Living By the Rule

The Rule of the Iona Community

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• Publisher: Wild Goose Publications
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781849520959
• Topic: Theology & Religion

A series of reflections on living by the Rule of the Iona Community, exploring its history, inner life and public witness.

VII. Action for justice, peace and the
integrity of creation

In 1966, the year that the first Act of Commitment on Peace was agreed by the Iona Community, these words appeared as its Preamble:

The Act of Commitment on International Peace was made by the Iona Community in unanimity. First in committee and then in community, there was complete consensus (June 1966).

It is a solemn undertaking. It is our point of departure and not of arrival. It is our vow rather than our view. It is the first time that the Community has come to an agreed statement on a political topic. Previously the Community has expressed unanimous concern on certain subjects but left it to members to decide their own line of action.

It has taken its place as part of the Commitment of membership, as serious as devotional discipline. And it is a commitment to action. It must be implemented in detailed individual and communal action.

This is the text of that first Commitment:

1. We believe that peacemaking is integral to the Gospel.

2. We believe that at the present time, international peacemaking is of unprecedented urgency and requires a massive effort.

3. We believe that racial discrimination and the ever-widening economic gap between the developed and the underdeveloped nations are major causes of international tension and conflict.

4. We believe that the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction is morally indefensible even by the standards of the ‘just war’ and politically ineffective as an instrument of policy, and that the attempt to maintain peace by their threat is dangerous and undesirable.

5. We undertake to do everything in our power to make discussion, prayer and action about international peace an important part of the life of the church at all levels.

6. We undertake to work for the establishment of the United Nations as the principal organ of international integration and security, replacing military alliances.

7. We undertake to work for the closing of the economic gap between the developed and the underdeveloped nations.

8. We undertake to work for a British policy of renunciation of all weapons of mass destruction and promotion of their effective control by the United Nations, aimed at their limitation, reduction and removal.

9. We undertake to work for the support and establishment of peace research centres.

10. We undertake to promote and, where possible, participate in large-scale international sharing and exchange of personnel and experience, as, for example, through visits, short-term service and long-term employment, paying special attention to exchange with Communist and with underdeveloped nations.

A passion for peace

In this Commitment, one can clearly read the passionate and driving convictions of the Community’s Founder. As a very young man (he was only 23 when World War I ended), George MacLeod fought in the trenches and received the Military Cross for bravery, became converted to pacifism in the inter-war years, endured bitter hostility for his views during World War II (including being banned for a time from radio broadcasting), gave his Moderatorial Address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1957 under the title ‘Bombs and Bishops’, a plea for church unity and nuclear disarmament (snappily linked as ‘Fusion and Fission’), launched ‘Mobilisation for Survival’, an initiative for unilateral nuclear disarmament in 1979, and continued to campaign for nuclear disarmament in both church and state until his death at the age of 95.

And yet this was a unanimous statement, not just that of one man. Underlying its major emphasis on militarisation and the build-up of nuclear weapons is the context of the Cold War; 1966 was just three years after the Cuban missile crisis, the nuclear stand-off between East and West at the Bay of Pigs. This was also an era of international transition and decolonisation, occurring simultaneously with neo-colonialism and the beginning of the Vietnam War. The recognition of the role played by economic injustice and racism in exacerbating and often causing global conflict reflects both the experience of those members of the Community working in immediate postcolonial African countries and the strong belief, expressed to me recently by Ian Fraser, that any Peace Commitment had to be rooted also in a commitment to justice.

It is perhaps harder for us today, with the ending of the Cold War, the disappearance of the threat of nuclear holocaust from our immediate frame of vision, and the embracing by churches (certainly in Scotland) of a consensus which has seen both Protestant and Roman Catholic church leaders refuse to celebrate military victories in the Falklands and the Gulf and publicly demonstrate against the renewal of the Trident missile system, to realise just how radical (and indeed offensive to many) the Act of Commitment on Peace actually was.

