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David Lawrence interviews Assembly Moderator David Peel

It is hard to pigeon-hole the URC’s Moderator of General Assembly for 2005-2006. Sometimes he sounds like everyone’s picture of a middle-aged minister who sprang out of northern Congregational background. Sometimes he sounds like a prophet and a radical. And sometimes you get the disturbing impression that the two are not quite so far apart.

David Peel was born in Keighley in Yorkshire’s West Riding. His parents were lifelong Congregationalists, his father was a scoutmaster. It was a time when lives which had previously centred around church for both inspiration and entertainment began to find space for other interests - and when the slow trickle of members out to more ‘upmarket’ areas was taking its toll.

Looking back David attributes the fact that he stayed with a church that, despite efforts to adapt, had lost many of its younger members, to the influence of his parents and to youth leaders and ministers who believed in him and encouraged him to take responsibility. Added to that was the influence of the wider church in the form of Congregational Youth, which allowed him to feel less isolated as a young person in the church and to discover new mentors.

the big city

The young David Peel did not set out initially to train as a minister. When he left Keighley for university in London, he lodged in Congregationalism’s New College but it was chemistry he had come south to study.

David found the metropolis a daunting and lonely place. He gravitated towards Kensington Chapel, where there were some familiar faces he had met through Congregational Youth. It was there that he met a young woman by the name of Pat who had come to the big city from Wiltshire in search of better job prospects and who was before too long to become Mrs Peel.

If David did not see himself as a future minister, others were clearly looking at him differently. At New College he mixed regularly with theological students. Principal Charles Duthie took an interest in him and soon had him reading theology books. Before long it seemed that chemistry was almost a side-interest, though he remains grateful that he stuck out the course.

After gaining his degree David and Pat travelled north to the Congregational college in Manchester, where David was to train for the ministry for three years. That was followed by a year at a seminary in Dallas, Texas - at the end of which he and Pat faced a tempting invitation to stay on. In the end, a sense of loyalty to the church in England won out - though he admits that some people insist he was simply missing cricket, pork pies and real ale. There are, he observes, no completely pure motives in life.

a perfect start

Within days of arriving back in Britain David found him-self preaching in a local church in Kettering, courtesy of the Principal of his former college. What he did not realize was that as far as Toller United Reformed Church was concerned, their young guest had come to ‘preach with a view’. Feeling that his feet had hardly touched the ground in England he told the church he could not make a decision but returned a few weeks later and the relationship was consummated.

Toiler was, he recalls, the perfect place for a young minister to start out: full of people who were prepared to ‘have a go’ at anything, a range of ages and exciting youth work. When he came to think about a move five years later, his ecumenical commitment suggested it should be to a congregation from the Presbyterian tradition - which his next church in Stockton quite definitely was.

Ministering to a ‘Scots’ kirk’ was very different. The atmosphere was more formal and conservative but at the same time the church’s choral tradition provided the opportunity for worship of high quality, while the kind of members the church had gathered offered an opportunity for engagement with people who were crucial in the local community. David found himself moving from an emphasis on the church itself to one of helping equip people for their life in the world.

It was formative period in many ways. David and Pat now had two children, who both grew up in Stockton. It was there that he completed the eight-year slog of his doctoral thesis on American theologian Schubert Ogden. Looking back, though a PhD was to open doors into a different future, David still regrets the fact that it consumed almost every moment of spare time while his children grew up before his eyes.

back to college

With his doctoral thesis behind him it was natural that the idea of an academic future should raise itself and the ideal post soon arose. Based at Northern College in Manchester under the principalship of Jack McKelvey, the Tutor in Community-based Theology had the task of pioneering a new form of theological education in which the majority of preparation was to be done ‘on the job. In 1993, when Jack retired, David was appointed Principal.

It was, he recalls, an exciting time – steering an entirely new course through the process of validation by the university, alongside wonderful colleagues. Most exciting of all was the knowledge that they were at the cutting edge of theological education in the western world. David recalls presiding with pride over the graduation of high quality candidates, confident in the belief that they were better prepared for the task than previous generations.

