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J.I. Packer: A Biography, by Alister McGrath
Baker Books, 340 pp.;
$19.99, hardcover

Last year my son Jon had to wrestle two weight classes beyond his actual weight. Still, he won more matches than he lost, but when he took to the mat during one particular match, my heart sank. PeeWee Herman versus the Incredible Hulk came to mind. The buzzer sounded, and my son's opponent quickly flattened him. Yet somehow, before the interminable minute expired, Jon gathered his strength, wrested himself from his opponent's grip, and stood up.

The second period looked like the first, with the added dimension of my son having swollen eye sockets and mat burns. He flailed under the weight of his antagonist, squirming as his dwindling strength allowed, until he dislodged his foe's grip, grunted and heaved, and stood up again.

By round three the other guy looked as dazed as Jon did as they lumbered to the starting position for the third time. My son was flattened yet again, and I wouldn't have blamed him for giving up. But seizing a second wind, Jon wiggled out of the near-pin and, unbelievably, stood up again. Then, as quickly as he had been felled earlier, he flipped his opponent and had him flat on the mat. The crowd exploded, hoping for the upset pin, but the buzzer rang. The referee lifted the arm of my son's opponent, but everyone there recognized that something greater than a victory for one and a loss for another had transpired on that mat.

My son's match kept coming to mind as I read Alister McGrath's recently published J. I. Packer: A Biography (Baker). In the author's meticulous documentation of James Innell Packer's role in the shaping of contemporary evangelicalism, I saw how tall this solitary man from Britain really stands, given how many times he was leveled, sometimes brutally, but kept standing up.

McGrath well positions Packer in British and North American church history, providing the blow-by-blow scenario of Packer's academic ascendance. Whether it is Packer's discovery of the contemporary relevance of the Puritans, or his decision to seek ordination in the Church of England, or his forging two key Christian think tanks in Britain, or his role as the "reforming principal" at Tyndale Hall in Bristol and his efforts at encouraging a renaissance in evangelical scholarship, or his emigration to Canada to teach at Regent College—by the end of the book the reader will apprehend the significance of this great man's contribution to the contemporary evangelical world.

McGrath helps us appreciate his extraordinary mind and tenacity but only hints at the man behind the mind. In J. I. Packer a razor sharp intellect, a passionate heart, and devoted soul come together in startling unity.

Once when I announced to my sons that "Dr. Packer" would be joining us for dinner, one responded, "He's the one with the dent in his head, right?" They didn't think of him as the author of Knowing God or the one who has written more books than some people read in a lifetime. They remember the dent, freely showcased by Packer himself at our dinner table during a meal we had shared earlier. My boys sat riveted as he told the tale of his being chased at age seven, out of the schoolyard into the street, making—as he says it—"a violent collision with a truck, a bread van," adding, "I lost a bit of my head as a result."

J. I. Packer is a force, which McGrath adeptly captures in his book, but he is also a "pious Puritan" (as one friend calls him), a praying Christian, a pastor/teacher, husband and father, and to many, a friend. McGrath's narrative enables us to appreciate his unique place in contemporary evangelicalism, to which I add here my own understanding of the "man behind the mind."

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April 6 1998, Vol. 42, No. 4