Channel 2 - Interviews
Interviews from Flame CCR live times and prerecorded "Chat Room" programmes. Part of programmes broadcast on Flame CCR (Christian and Community Radio) in Merseyside and worldwide via www.flameradio.org.
Channel 2 - Interviews
CHAT ROOM - Bishop Peter Forster (Chester) with John Cheek
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John talks to Bishop Peter Forster (Anglican Bishop of Chester) and about his early Christian life, his time as a Curate in Liverpool and his current activities as Bishop of Chester.
And now it's time on Flame C C R to take a look behind the studio's green door to find out who is in today's chat room.
SPEAKER_07Midnight. One more night without sleeping. Watching till the morning comes, Green. Green door, what's that secret your keeping?
SPEAKER_01And now, are you listening?
SPEAKER_00My name is Peter Forster, I'm the Anglican Bishop of Chester, and I'm delighted to be uh listening to Flame Radio.
SPEAKER_04You're listening to Flame Radio on 1521 Medium Wave and online. My name is John Cheek, and I'm delighted to say that today I'm at Chester Cathedral, the historic, the beautiful Chester Cathedral, and I'm in the presence of the Bishop of Chester, the Right Reverend Peter Forster. Bishop, let's go right back to the beginning. For you in terms of life and faith, where did it all begin?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I was part of the post-Second War uh World War II generation, born in Birmingham. My parents were both uh brought up uh in Birmingham. A very ordinary background, really, a council of state on the outskirts of Birmingham. Uh and the uh 11 plus and the grammar school uh system opened uh the opportunity to go to university, and I was a scientist in those days, a chemist at the University of Oxford, and became a uh a committed Christian during my student days. Basically as a result of asking the sort of traditional fundamental question about what's my role in life, what am I gonna do with all the opportunities which my parents uh didn't have. They had to leave school when they were thirteen in the depression in the nineteen thirties, and their lives have been disrupted by the war. And out of that sort of s natural searching, um I became a committed Christian, though that was a long and slow process and I wasn't ordained until I was thirty, actually.
SPEAKER_04Bishop Peter before then, before that momentous moment in your life, did you have a fairly typical church upbringing for back in those days, or was church somewhat not really in the picture in family life?
SPEAKER_00No, church wasn't uh really in the picture. I was baptized as a baby, and uh I think I was probably sent to Sunday school for a year or two at one point. But uh no, we weren't a regularly church growing family at all. My father was a Freemason, and I think in many ways his own spiritual needs were met through Freemasonry. But they would have described themselves, I think, as Christians, but they weren't uh actively practicing Christians. So the Christian faith came as a a new development in my life when I was about twenty.
SPEAKER_04And Bishop, before you reached the age of twenty, did you think that really science had all the answers?
SPEAKER_00I think that was the default position in our country and culture in the late nineteen sixties, that the man in the white coat, the scientist, had the real answers uh for the future. So I suppose I was a bit of an agnostic, and uh these questions only were posed for me when I was probably twenty. I probably didn't even ask them when I was I was younger than that, in a serious way. I think being at university opened these questions up and posed them in a in a new way.
SPEAKER_04And Bishop, if you can explain a bit about that process, how you began to grapple with the questions and how your thinking changed to talking more about the possibility of God?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I think that being a scientist, I went to university in nineteen sixty-nine at the end of the sixties, the possibility that there was no God at all was suddenly as it were thrust before me. I didn't really find the whole case for atheism particularly persuasive. To look at our world and its complexity and beauty, a complexity and beauty that I was finding out more about by my science, and to say it was all here by chance seemed to me to bit of a be a bit of a long shot. I mean if you take a bucket of pebbles to the top of Chester Cathedral and chuck them over the side, you wouldn't expect them to land in a pattern saying welcome to Chester. You know, to get order out of complete nothing chaos and and to say that everything is by chance almost is itself quite a big faith commitment. I've sometimes said over the years that I just didn't have enough faith to be an atheist. So the thought that there was no God just didn't seem particularly persuasive. But then the thought that there might be a rather conventional, distant god, the great architect of the universe, a bit like Freemasonry Halls, uh for that matter, didn't seem particularly persuasive either, because if God had all the power to make the world in the first place and wanted it to run like clockwork, wouldn't he have made it to run like clockwork, like a train set or a computer or whatever? But it but it was actually inhabited by creatures of flesh and blood like myself, people with their own individuality and freedom and so on and so forth. So I didn't find this rather distant, simply law giving God who controlled the universe from a distance persuasive either. But then I encountered the Christian story which is that the God who created all things became part of all things to love and redeem the world from within, taking on all the ills and suffering of the world, even unto death upon a cross. Now at one level that's very mysterious, it certainly is mysterious and puzzling, and I wouldn't say it was a rational conclusion of an argument, but it became more persuasive over time than the alternatives of a of the either being no god or simply a distant, law giving, almost more rationalistic God. So in you know Wesley's hymn 'tis mystery all the immortal dies who can explain his strange design. That logic of that beauty of holiness, if you like, uh just came to impinge upon me and took hold of me, and I suppose uh I'm here as a sort of testimony to that process.
