The Two Jims

[0:00] Thank you very much. Well, having survived the most hazardous part of the business of making a presentation at Lerner's Exchange, I'm talking this morning about the two gyms among God's giants.

[0:23] There's a subtitle, there's been considerable speculation, even betting, on who the two gyms might be. In general, there was, I would say, unanimity on one of them, who happens to be present this morning, James Packer.

[0:45] But the others showed a wide range. I mean, to suggest it, James the Apostle was one. Option. Jim Saladin figured prominently in the option.

[1:01] James Wagner was another option. Someone suggested Jim in the gym. But that was a less respectful suggestion. Well, let me just say that a number of people have been rallying around this morning, offering assistance, and one gracious colleague has offered me a prayer for Lent, which I think would be appropriate at this point.

[1:27] Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness. I am your sin. You took on you what was mine.

[1:40] You set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not. Amen.

[1:53] This is a quote from prayer by Martin Luther. Now, let me say straight away that this is a hazardous occupation, speaking about people who are still alive.

[2:09] But I'm deliberately doing so because I think we have an extraordinary reticence in speaking about the giants of the faith who are with us.

[2:24] There is a book by Jim Packer about the giants in the land in the Puritan period.

[2:36] And we know that there were giants in the land 2,000 years ago. The chances of getting a building at learner's exchange on any individual is highest if you were born 2,000 years ago.

[2:49] If you were born 200 to 300 years ago, you also have a good chance. But for anyone who is still alive, the chances of being billed at learner's exchange are rather small. And I want to suggest that that's unfortunate.

[3:03] And I want to suggest that we have amongst us, in Vancouver, two of the giants of the faith, one of whom we are fortunate to have at St. John's, at James Packer, and the other, Jim Houston.

[3:22] Who is very familiar to many of you, but perhaps not as familiar as Jim Packer. So what I thought would be helpful to us would be to review something of the lives of these two giants and indicate some of the contributions, which you might think in some cases are a little unnecessary because you know so much about the life of Jim Packer, given the book by Alistair McGrath, and also by other biographers.

[3:57] But I think it's important for us to see that the two together constitute an exceptional presence in one city at one time. And I'd like to try and make that case as a blessing, which we all have, and which we need to take advantage of and to thank God for.

[4:19] It was interesting at the service at 7.30 this morning that we read from Philippians chapter 1, in which Paul was at pains to give thanks to God for the people with whom he had been working in order to establish the church at Philippi.

[4:36] And I think we need to give thanks to God for the men and women. Unfortunately, in this case, there are no women. But we could talk about that again. And I'd like to then proceed by looking, first of all, at the lives of these two.

[4:58] And give you something about the background. First of all, I deal with Jim Sr. Jim Sr. being Jim Houston, born in 1922.

[5:15] He was born in Edinburgh, the son of missionary parents who happened to be on furlough from Spain in that year.

[5:28] And his parents were Plymouth Brethren missionaries. And he himself was born into the Plymouth Brethren Church.

[5:39] And the certain aspects of his DNA, which we will diagnose as being still very much Plymouth Brethren DNA. But I mention here his baptismal date, as he was only 12 years old when he made a public confession of faith.

[6:00] And he has frequently commented in his writings that he does not recall a more clear point of departure for his Christian life than that of his public, quote, adult baptism.

[6:17] He went on to Edinburgh University, where he was an outstanding scholar.

[6:29] And ended up, regretfully, but I guess we'll come to this again with Jim Jr., ended up at Oxford.

[6:41] And did his defil there, as you know. Oxford people can't handle being called PhDs. They have to be called defils. But there we are.

[6:53] That's one of those odd things. His time as a student at Oxford and as a fellow and a lecturer was one of continuous success.

[7:14] He not only became a senior fellow of Hartford College, but he was also one of the most prominent geographers of the 1950s.

[7:28] When I became an undergraduate student at Cambridge, I was forced to read his two textbooks. So he was already in my life a giant in geography.

