer of 1949. Lloyd-Jones concluded that they had ‘been baptised in the Holy Spirit’.
There is little doubt that the charismatic movement has brought fresh life to the Church through its rediscovery of the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian life and experience. Yet this new emphasis upon the role of the Holy Spirit brought with it tensions and controversy, most notably over the issue of the importance of experience of the Spirit in the normal Christian life, and the relation between Word and Spirit. Packer has been a significant theological voice – indeed, at times, it has to be said, a lonely voice – in this important discussion since the late 1960s. We have already noted Packer’s strategy, evident in his involvement in the book Growing into Union, of collaborating wherever possible with others who were committed to basic Christian orthodoxy, despite differences that might exist between them over matters of church order (see p. 93). By the early 1970s, it was clear to Packer that the charismatic movement was coming of age and needed to be taken seriously and viewed positively by evangelicals.
The growing strength of the charismatic movement gave new relevance to Packer’s desire and ability to bridge the theological and experiential divide between classic evangelicalism and the movement itself. Packer’s concern for spirituality and evangelical collaboration led to him taking this new movement seriously, where other senior evangelical figures tended to dismiss it as a theological fad. Packer was one of the few actively working during the 1970s in England to forge bridges in this way, at a time when many senior evangelicals within the Church of England were inclined to view the movement with hostility, especially over the issue of ‘baptism in the Spirit’.
The Senior Eclectic Conference of 1974 brought together a number of leading evangelicals, including John Stott, to discuss the progress made since the National Evangelical Anglican Congress of 1967 (see p. 77). Packer was present, and offered a survey of developments since Keele, highlighting issues which arose from the growing strength of the charismatic movement. Surely, Packer argued, the time had come for non-charismatic evangelicals to appreciate that there was sufficient ‘essential evangelicalism’ within the charismatic movement to allow the former to begin to relate to the latter in strongly positive terms; it seemed only right to start working with them on matters of importance.
On the basis of Packer’s address, John Stott decided the time was indeed right to start exploring ways of strengthening links between evangelicals and charismatics, and invited Packer and John Baker (a noted Calvinist who trained at Tyndale Hall, Bristol) to draft a discussion document. The ‘Gospel and Spirit’ group (as it came to be known) drew together leading evangelicals from the Church of England Evangelical Council (including both Stott and Packer) and charismatics (including Michael Harper and David Watson). The group met together for four day-conferences over a period of eighteen months and was finally able to issue a joint statement. It is widely agreed that this statement was of fundamental importance in ensuring that the charismatic issue would not be a cause of division at the Second National Evangelical Anglican Congress of 1977 – to which we now turn.
Nottingham: The Second National Evangelical Anglican Congress
In 1974, John Stott and other evangelical leaders felt it was time to take steps to consolidate the work and extend the influence of the National Evangelical Anglican Congress, held at Keele in 1967. The Church of England Evangelical Council, the Church Society and the Church Pastoral Aid Society agreed to plan a second Congress to mark a decade since Keele, which was now recognised as marking a decisive change in the mood of evangelicalism within the Church of England. The backdrop to this development was a growing sense that Keele had not delivered what some had hoped for: greater evangelical influence within the national Church of England. Its greatest tactical success – the defeat of the scheme for Anglican and Methodist unity – had been defeated only through an alliance with Anglo-Catholics, whose reasons for opposing the scheme were radically different from those proposed by evangelicals, such as Packer.
Whereas the Keele Congress of 1967 was given strategic direction by a small group with close links to Latimer House, led by Stott and Packer, a much larger planning committee was brought together for its 1977 successor. Packer felt that the proposed Congress would be a distraction, which would get in the way of carrying forward the vision of the Keele Congress in local churches. Packer was in a minority at this point; most took the view that a second Congress was needed. At the second planning meeting, disagreements again emerged. Packer took the view that the proposed Congress ought to focus on a specific theme of importance, such as ethics. Stott, however, felt that a conference could only have significant appeal if it addressed as wide a range of issues as was reasonably possible. In the end, his view prevailed. Finally, Packer suggested there was little point in the Congress producing a report, given the wide range of issues it intended to consider. Once more, Packer was in a minority. An Executive Committee, chaired by John Scott, was created to organise the Congress, which would be held at the Sports Hall of the University of Nottingham in the East Midlands over the period Thursday, 14 April to Monday, 18 April 1977. It is significant that Packer was not a member of this committee; from the outset, he appeared to be peripheral to the event.