SPEAKER_04Bishop Peter, you said there came a point where you suddenly came across the Christian story. Was there a particular moment where you heard something? Was it even something to do with the Oxford of C. S. Lewis and Tolkien and that sort of tradition that you encountered whilst you were at university?
SPEAKER_00Not directly, though I did actually meet Tolkien because Tolkien retired to Oxford just before he died in about 1970 and lived in my college, Merton College, and I can remember going into the lodge of the college with its wooden floorboards, and there was this uh man in a rather shabby raincoat talking to the college cat. And the college cat was looking up inquisitively at uh Tolkien, and Tolkien just sort of stood there and uh inquired of the cat what the cat had been doing that day. And to my amazement the cat simply sort of sat there and looked up at him and listened to what he was saying. It's my one memory of Tolkien of my time in Oxford. Um but that wasn't really the direct avenue to faith. Through the work of a church in Oxford St. Aldates I met other Christians who, in a sense, challenged me to answer these questions that we were discussing. So it was through the sort of contact with other Christians, but it took quite a long time and I didn't decide to seek ordination until after I left Oxford, and I remember some some Christian friends saying I should consider ordination. This is after I'd been a Christian for three or four years, and I simply said to them that I didn't feel that was right for me, and uh and I said I'm just going to apply for jobs that are going, and I'm sure that's the right thing to do. And I applied for the what were the six best jobs I could find on offer in those days for people leaving the university, and I was offered three of them. So I brandished these offer letters to my friends saying clearly not destined for ordination as I have these job offers. So I ended up taking one of these jobs, working for a big industrial firm, really on the managerial side rather than the directly scientific side. But after about six months I remember waking up one morning thinking I must get this god into my system or out of my system. I had to face this question, you know, was I called for ordination? What was I to do with my life? And I remember going to my then boss, a very hard bitten northern manager called Frank Mills, and uh I said, uh Frank, I've come to tell you that I'm leaving. And his immediate question was, which competitor are you going to? So I said, No, it's not like that, Frank. I'm going to the greatest competitor of them all. I'm going to study theology. And I can remember him taking his little Oxford uh pocket dictionary out of his desk and looking up theology before my eyes and reading out the definition the science of the logic of God and looking at me as if I was stark raving bonkers. And that was the moment when I changed direction, went back to university to study theology, still not an ordinand. I went to Edinburgh University and was fortunate to get a scholarship to do another undergraduate degree, which the university offered some of these scholarships, and simply went to Edinburgh to study theology for three years, and it was only at the end of that three years that I became an ordinand, stayed on and did a PhD in Edinburgh and trained for the ministry up there, and so at age thirty uh was then ordained and to a curacy in Liverpool. So it was quite a long process through my twenties, and while there were significant moments, there wasn't one Damascus Road moment.
SPEAKER_04Bishop Peter and Oxford and Edinburgh, both intellectual places. Did the very academic sort of nature of your surroundings really help your faith to grow?
SPEAKER_00I think this is going to impact on different people in different ways. I think I am a bit of a closeted uh academic, a natural intellectual. I do want to know why things are the way they are and to puzzle things out, and uh I guess that had I wished to do so and had dedicated myself to do so, I could have had a more traditional academic career. I did a PhD in theology in Edinburgh when I was there. So for me, yes, I do need to think things out, but that thinking things out is thinking and praying one's way into the depth of the mystery of God. It isn't that God is the answer to a scientific puzzle and a crossword puzzle clue or whatever. It is, as it were, understanding the mystery, and that is, as it were, a process of understanding which itself will be hedged by mystery. We look through a glass darkly, says St Paul. We long to know as we are known by God. All our knowledge of God is somehow surrounded by and encompassed by God's own knowledge of us, and it's the exploration of the depths of that mystery, of the extraordinary Christian claim and story that the God who created all things became part of all things even unto death upon a cross. There is a sense in which the more you know, the more you don't know as you go on in this process, so it's never ending. But I think it's true to say that compared to some other Christians, I'm probably a bit more of a natural intellectual wanting to think it out and to think about it than some others. And that's probably got its dangers. It's just me, it's the way I am. Other people are different. Uh and for me certainly spending the whole of essentially my my twenties as a student, first as a scientist, and then doing a BD in theology, a PhD training for the ministry. Uh my parents thought I was a bit of a Peter Pan figure. When would I ever grow up and get a proper job? And and I didn't have a proper job really till I was thirty, when I became a curate in Liverpool at Mosley Hill. But that was me, and I always say to young people today, who often take quite a long time these days to find their way in life and what they want to do, just go for what you feel you believe passionate about. At the end of the day, don't calculate too much, just follow what you're passionate about, what you feel you really want to do, even if that takes some time.
