70 years ago today: The conversion of J. I. Packer

Posted on October 22, 2014 
Filed under History

Canon David Short, Rector, and Canon Dr. J.I. Packer, Honourary Assistant Minister, ST John's Vancouver“On Sunday, October 22, 1944—seventy years ago today—it is doubtful that anyone noticed a soft-spoken, lanky, and decidedly bookish first-year university student leaving his dormitory room at Corpus Christi College and heading across Oxford for an evening Christian Union service at a local Anglican church.

18-year-old Jim Packer had arrived at Oxford University less than three weeks prior, a single suitcase in hand, traveling east by train from Gloucester using a free ticket available to family members of Great Western Railway employees…”

– Justin Taylor fittingly marks the anniversary.

(Photo: Dr. Packer, right, with David Short, in Vancouver three years ago.)