[7:40] But he was also a giant in the faith, in that he was the leader and organiser of what was called the Young Men's Conference, which was held at Keswick in the Lake District on an annual basis.

[7:53] This was an attempt by him and others, including a man called Rendell Short, to impress on the young people of the Plymouth Brethren persuasion that it would be important for them to get some training, extra training, in their Christian lives.

[8:15] As some of you may know, there was a tradition, and still is in some parts of the Plymouth Brethren community, an antagonism towards professional anything.

[8:29] Professional ministry, professional priesthood, professional training in a variety of areas. And Jim Houston was persuaded of the importance of improving the education of the young people of Plymouth Brethren background because he felt the denomination would go nowhere and would be extinct before too long.

[8:58] Well, that particular conference had enormous influence in the UK, and it bred a group of young people who have subsequently taken a huge leadership role in the Oikiu and Kikiu, Oikiu being the Oxford Intercollegiate Christian Union, and Kikiu being the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union.

[9:22] This does not describe the habits of the members of those groups. But it's been quite an unheralded contribution, which I think we need to be aware of.

[9:39] So the two books that I had to read were The Western Mediterranean World, which of course was inspired by his youth with his missionary parents in southern Spain, and then his Social Geography of Europe, which was the standard textbook for a long time.

[10:01] Why am I saying all this? Well, just because before ever coming to Vancouver, Jim Houston was a giant in the academic world. And in relation to what I'm going to say next, in the next section, it was an enormous sacrifice for him to come from this elevated position at Oxford to a completely unknown entity, which in the first year attracted four students, the first year of Regent College enrollment, and a completely uncertain future.

[10:40] However, we'll come to that in a moment. Now, Jim Jr. also had an earlier life, in case you didn't think so.

[11:01] Before coming to Vancouver, which was in 1979, Jim was born in 1926. I hope you don't mind my sharing these intimate details, Jim.

[11:17] Thank you. He was born in Gloucester, and his father was a railway clerk.

[11:29] Now, why do I say that? Well, my father was a railway clerk. So I thought, well, it's a point of a great interest. There was a practical value, both for his father and mine, that during the Depression, they did not lose their jobs.

[11:50] Whilst they were by no means wealthy, they had stable jobs, and this, I think, had an influence on many people.

[12:06] Now, Jim tells us that he was converted as an undergraduate student at Oxford through the ministry of the other members of the OICU, or the Oxford Intercollegiate Christian Union, and there are many other details which you can find in Alistair McGrath's discussion, which are fascinating.

[12:28] But the point being here that he moved through, I won't say effortlessly, but continuously successful through the undergraduate program at Corpus Christi College and on to his defil, and then continued on with his training in both theology, history, and philosophy, and became successively the principal of Latimer House, which is at Oxford, and the principal of Tyndale Hall, which is at Bristol, and you'll notice that he chose places that had a strong Reformation context.

[13:16] You may recognize some of the names, not just Corpus Christi, but particularly Latimer and Tyndale. In 1961, sorry, is that right?

[13:31] Yeah, 1961, there appeared the book Fundamentalism and the Word of God, which is one of the most important books in my Christian upbringing, in the sense that it's being one of the most clear-cut examples of a Christian intellectual making the lines clear between what is a form of heresy and what is conservative Christian mainstream doctrine.

[14:08] It was enormously helpful to me because it really showed what could be done with a sanctified intelligence in making some subtle distinction between emotional fundamentalism and carefully thought-out and conservative Christian thought.

[14:33] And of course, that has been a feature of Jim's whole life since that time in exploring the way in which the intellect can clarify aspects of the Christian thinking and Christian theology.

[14:47] As you know, the Puritan conferences held in the 1960s with Martin Lloyd-Jones were an epic.

[14:59] They didn't end entirely satisfactorily, but they were a major force for raising the attention of Christians to the Puritan tradition and the fact that the Puritans had a very bad billing up till this time and Jim particularly made that forceful contribution.

[15:23] Throughout the 70s, there were enormous debates with the liberal establishment in the Church of England and Jim was foremost in that whole context.