SPEAKER_04Bishop Peter will come back to Mosley Hill in a minute, but for now we take a break for some music and the worship song I Will Offer Up My Life I will offer up my life in spirit and truth, pouring out the oil of love as my worship to you in surrender, I must give my every part, Lord.
SPEAKER_11Receive the sacrifice of a broken heart. Jesus, what can I give? What can I bring? And I watched it, it's where I get my every Lord be the sacrifice, of a broken heart, Lord is the sacrifice, of a broken heart, Lord received sacrifice, of a broken heart.
SPEAKER_04It's interesting that as recorded in the Gospels, the people who knew Jesus didn't refer to him as healer, they addressed him as teacher, and Jesus was often getting into great debates and discussions with all sorts of people about all sorts of things. Do you feel that the church society could do worse than have more opportunities for honest debate and intellectual rigour?
SPEAKER_00I think it's a feature of our society that it's so dumbed down, and the television and the media have that effect. It tends to reduce arguments to sound bites. And the recent election campaign I think well illustrated that, just how dumbed down our politics is and how there's a lack of uh opportunity for real fundamental debate and everyone's worried about how the media will uh take this or present this or that and it has this effect of reducing the r the real scope for discussion. And one of the reasons why I think why Jeremy Corbyn has been doing so well is because he's actually just says what he thinks and is prepared to engage in debate and not too worried about how he's perceived and what other people think about him. I think people just find this a bit of a breath of fresh air. And I think today in our society we badly need to have a more free and easy open forum for discussion of issues because that's the way in which truth generally emerges. And I'd like that within the church too. I think that uh we should never try and clamp down on discussion and debate. We shouldn't change traditional teaching or beliefs until we're really sure that that's the right thing to do. But we certainly shouldn't be afraid of discussion and debate along the way. Uh you see that in the New Testament, you see it in the way that Jesus actually didn't teach his disciples by giving them some pre prepared catechism or some spoon fed information. It was always by telling parables which are deliberately elusive, uh coming at the truth in a slant, indirect way, or indeed getting people to ask him questions but who do you say that I am to Peter at Caesarea Philippi. So Jesus' own method as a teacher was very much to encourage debate discussion and to draw the answers out of those around him, rather than to, as it were, predetermine and spoon feed those whom he was teaching. And so we mustn't get drawn into oversimplicity teaching which closes down debate.
SPEAKER_04Of course the Church of England has its critics, and some of the critics say that the Church of England denomination is a very divided voice, it's not a very strong voice, it's got lots of different competing voices. But I would be rather of the opinion that actually that's one of the strengths of the Church of England in that there is such great debate and discussion and disagreement going on within the denomination on all sorts of levels. But I do think actually the fact that C of E does seem to have such great debates amongst itself is actually one of its strengths.
