To Know and Serve God

by Alister E. McGrath

James Packer is one of the best known names in modern Christianity. McGrath's biography, which was written with the full co-operation of James Packer, tells the story of this great thinker and, by doing so, casts light on the remarkable growth of evangelicalism in the last generation.

Genres: Christianity

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Alister Edgar McGrath is a Northern Irish theologian, priest, intellectual historian, scientist, and Christian apologist. He currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Divinity at Gresham College. He was previously Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College London and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture, Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, until 2005. He is an Anglican priest and is ordained within the Church of England.

Aside from being a faculty member at Oxford, McGrath has also taught at Cambridge University and is a Teaching Fellow at Regent College. McGrath holds three doctorates from the University of Oxford, a DPhil in Molecular Biophysics, a Doctor of Divinity in Theology and a Doctor of Letters in Intellectual History.

McGrath is noted for his work in historical theology, systematic theology, and the relationship between science and religion, as well as his writings on apologetics. He is also known for his opposition to New Atheism and antireligionism and his advocacy of theological critical realism. Among his best-known books are The Twilight of Atheism, The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine, Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, and A Scientific Theology. He is also the author of a number of popular textbooks on theology.

Reviews

[Vincent Kajuma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very helpful introduction to a very helpful man. For readers outside the global West, JI Packer is known to us almost exclusively through his books. It serves that knowledge well to see the social-theological milieu in which the books emerge. McGrath writes sympathetically, especially in how he covers Packer’s differences with Lloyd Jones and with American theological conservativism in Packer’s years in Canada. The book was written while Packer was still alive, and one wonders how McGrath would have judged and written about Packer’s sunset years.

A good read, for sure.

[Jamie Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pick from my husband, super interesting to read about a fantastic Christian man. I was hoping it would be more about him personally in his Christian faith, his family etc but was very academic and a bit dense at times sifting through all the English evangelical and Anglican going’s on in the 1940s to 1990s 🤯

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is a VERY detailed account but would only really appeal to those of a particular Christian persuasion.

[Richard Bartholomew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written, albeit reverential account of Packer's career and thought - although the private man tends to drop from view once he's married. There's lots of background on how Packer was influenced by the Puritans, and the book also serves as a chronicle of changes within evangelical theological education over the years. Of particular interest is the account of how "Knowing God" came to be written and published.

However, while McGrath may persuade us that Packer is a somewhat more subtle figure than those outside evangelicalism might take him for, I was not dissuaded away from Martyn Percy's critical appraisal, that "Giant he may be, but surely only within the kraal of conservative evangelicalism?...Here is a theology that produces nothing new, practically prides itself on its social abrogation, and is in dialogue with no one but itself". Despite this, I liked Packer's own introduction to the book, where he shows the good humour to recount how a lady once told him "You are strange".