[15:36] And I suppose the summary statement that the 1970s constituted one of the most amazing periods of the battle for the Bible is one way of summarizing where Jim was at when he came to Vancouver in 1979.

[15:58] So it's an interesting example of someone who has dedicated his intellect to the exploration of Christian theology in a systematic and formal way.

[16:14] He's explored the limits, I would say, of what is possible with the human intellect, still recognizing at all points that there are limits and recognizing in all humility in all the books that he's written the extent to which there is a limit to what human intellect can do.

[16:33] as you will recall there is a book written about the scandal of the evangelical mind, the scandal being that the evangelical mind has never been used and Jim Packer is an example of the contrary of that point that he has indeed used his Christian mind in a most systematic and continuous way.

[17:00] So he came to Vancouver with this background of high profile leadership, dedicated theological inquiry and with a strong standard of battling for the Bible.

[17:19] So those are the two background statements in all brevity. I know that these are very caricatures of the detail but I just want to move on to what has happened then since these two giants have come to Vancouver and here is a short statement about first of all Jim Senior came in 1968 at the invitation of half a dozen Plymouth Brethren business people to take up the post of the principal of Regent College and he and his wife Rita responded by coming with their children and kicking off this extraordinary experiment which we now regard as one of the most dynamic Christian bodies in Vancouver.

[18:25] He came as the founding principal and he remained the founding principal from 1970 to 1978 and the hello we seem to have gone up rather high haven't we?

[18:41] the vision which you will recognize as being entirely consistent with that young men's conference at Keswick in the Lake District was the need for a graduate school for Christian studies in 1971 to 78 that was the direction in which Jim Senior wished to go.

[19:07] There was a critical decision in 1978 that Regent College needed to diversify I happened to be chair of the committee which discussed this at the time and I hadn't realized until a few years later how critical that particular decision point was but the discussion was can this institution survive simply on the vision of Christian graduate studies in other words the idea was that what was needed was for every person who had gone through a secular degree in a university for that person to be as mature to have the potential to become as mature in the Christian faith as he or she was in the secular discipline which they had followed in their undergraduate career that objective is still very clearly at the masthead at

[20:11] Regent College but the issue was should there be something else and the argument such as it was had to do with the need for professional accreditation and the need for professionally trained clergy persons in churches which are declining in their orthodoxy and churches that need the input of orthodox Christianity I won't go into some of the cross currents that arose but at that point Jim Houston was promoted quotes inverted commas to chancellor and from 1978 to 1991 he was acting as chancellor and then in 1991 he came back into the teaching faculty as professor of spiritual theology and we'll say a few words about what that means in a few minutes but anyway you see what happened was that in 1973 the Regent

[21:16] College was affiliated with UBC this was a miracle in itself which you may not be aware of the miracle was as result of some confusion at UBC which is very unusual and some wonderful dedicated activity on the part of Robert Clark who was a former economics professor at UBC and also the providential timing of the arrival of Ken Hare as the president of UBC Ken Hare was president of UBC for only six months one of the shortest presidencies around but during those six months he being a close friend of Jim Houston discussed the fact that well Jim you'll probably need some library facilities in this Regent College place feel free to use UBC's facilities so that was a kind of first connection and then 1973 the senate either by mistake or of care voted affiliation with UBC so that was all part of the kind of

[22:30] Graduate School for Christian Studies thing but in 78 after this committee had met then became the MDiv program and this of course provided a much more attractive situation for someone like Jim Jr.

[22:46] to join the faculty as someone with the professional theological training and with the links to and the concern for the state of the Anglican communion in Vancouver or in Canada so the MDiv program was 78 and then from that on you see in 1986 this association American Theological Society affiliation gives you the hint that this was a formal acceptance of Regent College into the theological professional theological training of North American scholars then Jim Sr.