SPEAKER_00I think all churches have their dirty washing. I think it is a feature of the Church of England that we tend to wash it in public more than other denominations. Now that can of course go wrong, and and in today's media world it can be, you know, picked up and used in the wrong way. But fundamentally I do agree that it's it's a good thing that we shouldn't be afraid of debate and discussion. What we shouldn't do is think that we have to reinvent the faith every week, like as if we have to reinvent the wheel as part of the technological process we're in. We have to trust the past, trust the tradition that comes down to us, and not move quickly and almost arrogantly to change things. And that's true in the controversial areas of human sexuality that we're discussing as we come to terms with the extraordinary revolution in uh human sexual relationships and the relationships between men and women in our society. It's gonna take a generation or two to really get a mature take upon that. And I think uh in the same way it was a good thing that we talked about and argued about the ordination of women for several decades. Now the world around us wanted us to come to an instant decision to reach a conclusion and portrayed this as it were apparent inability to reach a definite decision as a weakness. But I never saw it that way. I always saw it as patience. God is patient. The fundamental characteristic of God in the Bible is that He's patient and indeed long suffering as well as patient. And Christians are called to be patient, but love is patient, it's the nature of love to be patient. And I think it's uh entirely right that we took a a good deal of time to decide about the ordination of women as priests in the Church of England, and it was only nearly twenty years later that we agreed to have women as bishops and of course in this diocese we were able to appoint the first woman bishop in Bishop Libby Lane. But I think it was a strength that we took our time because people will come along with decisions that they don't like if they feel they've been heard. It's when they have decisions they don't agree with thrust down their throats or imposed upon them that people tend to revolt and rebel. And I think it's actually been a strength of the Church of England that we're both o able to have fairly open discussion about uh issues which divide us, but also to take a good deal of time before coming to a conclusion. And I think the same's going to be true over coming to terms with the uh sexual revolution, both in terms of what we make of same sex relationships, but also uh the fact that so many people have sexual relationships outside marriage or live together before they're married. This is a complete revolution in my lifetime, and I make no apology for saying I think the church is gonna have to take a generation or two to really take a wise view of how it adapts to and relates to and responds to these great changes.
SPEAKER_04You're listening to Flame Radio on fifteen twenty one medium wave and online. Our special guest today is the right Reverend Peter Forster, the Bishop of Of Chester. And Bishop Peter, you talked about being ordained and starting after ordination at Mossley Hill in Liverpool.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I didn't really know Liverpool. I was simply looking for a curacy. I was in in Edinburgh actually, and sponsored by the then Bishop of Edinburgh as an ordinant. But being English, I was always felt I should probably go south for my first post. I'd met my wife Elizabeth in Edinburgh. She was studying art history at the University of Edinburgh. But we took the offer of this curacy in Mossley Hill Parish Church, which is somewhere between Walton and Toxtath. A quite a mixed community and a rather fine traditional and lively church.
SPEAKER_03And if you want to go into square.
SPEAKER_00And it wasn't so much as wondering which day the dustman might come, it's just hoping they might come at some point in the month. You never quite knew when. Life was very chaotic in that way that often has uh been seen to characterize Liverpool. And this was just before the Toxteth riots in the early eighties. And I remember driving my wife to the maternity hospital in Liverpool when she was in labour and having to make a big detour around Toxtath in order to get her to the maternity hospital because the roads have been closed because of the then Toxteth riots. So I began to see some of the response to all of that and the rebuilding of Liverpool, and it's wonderful to come back now, thirty-five uh years later, and see how the centre of Liverpool at least has been transformed by new development and buildings. In my day the Albert Docks were simply a ruin, no one went near them, and of course the whole of Liverpool one has been built since then and all the area around the cathedral was derelict, and that's now been properly and nicely developed. So it's great to go back and see all the good things that have happened in Liverpool in that intervening period. But this was in the life of Liverpool quite a difficult time when I was there.
SPEAKER_05What's your religion? A fellow once said, So a climb in me, Wellies, and a kung fu deset. Don't be angry, cry, I'm not starting a knock to your worship, but I'm feeling all good.
SPEAKER_04Of course the Toxedoth rights were some of the worst on mainland Britain in British history, and it came at a time in nineteen eighty one when there was uh very high levels of unemployment across the country. This being your first curacy, Bishop Peter, did you feel as if you were being thrown in at the deep ends?
SPEAKER_00The parish I was in Mosley Hill was not in the sort of wealthiest parts of Liverpool, uh that's out towards Childwall and Walton and Grassendale and but neither was it the really difficult inner city urban areas. It was sort of middle between, I suppose. And so these social problems were more things that I read about and saw at a slight distance rather than being directly involved in day by day, though as I say, you couldn't avoid it by living in Liverpool at the time. But I suppose as a young clergyman I was just trying to learn the ropes of how to prepare a sermon for next Sunday and how how to take a wedding and uh how to help families through the process of bereavement, taking a funeral of a much loved relative, dealing with a youth group and all the I was so engaged in those day to day things I probably didn't stop and look at the broader issues. You tended to leave that to the Bishop of Liverpool, David Shepherd, who was very actively involved in that, as he was with forming much closer relationships with the Roman Catholic Church through his partnership with the Archbishop Derrick Warlock. All that was going on around me, but it was definitely, as it were, going on at a certain distance from what I was doing day by day. My main contact with David Shepherd was actually having a game of squash with him. I had beaten one of his colleagues, an archdeacon, rather easily, and I was quite a decent sportsman in those days, and I was very fit. Anyway, David Shepherd was put up to challenge me to a game of squash, because he was previously uh an England cricket captain and very good at sports. So he took me to the Liverpool Cricket Club, which also has squash court, and uh we'd played a game of squash, and I had the temerity to win the first game which was a great mistake, as he then proceeded to absolutely wipe the court with me, and I was to be left in a dishevelled, dehydrated heap after all of uh this, as he certainly wasn't gonna let me win. And I just remember uh being rehydrated with uh a couple of pints of beer in the bar. I even remember the brand of the beer, it was Stones Bitter as I recall, and I was just absolutely exhausted. It's the last game of squash I ever played, and he told me later it was the last game he ever played too, so there we are.