The Nottingham Congress was well attended, attracting twice the number that came to Keele. Discussion focused on the contents of three volumes that served as study guides for the event: ‘The Lord Christ’, ‘The Changing World’ and ‘The People of God’. Packer contributed a carefully worded defence and application of the ‘Lordship of Christ’. It was a solid, intelligent and persuasive theological reflection, which ranks as one of his most constructive pieces. Yet it received little attention, particularly in comparison with Anthony Thiselton’s paper on hermeneutics, which highlighted the danger of attempting to force the Bible to answer distinctively modern questions to which the text itself does not specifically refer. Thiselton’s paper set the scene for the Conference’s final statement, which referenced Thiselton’s ideas – though not naming him explicitly – in many of its pronouncements concerning contemporary biblical interpretation and application.
The Nottingham Congress was useful in allowing Anglican evangelicals to reflect on a series of notable theological and practical issues, even if it can now be seen to have failed to offer a persuasive rationale for being both Anglican and evangelical, other than for reasons for convenience and opportunity. Packer himself realised that there was an ‘Anglican evangelical identity problem’, and published an important and oft-cited pamphlet on this question once the dust of the Congress had settled. His misgivings had, however, been heightened by some younger voices at the Nottingham Congress, who seemed to reject or downplay the significance of matters which he considered to be critically important. David Watson, then noted for his influential evangelistic ministry in the city of York and in the student world, declared that ‘the Reformation was one of the greatest tragedies that ever happened to the church’. The Congress made no reference in any of its statements to the ongoing role of the Thirty-Nine Articles which were, for Packer and others, a means of affirming the historical commitment of the Church of England to theological orthodoxy.
Packer was also alarmed that one of the core identity-markers of conservative evangelicalism seemed to have been sidelined by the Congress. Historically, evangelicalism had once regarded the doctrine of penal substitution as the only valid means of interpreting the cross of Christ. However, the doctrine came under mounting criticism during the later nineteenth century, and subsequently during the twentieth. Packer had responded to those concerns in his 1973 Tyndale lecture (see p. 113), reaffirming the substitutionary nature of Christ’s death. Yet the Nottingham Congress made it clear that there was increasing reluctance on the part of many evangelicals to commit themselves exclusively to this traditional evangelical understanding of the atonement – a concern clearly formulated in its Final Statement:
Regarding the Atonement, we all gladly affirm that the death and resurrection of Jesus is the heart of the gospel of salvation: ‘Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and was raised on the third day’. Nevertheless, we give different emphasis to the various biblical expressions of the Atonement. Some see the truth that Christ died in our place as the central explanation of the cross, while others, who also give this truth a position of great importance, lay greater stress on the relative significance of the other biblical pictures.
Given the future course of his career, it would be easy to suggest that Packer felt that he did not really belong in the new world of evangelical Anglicanism, and that this caused him to leave England and settle somewhere else where he believed he had an ongoing role to play. Perhaps, however, it might be more accurate to suggest that Packer’s growing sense of disconnection with the changing mood and agendas of evangelicalism within the Church of England made him more receptive to offers of alternative ministries. Whatever Packer chose, it would not be more of the same. He needed a new platform for his ministry – and the most obvious location for such a ministry was in an American seminary with roots in the Reformed tradition, such as Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, or a distinctively evangelical seminary, such as Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, located just north of Chicago. In the end, however, the call which changed the course of his life came from western Canada.