And this opposition to weapons of mass destruction and to the arms trade has remained a consistent and continuing part of the Community’s action for justice and peace, individually and collectively, ever since. It has embraced wide scale membership of and activism as part of campaigning peace groups such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Pax Christi, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Trident Ploughshares, and a whole range of peace projects such as the Peace Tax Campaign, Parents for Survival, Greenham Common and the other assorted peace camps, the World Court Project and Faslane 365. The list of these organisations, campaigns and projects is much too long to be exhaustive here. The most visible mark of this commitment has been in demonstrations and non-violent civil disobedience at UK and US military bases, at local town halls, at Houses of Parliament and at ministries of defence. Indeed, two of the Community’s most indefatigable peace campaigners, Alan and Maire-Colette Wilkie, met on one such demonstration. Many members of the Community have been arrested for peaceful civil disobedience, and a number have served time in prison, most notably Ellen Moxley, who received the undoubted distinction of becoming part of a numbered group, that is, the Faslane Three!

Organisationally, this commitment was expressed by the Community’s employment of a Justice and Peace Worker, Helen Steven, throughout the 1970s and 80s, and by its practical, financial and spiritual support for Centrepeace, a Fair Trade shop/peace and development centre in Glasgow, for Peace House, a residential peace centre in Perthshire, and for the Scottish Centre for Non-Violence at Scottish Churches House, Dunblane. Additionally, many members have supported peace and justice centres in other parts of the UK. At the heart of this enduring passion for peace has been the firm spiritual conviction that the way of Jesus Christ is one of non-violence. We are following one who was unequivocal in teaching that his followers should love their enemies, do good to those who hate them, bless those who curse them and pray for those who ill-treat them, and who died doing exactly that.

Putting justice in the Rule

Active non-violence is not about being passive or spineless, nor is it the cheap grace that will do anything for a quiet life. As Ian Fraser had remarked, and as was already implicit to some degree in the original Act of Commitment, peace is not a substitute for justice, rather it is the fruit of justice. In 1987, the Commitment was quite substantially rewritten. The word ‘justice’ did not appear in 1966. In 1987, it appeared six times. Again, the context is significant; this was the middle of the Thatcher years in Britain when redundancy and unemployment was devastating traditional British industries, when the equality gap was beginning to widen again after the post-war years when it was narrower than it had ever been, and when globalisation and the structural adjustment that followed on the oil crisis of the 1970s was causing massive debt burdens in countries of the southern hemisphere.

The Iona Community began in part as a practical response to unemployment, poverty and the loss of human dignity that so often accompanies these. Economic justice had always been a central focus, mostly expressed in industrial mission, housing scheme and inner-city ministry and active membership in political parties. Now it was being spelled out more explicitly. By this time, the Community had many more lay members and this, perhaps inevitably, meant that this commitment, along with the commitment to racial justice, was being expressed in a much greater diversity of forms. In the early days of the Community, political activism had meant party political. The 1980s saw a great rise in campaigns and advocacy as expressions of political activism, and this was certainly true of the Community. Though membership of political parties is much less endangered in the Community than is sometimes imagined, and though many members remain active in party membership, it is probably true to say that most of our justice and peace action is carried out through a vast range of campaigns, community groups, social networks and caring and support groups. Organisationally, the development of member-originated working groups saw a strong focus on justice and peace issues such as opposition to Britain’s racist immigration laws and gender and sexual orientation. And recently, the two years of working with the theme of Poverty and Justice across the Community has reaffirmed this original commitment, involved us in much partnership working with groups such as Christian Aid, Church Action on Poverty and the Poverty Alliance and seen numerous members involved as Fair Traders (including turning their towns into Fair Trade Towns) and with Make Poverty History.