SPEAKER_04Of course, Bishop Peter, the Liverpool of the nineteen seventies and the early eighties was a period of transition in more ways than one because immediately post-war, Liverpool was what you would call a sectarian city. There was a clear divide along church lines. And it was the two bishops beginning in the mid-70s, Bishop David Shepherd and Bishop Derek Warlock, who together really began to work to bring down some of those barriers, some of those divides. What was it like coming to that sort of situation right in the middle of their ecumenical progress, which really was very successful?
SPEAKER_00I think the sense of there being a real sort of war or battle or bad feeling between the churches had to a significant degree then disappeared. But what there wasn't was any really creative relationship between them. They used simply were on parallel tracks. So the local Catholic uh church in Mosley Hill, uh one met the priests from time to time, it I never went to the church itself, I never really knew what went on. It was very much a a a completely different set of people. And nowadays Roman Catholics and Anglicans are quite used to worshipping together in ecumenical services, saying the Lord's Prayer together, and doing all sorts of things together. In those days, while the sense of antagonism and strife had to some degree disappeared, very much helped by David Shepherd and Derek Warlock, there hadn't been that as a rebuilding of relationships on the ground. You wouldn't have uh known what to do. This is when saying the Lord's Prayer together with a Roman Catholic would have seemed odd. Whereas, you know, we really have now in the past thirty-five years moved on hugely. But people like David Shepherd and Derek Warlock knew that they had to lay the foundations for this, and that's what they did. But it was happening at a distance from my day-to-day reality, um, though I'm full of admiration for what they actually did. It's one of my joys that when David Shepherd did retire from Liverpool, he actually retired onto the Wirral to Coldy, and uh so I was able to redevelop our own relationship because by then I was Bishop of Chester, and uh we've recalled with amusement that last game of squash we both played.
SPEAKER_04And of course, I should note as well that here at Chester Cathedral only two or three years ago, I was very privileged to be here on a Sunday afternoon when we had an interchurch service where the cathedral was packed, where the guest preacher was the Roman Catholic former Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy O'Connor, and a tremendous preacher he was, and it was lovely to sit amongst not just Roman Catholics but also Methodists to my right, the Salvation Army behind me, and have all the Christian denominations under one roof, all praising God. Yes, it is quite possible. Let's take a break now and that great old hymn in a very unusual arrangement.
SPEAKER_06This is Dear Lord and Father of Mankind Dear Lord and Father of Mind, forgive our foolish ways. We clove us in a rightful mind, in purer lies, thy service mind, in deep reverence praise, in deep reverence praise in simple dress like those who heart beside miseriency gracious, let us like them with our lowly, rise up and still use our lightness to all season strain and stress and let her life confess the beauty of my peace, the beauty of my peace through the desire I call my sends be done, let flesh retire speed through the earthquake wind and fire oh still small voice of calm oh still small voice of calm.
SPEAKER_04You're at Mosley Hill, Bishop Peter.
SPEAKER_00Where did you go from there? Yes, as I say, I've always had this sort of academic intellectual side of my nature. I wasn't a student right through my twenties for nothing. And uh after I've been in Mosley Hill two or three years, a post came up being what's called senior tutor of St. John's College in the University of Durham, and it it's a Church of England foundation uh within the University of Durham. It also has a theological college, Cranma Hall, attached. But they were looking for somebody who would really be a vice principal of the college and oversee the more university side of its activities, but with a part-time teaching role in the theological college itself and a part-time teaching role in the University Department of Theology. And this seemed to pick up the different sides of my interests and so forth. I applied for it and and was uh very pleased to be offered the job. So at age thirty-two or thirty-three, in nineteen eighty-three, we went off to Durham and had about eight years, happy years there in in Durham, living right just by the cathedral in a college house and having quite a general role in the college, being responsible for admissions and all sorts of other things, but also a teaching role both in the theological college and in the University Department of Theology.