Regent College, Vancouver
The origins of Regent College, Vancouver – now firmly established as a premier evangelical graduate school of theology – go back to the late 1960s, when a series of prominent evangelicals, many with links to the Christian Brethren, recognised the need for a new school of theology with a focus on the laity. A number of factors led to the emergence of this vision. Many admired Francis Schaeffer’s L’Abri community as a Christian study centre yet felt it would have greater impact if it were located within a major university, while maintaining its evangelical identity. Regent College was founded in 1968 as the first graduate school of theology in North America to make education of the laity its central focus. Its first educational venture was a summer school in 1969, which drew fifty-six students to St Andrew’s Hall on the University of British Columbia campus.
In 1970, Regent College appointed James Houston as its first Principal, and set up its offices and teaching space in the basement of Union Theological College, a Presbyterian school of ministry on the University site. Houston was quite clear what sort of institution he hoped to create. First, unlike Schaeffer’s L’Abri, it would be located on a campus and have some formal affiliation with that university. Second, the new college should be a graduate school of theology, rather than a ‘Bible school’. And third, it would be transdenominational and evangelical in its outlook. It was a vision that clearly appealed to many. The College’s reputation and enrolment quickly grew and in 1972 it began offering what proved to be its trademark qualification: the Master of Christian Studies.
Houston’s second and third goals were arguably fulfilled by 1972. In 1974, Houston finally achieved the first of his three goals through securing both the College’s affiliation with the University of British Columbia and moving the College to new premises on Vancouver’s Wesbrook Mall, taking over two former university fraternity houses for its administration and teaching. Houston was now in a position to begin to expand his faculty. The three core faculty staff in the College’s first years were Ward Gasque, Assistant Professor of New Testament; Carl E. Armerding, Assistant Professor of Old Testament; and Houston himself, who taught in the area of ‘interdisciplinary and environmental studies’. Houston knew he needed to attract a theologian who was capable of relating to lay students, and who could teach across denominational boundaries.
In 1974, Houston appointed Clark H. Pinnock as Regent College’s first Associate Professor of Systematic and Christian Theology. It was an excellent choice. Pinnock was a Canadian, who had studied under F. F. Bruce at Manchester and subsequently served as Professor of New Testament and Systematic Theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He thus had the international experience which Houston wished to foster within Regent College. Pinnock had established himself as a leading younger theologian within North American evangelicalism through major writings on the areas of revelation and apologetics, including A Defense of Biblical Infallibility (1967), Set Forth Your Case (1967), Evangelism and Truth (1969) and Biblical Revelation: The Foundation of Christian Theology (1971). Pinnock’s growing reputation attracted more students to the College. But in 1977, Pinnock moved east to take up a position at McMaster Divinity School, Ontario.
So who could Houston find to replace Pinnock? A huge gap loomed, not simply in Regent’s teaching faculty, but also in its international reputation and potential ability to attract students. There was an urgent need to find a major international theologian, whose personal stature would ensure Regent’s continued reputational excellence in this area. Houston’s mind wandered back to the 1940s, when Packer – then a young Oxford undergraduate – attended his local Brethren church in east Oxford. He had made quite a name for himself since those early days. But would he be interested in coming to Canada? There was only one way to find out. At just after three o’clock in the morning local time, Houston lifted his phone and placed an international call.
Packer remembers what happened well. He was working in his study at Trinity College, Bristol, one morning in 1976, when the telephone rang at 11.10 a.m. The caller turned out to be Houston, who asked Packer whether he would be interested in a Chair of Theology at Regent College which Clark Pinnock was in the process of vacating. Packer knew about Regent; he had visited the institution, and thoroughly concurred with what he found, especially its implicit emphasis on breaking down the barriers between clergy and laity. He asked Houston to write his ideas down, and he would give the possibility careful thought. This was not the first invitation Packer had received to relocate to the other side of the Atlantic, and he had become quite used to turning such approaches down with a diplomatic, gentle firmness. He expected to decline this invitation equally graciously.