[23:33] becomes professor of spiritual theology and in 2001 he retired gracefully and in 2006 produces this very interesting book called Joyful Exiles a book which I recommend to you for careful reading and I'll say some more about it shortly but the reason it's helpful is because you don't find the same level of interest in writing biographies of Jim Houston as you do biographies of Jim Packer so it's you have to read into this book the personal pilgrimage of Jim Houston and some places it's quite difficult to follow but it's a wonderful expression it's subtitled life in Christ on the dangerous edge of things and again we'll say a few more words about that in a moment so then along comes

[24:35] Jim Jr by the way I should remember to congratulate Jim and Kit at their 56th wedding anniversary yesterday applause applause applause applause applause applause applause applause sorry it's not usual to clap in the middle of a talk like that is it but Jim came as professor of theology and this then also general editor of the English Standard Version theological editor of the Study Bible and his contribution you're all familiar with in systematic theology and in the extraordinary range of books describing almost every puzzle in the

[25:36] Christian faith and I've just sort of underlined here things like God has spoken among God's giants from which I got the subtitle for the talk but that has to do with the reformation sorry of the Puritan the theme of holiness the theme of life in the spirit his tremendous concern over the liturgy in the Anglican church and the defense of the Apostles Creed and the growth in catechesis in the church the whole kind of 45 to 50 maybe it's over 50 books by this time which Jim has contributed to our maturity and growth there are two books which are very well known

[26:37] Alistair McGrath 1997 and Timothy George in 2009 which give you a detailed examination of the contribution of Jim Packer I think we all need to reflect on what this has cost the two giants that we've just been speaking about the cost in Jim Senior's case is perhaps of this kind he went out not knowing whether he went through faith also Sarah herself received strength therefore sprang there even of one and him as good as dead so many as the stars of the sky in multitude

[27:43] I hope I'm not upsetting people by comparing contemporary Christians with Abraham but it seems to me that the principle that is reflected in the life of Abraham is one that is reflected very directly in the life of Jim Houston I have a personal sense of identification with the sacrifice that Jim Houston made I happen to know what the life of a senior fellow at an Oxford college is like it is extremely comfortable he is installed for life he has very considerable services at his disposal he is likely to be invited to every major university around the world and continue to enjoy luxury by comparison with what the average person in the UK enjoys and there is really very little incentive to going to an experimental unit that has not yet been defined and has got no students as yet and where the possibilities would look rather dim we have often heard from this platform this platform heard from this dais that the spiritual atmosphere in Vancouver is grim everybody is atheist and everybody worships trees why would someone who is so well established in the academic firmament leave that cushy job personally

[29:43] I would not have made that decision I can't imagine that I would have had the strength of courage faith and wonderful testimony to do that so I want to just say that Jim Houston's example has made possible and of course there are lots of bits and pieces here that I'm not talking about disagreements various rough edges on the way and so on I'm not really worried about that the net effect of all this is this huge institution for the gospel here in the midst of it and I think that's that's the test and that's why God has blessed this institution of Regent College as an example of what happens from sacrificial life and the fact that he's able to turn around in the first decade of the 21st century and talk about joyful exiles is also an interesting vindication of this whole step in his personal life and his life with his family so I think the sacrificial life of faith is particularly meaningful in the case of

[31:10] Jim senior it's not inappropriate in the life of Jim junior and I don't want you to actually interpret these comments as sort of exclusionary of course the sacrificial aspects of both lives but there's more continuity in the life of Jim junior in the sense that he continues along the same lines as previously though he may wish to interrupt at this point and say it not quite right but it struck me that looking at Colossians chapter 1 expresses in my sense of Jim junior's contribution Christ in you the hope of glory whom we preach warning every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ

[32:14] Christ and in context of his comments about the artizo program which is a very important part of this whole ministry maturity in Christ and usefulness for Christ are the games that the artizo program offers to Christian young men and women in other words there is a teaching ministry which is summed up in his favorite word catechesis but I'm not sure that everybody is so infatuated with the word some even don't know how to spell it which is extraordinary but it's clearly the continuing concern and the continuing focus of Jim Packer's life and in that respect it seems to me the summary comment of which is intended to be a compliment but some of you may not necessarily regard academics as the greatest things since sliced bread but in a sense this is the practical