SPEAKER_04And at this time in the nineteen eighties, Bishop Peter, was this the time when David Jenkins was the Bishop of Durham? Because he was certainly pushing back the envelope in terms of theological debate?
SPEAKER_00When I first went there it was John Habgood before he went to be Archbishop of York, but then David Jenkins was appointed shortly afterwards, and so I was in the middle of all the uh debates. I really come at those issues from a more traditional point of view. I can't really imagine a Christian faith without uh virgin births and empty tombs, whereas David Jenkins took a different point of view. But he was always uh willing to discuss things, uh going back to our previous comments just a few minutes ago. He was always willing to engage in debate and discussion, and I remember because he knew that I took a somewhat different view from him, he invited me to his study at his uh house at Auckland Castle just to uh throw these ideas around. And I spent a sort of interesting hour failing to persuade him of the error of his ways, and he probably failed to persuade me of the error of mine, but having a good conversation he had a very quick response to everything. It wasn't always easy to get a word in edgeways, to be honest. But but he was an open person, he wasn't a vindictive person in that sense at all, and he wasn't wanting a monochrome church, and he was happy to engage in debate. I think he was wrong in the stance that he took, but I respected his integrity for in a sense being true to his own beliefs and r and being prepared to raise issues rather than just as it were ignoring them or sweeping them under the carpet. So I admired his honesty, but I did take a different and do to this day take a different view from those which he expressed. He really w didn't want, as it were, to have a view of God as imprisoned within an institutional structure. He always the he one of his catchphrases was you can't keep a good God down. God has to have sort of freedom and spontaneity about him. And he saw this as reflecting a universe full of freedom and spontaneity and risk. But in that hour long conversation I had with him, there was one question I managed to ask him at which he couldn't answer and simply stumped him. This was an interesting one because I, of course, was a scientist by my background, so I knew something about the modern sort of science of chaos theory and risk and so on. So I said to him, you know, even if if you accept that God deals with a universe full of risk and puts himself at risk in his dealings with the universe, this was the sort of thing Jenkins would regularly say. I put to him the question, did he think that God took the risk that Jesus might have been run down and killed by a camel? Or you could phrase the question differently. Do you think God took the risk that Jesus might have had a heart attack on the Via Dolorosa on his way to the cross? In what way do you understand God as were overseeing the risks which nevertheless he submits himself to in the life of the universe? And Bishop David simply couldn't answer the question. He said to me, I think I need to say yes, God did take the risk that Jesus might have been killed by a camel, but I don't want to. Because something about his religious spirit knew that there was something wrong about that. There was in the providence of God an oversight of Jesus and his ministry providentially. And you couldn't just slickly say that uh God took the risk that it might have been uh ended by an accident, that Jesus would have drowned in the Sea of Galilee because he'd not learned to swim or something. That just dispelled the mystery rather than explained it. So we had an interesting conversation. Uh and at the end of the day I took a different line from him.
SPEAKER_04Bishop Peter, was it tempting to stay within this world of theology and academia at Durham? A very attractive place on many levels?
SPEAKER_00I think to be a career academic you need a certain type of mind and be happy sitting at a desk on your own with books all the time and so forth. And I'm not sure my heart was ever in that lifestyle really, and uh I got elected to the general synod of the Church of England in nineteen eighty five, and that had introduced me to the wider life of the church in a sense. And I suppose after seven or eight years in Durham I was pondering what I would do next, and then uh out of the blue the invitation came to become vicar of Beverly Minster in Yorkshire, and that answered the question in a way. The offer was there, I had to decide yes or no, and and it just seemed very attractive to go uh to be vicar of a big parish uh somewhere, and I went and looked at it, and my wife and I felt it was the right thing to do, and so it was a complete change. Going back to Mosley Hill in one sense, going back to parish ministry, but I'd enjoyed that very much and uh just decided that was just felt the right thing to do. Sometimes you know in your heart, in your soul it's the right thing to do. And while of course you missed aspects of life in Durham that I'd got used to and enjoyed, there was a tremendous sense of community, of of stimulus and of life in a parish which Beverly Minster is a cathedral like building, um beautiful, beautiful building with a lovely choir, musical tradition, but also it's a down to earth parish with a total population of fifteen, twenty thousand, and three daughter churches uh in the outskirts of the parish, um so lots just to get to grips with. But uh parish ministry itself, pastoral ministry, isn't without intellectual challenge. I mean how you relate to a particular family in a particular state of grief, organizing uh a funeral, I I remember organizing a memorial service for a top uh academic who used to drive between the University of Hull and the University of Manchester. He was a medical doctor, I think, um and he killed on the M sixty two in a crash and uh age forty-ish. And to organise a memorial service when this person's life had been taken away, it contains its own sense of challenge and engages all one's emotions and and and intellect as well for that matter. So the actual parish life, uh preaching week by week, had its own stimulus, and we enjoyed just the life of the parish, our children were growing up, and uh it was just a lovely place to be as a family.