Even the briefest record of this period would be incomplete without noting the publication in 2002 of David’s ‘magnum opus’ Reforming Theology. The fact that the scurrilous rumours – that the book arose out of a evening’s banter (some of it in the pub) with Westminster College Principal David Cornick - turn out to be true does not detract from the achievement. What started out to be a survey of the ‘theology of the URC’ turned into a much more important project and one which has found a welcoming readership in the most surprising places in this country and around the world.

After seven years in the job, and despite having been reappointed for a second term David found himself, for a variety of reasons, becoming restive. Though it seemed wrong to waste his experience of theological education, at the same time he felt a need to move back closer to the grass roots. The ideal combination presented itself when the post of tutor on the ecumenical North East Oecumencial Course became vacant, which he was able to combine with working for the Northern Synod half time as their Development Strategy Officer.

cricket, lovely cricket

Those who have heard David Peel in person will be aware that he has, in Denis Healey’s phrase, a big hinterland – and that much of that hinterland is occupied by cricket. A member of Durham, Lancashire and Yorkshire County Cricket Clubs he has also been, since his youth, an avid collector of cricketing autographs. And aside from the pork pies and real ale there is also his love of classical music and bird watching. To be involved outside of the life of the church is important to him, and it is not unrelated to his discovery that people ‘out there’ are more than willing to talk about Jesus and God – it is only when the conversation turns to church that their eyes glaze.

The theme is vital in David Peel’s thinking because he passionately believes that every Christian ought to be asking themselves whether what they do and say both fits well with the pattern revealed in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and, at the same time, cuts ice in the modern world. Theology – critical reflection on Christian life and practice - does not belong to professors or parsons but to everybody. ‘The root cause of many of our problems is that many of our people are not thinking Christians, they don’t know what it is they would die for. That’s the crucial thing. Theology is for everyone and we need to produce Christians who can share their thinking with others, all the while knowing that because they are human, their thinking will be relative. People who try to share absolutes are the ones who start world wars.’

As for the church, returning from his previous, slightly distanced, role David finds himself a little surprised at how conservative many churches look – not in their theology but in their lack of willingness to try new things. But if that sounds like the sentiment of someone who does not believe in the local church, nothing could be further from the truth. If things are to change for the better, it will happen first within the local church: ‘Get the church doing the right things and the church will know what its mission is. Don’t ask how the church should grow, ask how does the church become a true community, worship fittingly and feed on the tradition. When you tend to those basic three, the mission happens.’

heaven and hell

The last 12 months of David Peel’s life have taken him, in his own words, to both heaven and hell.

Hell was the discovery, towards the end of last year, that he was suffering from bowel cancer, with no certainty how far it had spread. Two major operations followed, to which his body reacted badly. The pain at times was unbearable.

Heaven came in the discovery of what was important.

‘I discovered that my real priorities were people – because people prioritized me. The amounts of love, support and affirmation I received were completely humbling. And it was not just from the places one would expect – the wife of an autograph collecting friend was lighting candles for me in her Roman Catholic church, masses were being said for me in Keighley. People who were not ‘of us’ were there for me, and they were God’s messengers.’ He pauses, seemingly a little embarrassed at being carried away and something of the theologian reasserts itself. It’s symbolic kind of language.’ Maybe, but it was also something deeply felt.

The last year has confirmed David in his conviction that the church has much to receive from, as well as to give to, the world. ‘The wealth of love and concern reminded me that God is alive and well, well beyond the church. It reminded me that I’ve become far too churchy. Christians and churches sometimes believe they have a monopoly on love and compassion – don’t you believe it’.

Many years ago, when David Peel was working on his thesis, he came across some words by philosopher Martin Heidegger which have stayed with him: ‘a man grows up when he realizes that he is a being-born-unto-death’ This was the year when the words became real.

‘It’s when you actually face the fact that the likelihood is that you won’t be at the General Assembly and all of a sudden you grow up. And you realize where your faith’s got to be; where your trust’s got to be. And following trust is loyalty. That’s what it’s about.’

The normally well-modulated voice is thick with emotion. The important things have been said; it is time to stop.

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