[33:32] Christian academic again I don't sure whether Jim likes to be called practical but in a very real sense this is what he has done for us he has shown how the average person in the Christian faith can grow and get an understanding of the elements of the technical theological tradition of the church so it seems to me that whilst there obviously have been many sacrificial points in Jim Packer's life it's a rather different ministry than that of Jim Christon Christian and so I want to elaborate a little bit on those differences in the light of this summary the theme

[34:40] I would suggest of Jim Houston's contribution is the cultivation of an interior life it's an exploration of the paradoxes of the Christian life and he can be characterized in our favorite pedagogic expression as a guide by the side by this I mean if you ask Jim a question Jim Houston that is he will normally ask you a question in return and say Olaf come into my office and we sit down and think about it and there are these things to be said about it and there are those things to be said about it but it's my experience that the following is the way to go it's a very gentle very experiential type of counseling which is encouraged by the fact that he is really a very easy person to converse with this book joyful exiles which I think expresses his main contribution so well is written in the form of a series of dialogues and there are essentially three pairs of dialectics each of which appears on the face of it to contradict the other they're paradoxes for example the importance of the interior life is paralleled by the importance of the exterior life in terms of the outreach but the need for the cultivation of the interior life in order to have any chance to be guided by the spirit in the right direction in counseling and in conversation you do not find any clear answers if you're concerned to provide a young

[37:07] Christian with a set of answers to tricky questions Jim Houston is not the person to direct them to not that he doesn't have answers but that they are less clearly formulated than by comparison with Jim Packer who I think is best characterized as the sage on the stage with all due respect sage on the stage is more formidable on the face of it all of you who know Jim Packer well realize that he is not a formidable person but a very gentle and very humble person but on the face of it he is a very formidable individual because if you ask a question you always get a straight answer almost a gunshot answer and life doesn't seem for most of us to be quite that clear and I think that it is one of the remarkable contributions of his writings that he has clarified so many of issues that we tend to confuse amongst ourselves or we tend to confuse in our own limited perspectives on the faith now each of these individuals is far more than what I'm suggesting here but this exercise which I've characterized as knowing God intellectually is of course much more than that but it is meant to summarize the fact that this is a rather unique contribution and indeed it was a unique contribution in my experience prior to the 1960s and we did not have when I was growing up as a teenager any literature that I could look at that would explore in as rigorous a way the elements of the

[39:13] Christian faith thank God it's changed tremendously in the last 50 years and Jim Packer has been one of the people who has been significantly responsible how far can we go with logic that there's a certain important way in which the academic world whilst of course it's not appropriate to suggest that the academic world has accepted Jim's arguments but he has faced the academic world with its own lost logic and the academic world has had to respond very much like Paul's address to the Athenians taking up their arguments and saying look here's a reasonable and reasoned Christian response so I think this is a spectacular combination of contributions to the life of the Christian community in Vancouver it is extraordinary and these are indeed giants let me then say a couple of things that are maybe a little more controversial

[40:31] Jim Houston has no recognizable ecclesiology it's maybe an actionable statement but I would say that again because of the DNA of the Plymouth Brethren tradition which stays with him and which is partly implanted in me this absolute concern about the priesthood of all believers complete suspicion of all professional clergy the emphasis on the simplicity of the friendship relationship with Jesus as Lord and the Bible as supreme no one to stand between the Christian and his or her

[41:34] Lord this leads to a radical perspective on church life in Vancouver and everywhere else so you will find if you explore Jim Houston's church experience that it's not been altogether satisfactory but then who can say in this room that their church experience was 100% satisfactory Jim Houston I think reflects very closely in his book Joyful Exiles the sense of exile from church affiliation also I may be overstating it but this hasn't stopped him from making massive contributions to every conservative community in the area and indeed to other communities as well but if you were to press him as I have done on a number of occasions and by the way he was invited to be here today unfortunately he's actually moving house and his wife and he are sufficiently old that they need to move to a smaller house so they're actually moving today but anyway the invitation was there and he said he would love to have been here but I pressed him on this matter of ecclesiology and it seems to me that that's perhaps the maybe the biggest contrast between