SPEAKER_04Was the invitation to be Bishop of Chester out of the blue as well?
SPEAKER_00It was completely out of the blue. I mean these are the days when you know names were held on lists for people to be considered the bishopric, but you didn't know that your name was on this list. And uh I wasn't even aware that Michael Bourne, my predecessor, were had retired actually. I was so busily engaged in the life of the parish in Beverly. And then uh after I'd only been there five years, five and a half years, I remember I think it was early May, um late April. I was simply opening a brown envelope first thing in the morning that had come in the post, and inside was a letter from John Major, who was then Prime Minister, saying would I like to be Bishop of Chester? And completely out of the blue. My very first thought, interestingly, which flashed through my mind was it's near Liverpool. Because I'd really enjoyed my two or three years in Mosley Hill and and the thought of coming back to Liverpool but that was the very first thought, oh it's near Liverpool. But I hadn't even realized the sea was vacant. So in a sense you're presented with this and and I think my wife and I was a bit reluctant to leave when we did after only five or so years. On the other hand, we'd done quite a lot in those five years, and uh you know, when the church asks you to consider something, you have to consider it. A bit unusual to go straight from being a parish priest also being a Austin bishop, so that was an aspect of the situation I had to think about too. I hadn't been much involved in other aspects of the senior life of the church, hadn't been a rural dean or whatever. So I had to think all that through, and we came across and looked at Chester and went through that process of discernment, and uh it seemed right to say yes, uh though I felt a bit inadequate to what was being put in front of me.
SPEAKER_04Okay, let's take another break and this next hymn, this particular version that we're playing, was actually arranged by her immediate predecessor, Michael Bourne, the Bishop of Chester, throughout most of the nineteen eighties. The words, the lyrics were written by Timothy Dudley Smith. You're listening to Flame Radio on 1521 Medium Wave and online. My very special guest today is the Right Reverend Peter Forster, Bishop of Chester. Bishop Peter, you're also on the bench of bishops in the House of Lords. And for somebody who it's fair to say is quite an intellectual, and for somebody who loves the cut and thrust of debate, how do you find being on the bench of bishops? Do you feel that part of your ministry is exercised in this way down in London?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I I think that the House of Lords is an ambivalent body for l lots of reasons, and if you were to design a second chamber, you wouldn't design a House of Lords, clearly. But it's part of British tradition and history. And um it does attract a lot of very interesting able people, uh top scientists, top doctors, top lawyers from all sorts of walks of life, people who've retired from those posts, and also people who have those posts, but are also members of the House of Lords, businessmen uh and so on. And the standard of debate is very high. It's very secular in the sense that there isn't any difference to the fact that you're a bishop or your arguments don't stand up, or if your quality of discussion and debate, or the speaking isn't have its own strength and so forth, but that's quickly shown up. So there's very high standards, but it's just intrinsically interesting and uh bit of an antidote actually to some of the other aspects of the institutional life of the church. It's not a churchy place in that sense, it's quite an open, mixed place. Bishops are respected, but alongside people who may be very committed and professed atheists, it's not the main focus of my life that's here in the diocese, but I do find it very interesting, and if I can make a contribution, I do. Though in the actual life of our society now, which is becoming more and more secular, uh radically so in many ways, I think the voice of the church is largely being marginalized, to be honest. So it's to some extent a defensive manoeuvre in that way. I don't feel that the bishops are particularly influential. This was very well shown when the same-sex marriage uh proposals came up. They weren't in the Conservative Manifesto at the last that won election in 2010. They weren't even in the Queen's speech at the beginning of that particular session of Parliament, but uh David Cameron felt for whatever reason that this was the time to press that through. He did so without properly consulting uh the churches. He did so in the face of opposition from the faith communities. And it just exposed, I think, just how little day-to-day real influence the church has. So it's quite a secular environment. We live in quite a an increasingly secular society, in my view. But that's all the more reason not to keep one's head down, but to be prepared to give an account of the faith and the hope that is within us in a way that's uh reasonable, loving and so forth, as opportunity presents itself. And it's one of the opportun ways in which the church has that opportunity. But I wouldn't want to overestimate how effective it is. I think that in reality the government is dominated by the House of Commons and its dynamics, and the government is really not too bothered how the churches react and think these days.
