Who (or What) is an Evangelical? - Part 7

J. I. Packer

Though some (or many) consider Evangelicalism a modern movement, as I have tried to clarify in earlier parts, it has a deep, rich, and long tradition.  A prominent scholar who emphasizes this point is J.I. Packer, an Anglican theologian who taught at Regent College for many years, served as executive editor for Christianity Today, and wrote many books, of which "Knowing God" is best known.  In an essay entitled The Bible in Use: Evangelicals Seeking Truth from Holy Scripture, in a book, Your Word Is Truth, published through the efforts of Evangelicals and Catholics Together, he wrote,

The fundamental claim made for evangelicalism is that it represents the main stream of authentic Christian development over two millennia, . . . (p.60)

Later on he wrote,

Evangelicalism is a convictionally focused point of view that traces its lineage back to the theology and religion of the New Testament via the Fathers, the orthodox scholastics of the West, the medieval teachers of spiritual life, the magisterial reformers and their Puritan and Pietist successors, and the exponents of theological, spiritual, cultural, and missional renewal of both Reformational and Weslyan type from the eighteenth century to the present day.  (p.60)

Packer correctly identifies Evangelicalism as a Christian movement with a tradition that identifies with most of church history going right back to the Church Fathers.

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