Ruth Harvey reflects on the need for politics and faith to speak truth to power.

IN its mid-life, after an energising early period from 1938 onwards when the Abbey on Iona was restored and the fledgling community was taking shape, there was a time of much uncertainty, even some suspicion about the nature and purpose of the Iona Community.

Ralph Morton, the Deputy Leader at that time reflected in 1977: “The idea of a religious order in a Presbyterian church was novel. The plan of completing the restoration of a ruined medieval monastery was open to suspicion. And the views expressed seemed dangerous and oddly political. Was the proposed community a reactionary movement, founded on a high-church tradition of worship with its members playing at monks? Was it a deceptively dangerous movement interested in pacifism and socialism, and committed to change?”

In the 1990s, elected to the Church and Nation committee of the Church of Scotland, I was aware that I stood on the shoulders of giants. Before and alongside me were individuals who had woven together the gospel imperatives for justice and peace with political action for change in areas of nuclear proliferation, economic justice, housing rights, and the status of refugees. Here was the church both at prayer and around the political table. One of these giants, Karl Barth, famously exhorted preachers to ‘take your bible and your newspaper and read both.’ Was the ‘oddly political’ bent of the Iona Community actually simply a manifestation of the essential, longstanding work of holding those with power to account?

“ Before and alongside me were individuals who had woven together the gospel imperatives for justice and peace with political action for change in areas of nuclear proliferation, economic justice, housing rights, and the status of refugees."

If being ‘oddly political’ means following Jesus into the crowded temple and overturning the social and political norms that allow for exploitation and greed, (Matthew 21:12 - 13) then sign me up. If being ‘oddly political’ means speaking truth to power in the face of persecution, (Matthew 23:13) then I’m in. If being ‘oddly political’ means standing alongside the most marginalised and adding my voice to those whose voices have been silenced (Luke 5:18 25), then show me the way. Because I don’t believe there is a way to follow Jesus other than to be oddly political. His life modelled getting knee and heart deep in the guddle of the life of the body politic.

The eighth of the Iona Community’s commitments to Justice and Peace, written as a whole between the 1960s and the 1980s affirms that as members of a Christian community “we will engage in forms of political witness and action, prayerfully and thoughtfully, to promote just and peaceful social, political and economic structures.”

The impact of members of the Iona Community, the Church and Nation Committee and so many others in churchpolitical movements lives on in the work of faith-filled bodies such as the Joint Public Issues Team, Theos, Church Action on Poverty and more. Church parliamentary officers and so many ‘oddly political’, passionately Gospel-driven bodies – small and large – continue wisely, willingly, determinedly to put their head above the political parapet, taking both their bible app and news feed (what would Barth make of that?), to speak truth to power. For is it not the role of Christians, of all people of goodwill, to hold those with power, and particularly with political power to account?

Ruth Harvey is the Leader of the Iona Community. To join the Community and to find out more about our work, visit www.iona.org.uk