[43:09] Jim Houston and Jim Packard what Jim Houston has said is a plague on their houses all these churches are so corrupt they are so far away from the early church model that I have to operate as an individual with integrity with my Lord and that's I think the net position it's one of great seriousness and not taken lightly as you can judge but in a sense I suppose that has defused his impact and certainly it's defused his impact for us as a congregation but then how would we manage to have both Jim Junior and Jim Senior at St. John's so Jim

[44:17] Packard has no ambiguity whatsoever in anything but certainly not in ecclesiology and so we have the benefit of someone fighting for the purity and the orthodoxy of the Anglican Church of Canada something that was inspired in him in the context of the declining Church of England so we have a man who has worked with the structures at every level as possible he has this enormous respect for the Church of England or Anglican liturgy the battle for the Bible is central the authority of reason and tradition under the Bible is the classical way in which he has conducted himself all of this is not new to you but it's kind of interesting that we have in one city these two giants of the faith

[45:29] I just want to thank God for the way in which he has led these two men to Vancouver and to thank God for the inspiration that they have provided for all others and also to at this point in the occasion to wish Jim Packer Godspeed tomorrow when he is to undergo an operation and we look forward to many years of your presence Jim thank you applause applause applause applause applause applause applause applause I'd like to ask which name at the back there Harvey guest to lead us in a prayer for Jim

[46:35] Packer at the scourge tomorrow Lord we thank you for the witness of brothers in Christ thank you for the reminder that we had this morning of how important it is to us all and specifically just now we remember our friend and our teacher Dr. Packer as tomorrow he goes to hospital for an operation we pray for skill for the surgeons and pray that Jim comes through this speedily and he has returned to us walking in a firm step and we look forward Lord in the future to the great benefit of his learning and his love of you so may he go tomorrow knowing that we will all be with him in prayer and great hope for him and forget

[47:36] Lord we ask this put this before you all in the name of Jesus Amen I'd like to mention that Betty and I celebrated our 56th 20th anniversary yesterday but there the resemblance ends interestingly mentioned thanks a lot I left that was a super reminder of what's been going on yes Harvey since you asked me to pray I'd like to ask a question for your comment thank you very much for this wonderful talk could you have called your talk today Kierkegaard meets Calvin I'd like to hear your comments on that I think there may be a parallel there and secondly how do you account for the fact that these two gentlemen coming from the traditions that they do come from that they have taught the evangelical world a new openness to a new appreciation for the wisdom and the witness of the

[48:47] Roman church could you comment on both of them sounds as if I should have consulted you in getting a better title for the talk well I have to share a secret with you that I offered our executive secretary two titles and he chose the shorter one as virtue in short there's virtue in brevity because I'm sure many people are here today because they didn't know what the topic was about well yes a question Kierkegaard and Calvin very apt comment I think Kierkegaard is even more confusing than Jim Houston but the depth of the angst and the concern for spiritual reality is absolutely there

[49:56] Kierkegaard was in defiance of the Danish Lutheran church and thought they were just hopeless and beyond redemption and Calvin yes we have a modern Calvin in our midst so that that's a very fact comment what was the second oh yes yes I missed out that whole question of ecumenism ecumenism with integrity both of these individuals but most notably Jim Packer has taken a lead role in the discussions with the Roman Catholic church with the intention as we know not of compromising the conservative tradition but with the intention of rescuing the conservative tradition that exists within the

[51:03] Roman Catholic communion in a very different way in a subversive way Jim Houston has his own way of encouraging relations with other churches in the sense that he is freer to do so given that he doesn't have a clear ecclesiology himself but emphasizes this personal and commitment aspect of the faith so yes both of them have improved the conversation not in the context of dialogue so much as putting forward the serious minded commitment of conservative Christians to the church invisible that I think is the key point this has been fascinating

[52:10] I don't think I had realized that Houston had identified himself as an outsider throughout so much of his Christian experience and I'd love to see what a psychologist could do with this well in fact I know what a psychologist would do with it but it would make a different kind of talk altogether so I guess I'm wondering since you were maybe current to some of this experience tell us how it happened that a man that did not believe in formal theological training for ministry was able to lead this group or maybe he was not the one that led it into formal theological training because you mentioned it started this way and then it became a degree granting at the master's level and I think they have three masters don't they?