SPEAKER_04A bishop, there are some who would say that the bishop's job is to speak out on moral issues all the time, and to be calling the country to account for its loose morals. Is that really what a bishop should be doing? Taking a moral line in society today?
SPEAKER_00I go back to that verse from the Epistle of Peter that we all have to be prepared to give an account of the hope that is within us, but to do so with integrity and with an appropriate humility. People aren't generally argued into the kingdom of God, it's not the way it works. I think we have to be a bit careful. Uh the whole epistle of James is a warning against the dangers of the tongue, actually, and of the misuse of argument. And so I think one has to be rather reticent in some ways. But when the opportunity and the moment is right, yes we have to speak with a clear voice, and not denigrating those with whom we disagree, always doing so lovingly, and knowing that at the end of the day we may all be wrong about this, that and the other. One of the things we can be certain of from the scriptures is that at the last day, at the last judgment, we're all going to be surprised by God's judgment upon the world and its ways and our own lives and ways. So we have to be humble for those reasons. We also I think have to be cautious about being seen simply as moralistic kill joys. That's one of the ways in which Christianity and Christians are pigeonholed in our society. And we have to be careful not to be always sounding a negative note. That's not how Jesus dealt with people, that's not certainly not not how St. Paul was in his letters. Uh he would be clear about various things, but always with a fundamental note of joy, a positive note. So as long as speaking out is done in a properly joyful gospel way, we should do it. But I think also aware that some of that can be manipulated by the media and what you want to say isn't what actually comes across, etcetera. There are all sorts of dangers like that around in every way. So I think there has to be, as it were, a certain caution and reticence, but also a clarity about what the church is saying. I believe that's true today in relation to marriage. I mean we're living through a period in society which is seeing essentially the dissolution of the institution of marriage in our society to a very large degree. We've gained two grandchildren in the past year, and the truth is that of two babies born today, only one will be living with both their parents when that child is sixteen. This is a huge social uh revolution uh which we're living through, and I have deep fears about the impact upon children in our society of this widespread fragility and lack of stability in relationships and family life. And I'm firmly of the view that the only way in which you will achieve good stability in relationships and family life is by a proper upholding of the dignity of marriage. Now that is honoured in the breach and not the observance in our society today. But it won't solve things for me to simply bang on about that on every occasion as loudly as I can. It's a much deeper and more difficult aspect of a huge social change in our society. And I think that while the churches need to be prepared to take a clear line, they've got to be careful not to get trapped in a moralistic line.
SPEAKER_04You're listening to Flame Radio on 1521 Medium Wave and online. I'm here with the Bishop of Chester, the Right Reverend Peter Forster. And for my final question, Bishop, I'm going to ask you something which I usually tend to ask for most of my interviewees. For you, in your experience, what is God like?
SPEAKER_00I think the only answer to that from a Christian must be he's like Jesus. God is invisible. God is not given to us in a way that we can, as it were, conceptualise or visualise. That's why you have the second commandment in the Old Testament that we can't make graven images. All the other religions of the world then would have wanted to represent God and to see what God was like through some graven image. We can't do that. No one has seen God. That's stated equally clearly in the New Testament as in the Old Testament, in the Gospel of John, in also in one Timothy. No one has seen God, and therefore we have to be careful about forming too clear a visual picture of God. God comes to us in the mystery of the humanity of Jesus Christ. But at the end of the day, if you want a clue to what God is like, you have to look simply at the gospels, at Jesus Himself.
SPEAKER_04Yes, that lovely old hymn, immortal invisible that somewhat sums up a lot of the things that you've been saying.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, it's been a great pleasure to be with you.
SPEAKER_02God only wise, love so accessible through the blood of Christ, most holy, most glorious, ancient updates, almighty victorious, your great name we praise, so we sing today, Hallelujah, King for every name above all name, Hallelujah, my writing, you are worthy of all praise. We would depend on you, father of life, what angels encircle you for failing this time our praises we now declare father to you have the splendor the glory that showed you stories today as lending up all day.org.
SPEAKER_01Thank you for listening.