Justice is also eco-justice

In 2002, clause 10 was added, which was essentially an equalities commitment, with an affirmation of diversity which in itself reflected the growing and welcome diversity of the membership. The 1987 version had also explicitly named ecological justice and the integrity of creation; the Community’s two years of working with the theme of Place added an undertaking to the Commitment to balance the environmental statements of belief. Organisationally the Community has committed itself to Christian Aid’s Climate Change Campaign, by which we will seek to cut our carbon footprint by 5% each year. As a community, our housekeeping in our island homes also includes a strong ecological dimension in our patterns of consumption, energy use and environmental impact and Iona Abbey is an Eco-Congregation. At Camas, our outdoor centre on the Ross of Mull, we are delighted that the renovation work to secure and insulate the buildings there has been completed, on budget and on time (no easy feat in a remote island location two miles from the nearest road). Our electricity is now generated by our own wind turbine and solar panels, and we have installed an Aquatron, the latest in composting toilets. Our organic garden continues to produce vegetables not only for our own use at Camas and Iona but for wider sale. This theme has also helped us focus on issues of habitat, housing and homelessness and hospitality and identity. Many members practise their commitment in relation to the kind of welcome our society offers to asylum seekers and refugees.

The Justice and Peace Commitment needs and deserves a much fuller account of its development, practice and impact, and there is not the space to do that here. But it’s worth thinking about some of its characteristics and the values these imply.

First, it is a discipline of learning. It recognises our need for information and education about the world and communities we live in, about its suffering and hope, its challenges and injustices, and crucially, about the views and aspirations of the people who experience these, who may sometimes include ourselves. We do this in many ways; through seeking the help of members and others who have significant experience, knowledge and expertise; through our own experience and study; and through encounter and exchange, which are specifically mandated in the Commitment.

Second, it is a discipline of visibility. We seek to make the violence done to people and places visible; to say what we have seen, to ask what is still unseen, to break the culture of silence and to name names, especially when there is clear evidence of collusion in coverups. There are, of course, many ways to do this; through campaigns and lobbying and letter-writing. A recent example of this would be the way that Murdoch MacKenzie has mobilised members to write to their MPs in support of a public enquiry into British military brutality in Iraq, which was subsequently granted. Sometimes it is simply to draw attention by presence. When members of the Iona Community sit down outside Faslane Nuclear Base, we do not think that blockading is going to close the base then and there. We do it to make visible once again the huge capacity for death and destruction contained in every Trident submarine. It is what EAPPI Accompaniers do in the West Bank and Gaza. It is what the Women in Black standing quietly each week in the centre of Edinburgh do, and what Glasgow Braendam Link did in George Square, Glasgow, every 17th October (the UN Day for the Eradication of Poverty) to make the continuing reality of endemic poverty in the city visible.

But it is also about making alternatives visible. It’s easy to be critical, harder to be constructive, but if we don’t try to do that, we lack integrity. That is why the work at Camas is so important – it offers an alternative vision of community, ecology and sustainability to young people whose experience of those things is often entirely absent or destructive. It’s why the Jacob Project, offering practical alternatives to re-offending to young ex-offenders, is important. Less obviously, it’s what many Community members do as Samaritans, as prison visitors and tutors, in health education and community development and in dozens of other ways in their own communities and churches.

Third, it is a discipline of solidarity. My dictionary defines solidarity as ‘mutual interdependence between persons’ and ‘solid community in feeling and action’. It is the recognition of the Pauline teaching that ‘when one member of the body suffers, all the other members suffer with it; when one member rejoices, all the other members share its joy.’ This solidarity leads us to concrete action, to making the choice to stand beside others in suffering and joy. Solidarity is never just a thought or a be...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Toc
• Acknowledgements
• I. Introduction
• II. Living by the Rule
• III. Daily prayer
• IV. Reading the Bible
• V. Sharing and mutual accountability for our use of resources, including money
• VI. Planning and mutual accountability for our use of time
• VII. Action for justice, peace and the integrity of creation
• VIII. Meeting with and accounting to each other
• IX. The work of the Iona Community
• X. Camas – a faith reflection
• XI. Unity in diversity
• XII. Of witnesses, wives and wise women: women in the life of the Iona Community
• XIII. Our working principles
• Notes
• Also by Kathy Galloway