[53:03] MDM, CS, MTH, yeah, all of which are professional degrees. Well your question is as usual perspicacious is that a word?

[53:17] I have to go on my own get up. Is that a good answer? Well I mean I think without going into the detail the 1978 decision was a huge break as far as Jim Hirston was concerned.

[53:39] His vision he felt failed at that point. In other words the introduction of the MDiv was a failure of his vision. because his suspicion, deep suspicion of what professional training would do was different from what he thought Regent College should be all about.

[54:04] But he himself had never undertaken professional theological instruction. No, no, for very good reason. He thought it was a bad thing. using the ST as a model I suppose.

[54:20] Yes, I mean I think that I think it's important to consider that he comes from Edinburgh first of all. Scottish tradition of non-conformity but exaggerated at the level of Bremoth Brethren to one of absolute non-conformity.

[54:38] so you have a tradition which has in Scotland been very much stronger than in England and has been very fruitful in many respects in keeping the established churches honest.

[54:56] So what happened in 1978 and I mean I was I guess too naive to realize my role in this and chairing that committee was clear afterwards that that was a turning point and we were persuaded by the need of the argument for the declension in the church that this was absolutely critical that we couldn't or the region couldn't make it simply on this one vision.

[55:26] But I think what then happened is that Jim has come back into the picture with his emphasis on spiritual theology which is really a discipline that in some ways he's created himself and is a very lively contribution and which reflects in a slightly different way the earlier vision that he had.

[55:50] Thank you. So I think that's the way it seems to me. Yeah, Betty. I'm wondering about the Anglican program at Reagent.

[56:00] Will you have had an objection to that being one's denomination pinpointed as a program? Well, I think he has not objected to it, but he would not have pioneered it.

[56:15] But Jim, perhaps you have a comment on that. What you say is right. That's the first thing.

[56:26] And it is a fact that before the Anglican program began, we were preparing people for ministry in Baptist churches and in Pentecostal churches, and every now and then in Presbyterian churches, all that anti-data performing of the Anglican studies program and within regions, just because these things were already going on, the formation of the Anglican program wasn't as, how can I say, explosive a proposal and as controversial a one as you might have expected.

[57:17] The Anglican program still goes on, and Regent College still goes on, and it's a scene of cooperation and mutual appreciation, rather than a scene involving tension and controversy.

[57:37] which, to me, of course, as an Anglican, is a very, very happy sort of development to have taken place. While I'm speaking, by the way, may I write a corrective footnote to something that you said?

[57:57] Our 57th wedding anniversary will be on July 17th of this year. My apologies.

[58:12] Ola said, and you will see that something strange has happened somewhere in the works. the books.

[58:23] But having said that, let me say, making allowance, you know, for things like friendship and you being Welsh and I being English and I was able to recognise what God has led me to try and try to be and do in the things that you were saying.

[58:52] And I thank you for what I thought were brilliant insights into both of us. Perhaps one further thing might be said, namely that Jim Houston is my oldest and best friend here in Vancouver.

[59:12] Maybe that was implicit all through, but I'd like to make it explicit and tell you that I thank God for that friendship. Thank you very much.

[59:22] That's very helpful. Yes? In your compare and contrast of Jim Senior and Jim Junior, it struck me that you could have perhaps talked about Abraham and Moses.

[59:45] do you know, there are better and better titles. Why did I only consult you, Bill?

[60:01] on this? I'd like to give a talk on OFC Incomparable. Oh! Well, be my guest.

[60:21] Well, that's certainly shut people up. thank you very much. Thank you very much. applause Thank you.