Houston’s letter arrived a week later. As Packer read it, he began to realise that the proposal was, in fact, a serious possibility. For reasons we have explored, he was frustrated with his situation in England, and could see no hope of things improving in the next few years. He knew and respected Houston from their time together in Oxford in the late 1940s, and the prospect of working alongside him was attractive. Houston was committed to the idea of peer-parity within the faculty of Regent College, a model which Packer had tried to ensure was incorporated into the structure of Trinity College at the time of the merger.
Taking up a professorship at Regent College would also fit in well with his bilateral strategy, which led him to concentrate on both Anglicanism and transdenominational evangelicalism. This strategy would have been difficult to implement if he held a position at a denominational seminary in the United States – such as Westminster Theological Seminary. In England, he was employed at an Anglican theological school, and was able to make this his base for a transdenominational ministry; if he went to Regent, he would be employed at a transdenominational school, which he could use as a base for his ministry within Anglicanism.
Furthermore, Packer liked Vancouver in particular, and Canada in general, which seemed to him to be culturally half-way between Britain and the United States. If he had to move to somewhere in North America, his preference would be for Canada rather than the United States. Packer’s mother had died in 1965, and his father in 1972. He thus had no further family responsibilities in England. His children’s education could be arranged. Yet perhaps the decisive factor was that moving to Regent College would allow him more time to write. It was an important consideration, for Packer was clear that an integral part of his vocation was to write the books which would encourage, sustain and inform the Church.
After much thought, Packer wrote to Houston, telling him he was minded to accept his offer, but would not be in a position to move before 1979. Packer felt he needed to wait sufficiently long after the Nottingham Congress of 1977 before announcing his move, as he did not wish his decision to leave England to be interpreted as an implied criticism of what had happened at the Congress.
Encouraged by this positive (though not definitive) response, Houston began the faculty recruitment procedure at Regent. During one of his tours of North America, Packer inconspicuously spent a period of twenty-four hours at Regent. He later discovered that Klaus Bockmuehl (then teaching at St Chrischona Theological Seminary in Switzerland) was also being interviewed for a faculty position at the College, Houston having approached him in much the same way as he had Packer. Initially, the College’s financial situation led the Regent College Council to conclude they would have to choose between Packer and Bockmuehl; by the end of their discussions, however, the decision had swung to employing them both.
Packer’s inclination to accept the offer was clinched by a tipping factor – the appointment of Harry S. D. Robinson, a noted evangelical known to Packer, to become Rector of St John’s Church, Shaughnessy, not far from Regent College. One of the reasons why Packer was hesitant about a move to Vancouver was the apparent absence of a suitable Anglican parish in which he could minister. When Robinson offered Packer an honorary assistantship in his parish, it seemed that all the pieces of a vocational puzzle had fallen into place. However, Packer wanted to be sure that Kit would approve of this radical move.
Packer came to his final decision to accept the position during the Regent College summer school of 1978. He and Kit had been invited to spend three weeks in Vancouver, enabling Packer to teach a basic course in systematic theology. Packer was clear that he could not make a final commitment without allowing Kit to experience Vancouver at first hand and decide whether she felt she could settle there. This period of immersion proved to be the final stage in the process of acceptance. On learning that Kit believed she could live happily in Vancouver, Packer agreed to accept firmly the offer which had been made to him. The announcement was then made, at the end of Packer’s contribution to the summer school, that he would return in September 1979 to take up a full-time faculty position at Regent College.
A new phase – perhaps a golden phase – had opened in Packer’s life. The announcement was greeted with delight in Vancouver, and with surprise and sadness back in England. Yet with the benefit of hindsight, it was not merely a good move; it was the right move. Packer flourished at Regent College, consolidating his reputation as a classic conservative evangelical theologian with a passionate concern for relating his theology to spirituality, ministry and the Bible.
Since Packer was so often described as a ‘conservative’ thinker, we must once more interrupt our narrative, and consider what this might mean.