If like me you couldn’t get into New Word Alive this year, and for that matter you find the drive to North Wales pretty rubbish, then come to Bible by the Beach!
30th April – 3rd May 2010
A Bible teaching conference in Eastbourne
Bible readings, seminars, Q&A, celebrations, children’s groups
Alistair Begg, Jim Packer, Mike Ovey, Joel Virgo
It’s good value too! More information at the Bible by the Beach Website
“The very act of setting out Calvinistic soteriology [the doctrine of salvation] in the form of five distinct points (a number due, as we saw, merely to the fact that there were five Arminian points for the Synod of Dort to answer) tends to obscure the organic character of Calvinistic thought on this subject. For the five points, though separately stated, are inseparable. They hang together; you cannot reject one without rejecting them all, at least in the sense in which the Synod meant them. For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.
“God – the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing.
“Saves – does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies.
“Sinners – men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedalling the sinner’s inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the five points are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its forms to deny: namely, that sinners to not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen.”
J.I. Packer, Introductory Essage, in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen (London: Banner of Truth, 1959) 4-5.
HT: Scott Thomas
So it seems my post reporting on Jim Packer’s comments while speaking at Holy Trinity Eastbourne have caused a little bit of a stir in the virtual and real-life press. Few people were interested with Packer’s insightful analysis of Liberalism, or his thoughts on the future of the Anglican church, but on one sentence – “I would say with great respect Archbishop, I believe that the way of wisdom is for you to resign.”
The story has been mentioned by Martin Beckford in the Telegraph, Ruth Gledhill in The Times and on the Church Times Blog. It’s also been discussed on Peter Kirk’s blog. Now personally I don’t think it’s a huge story by any means, but it just goes to show how the media has changed, I can blog something which otherwise would go unheard outside its original audience, isn’t technology good?!
You can listen to Dr. Packer’s talk yourself, and the question time.
Last night I went to Holy Trinity Eastbourne to listen to Dr. J.I. Packer speak, the title of his talk was ‘Lessons to be learned from the Canadian Church Experience’. This comes in response to the rumblings in the Anglican church and the personal experiences of Jim Packer and other Canadian ministers in dealing with their liberal Bishop, Michael Ingham. 3 months ago I blogged about these issues, Packers De-licensing and his response to Ingham.
With that background in mind Packer set out to define 4 terms involved in the current debates:
Dr. Packer went on to give the basic facts about his situation in the Canadian church, the history, how it happened and how things stand now. He highlighted the changing situation, that Bishops are no longer just theoretical heretics but are heretics in what the practise. He referred to Acts 27:27, Paul in the storm and used this as a metaphor to speak of being faithful through the storm in the hope of reaching land.
Big Jim then addressed 4 questions in conclusion…
The question-time that followed came up with the usual questions from slightly ‘un-balanced’ folk, and a few good ones – “Dr. Packer, if you could have 5 minutes with the Archbishop of Cantebury, what would you say?”…
Packer stated that Rowan Williams’ views about homosexuality (documented before becoming A of C, and not changed since) mean that he is not qualified to lead the Anglican Communion and enforce rules layed down at Lambeth in 1998. Big Jim was clear, “Rowan Williams should resign”!
It so happened that earlier in the day I’d done some computer training with the Holy Trinity office staff, so as payment I got 3 free Packer books – God has Spoken, 18 Words, and Growing in Christ… good times.
Later this month Jim Packer will be in the UK, speaking at various places on his experiences with the Church of Canada and the future of Global Anglicanism. If you’re down near Sussex then why not come along to Holy Trinity Eastbourne at 7.45pm on the 24th June. The title of his address is ‘Lessons to be learned from the Canadian Church Experience’.
If you’re in London, then he’ll be speaking on the 1st July at All Souls, you need to get in touch with All Souls to book in for that event. I’m sure he’ll be doing some other talks round the country, leave a comment if you know where and when.
Last month I posted something about Jim Packer and his proposed de-licensing by Bishop Ingham, I was a little ungracious to Ingham (not without reason)… but the recent response by Packer and others to Ingham has been both firm and gracious, it seems a good model for dealing with heretical Bishops, here’s an extract…
…However, with deep reluctance and regret we have concluded that we cannot continue the Anglican ministry to which we were ordained under your jurisdiction. The Diocese, under your leadership, has departed from historic, orthodox Anglican teaching and practice. It has departed from what the Primates have unanimously recognized as the standard of teaching of the Anglican Communion. The Diocese is in a state of broken or impaired communion with the majority of Anglicans worldwide. Sadly, it appears the Anglican Church of Canada has now similarly departed from Anglican teaching and practice…
They’re going to continue to be Anglicans, but get their licences and Bishoply (is that a word?) oversight from a guy in the Southern Cone called Donald Harvey. You can read the full letter here.
Let me ask a question… have you heard of Michael Ingham? I’m guessing probably about 40% at most of the people reading this will have. Second question (if you answered yes to the first one), before he started causing trouble by having gay weddings and such had you heard of Michael Ingham? We’re probably down to 5% or less now…
Third question, for everyone… have you heard of Jim Packer? I’m guessing we’re at 90% plus now… that’s because this man has actually contributed something positive to the Church. And it’s not going to be up at 90% because all the people who read this blog come from a similar theological persuasion (although that’s probably true), but I’ve met Anglicans, Baptists, Charismatics, non-Denominationalists, Emergents, Free Churchers, (can’t think of a G)… Liberals, Pentecostals… who’ve all heard of, and at the very least respect Packer, and more likely will speak of how his writings have been of great help to them.
You may or may not know that there’s some rumblings going on in the Anglican church, particularly with stuff going on in the USA and Canada… essentially it’s all about Liberal Bishops denying the authority of Scripture, and the recent outworking of that has been the appointment of practising homosexual Bishops, women Bishops and the blessing of gay marriages. Anyway, Packer and others thought it better to have some oversight (Bishop = overseer) from some Bishops who are actually Christians and actually believe the Bible… their Bishop (Michael Ingham) didn’t like that and wants to remove their licence to be a Vicar. Justin Taylor gives a better explanation here.
Packer and David Short (another vicar facing his licence being removed) have put their thoughts into a DVD and on Youtube, you can see them here… See this one below – Who’s leaving who?
Also, you can see some videos made by Ingham, these make me quite sad, Packer says it makes him “sick”. These videos show some fairly clueless supporters of the Diocese along with the biblically inept Bishop giving some answers… the first thing that makes me sad is the way he misinterprets then along with the audience laugh at Leviticus 20.
Second thing that is sad is that they’re greedy, they’re worried about loosing land and buildings, that seems more of a concern than repairing the schism.
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