The Iona Community’s current conceptualisations of and responses to inequalities of wealth, privilege and power: Outworking of an incarnational spirituality
Authors: Coyle Adrian 
Published: July 2023

Founded in Glasgow and the island of Iona in 1938, the Iona Community is a dispersed Christian ecumenical community working for peace and social justice, rebuilding of community and renewal of worship. The study presented in this dissertation explores the conceptualisations of and responses to inequalities of wealth, privilege and power currently held by members and associate members of the Iona Community, with the intention of using this exploration as a lens through which to consider aspects of the Community’s ‘incarnational’ spirituality. The study thus examines a longstanding, defining concern of the Community that has been elaborated in its literature and implemented in its initiatives in the past but may have been given new impetus by the current global economic situation. The study involved the collection/generation and analysis of qualitative data gathered through five individual key informant interviews with Community members and associate members and two focus group interviews with Community ‘family groups’, consisting of 16 individuals. All participants were based in Scotland or England. Those who were approached to act as key informants had been identified as having access to privileged insights relevant to the research foci by virtue of their position within the Community and/or their professional roles. Interviews were transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis. This analysis yielded a range of themes that were organised under four broad dimensions drawn from the research aims: ‘Community members’ and associate members’ conceptualisations of inequalities’; ‘Reflections on the theology/spirituality of Community conceptualisations of and responses to inequalities’; ‘Perceptions of challenges faced by the Community in engaging with inequalities’; and ‘Possibilities and recommendations for Community engagement with marginalised people in the future’. Although none of the participants described their spirituality or the Community’s spirituality as incarnational, their action-oriented talk expressed key features attributed to an incarnational spirituality in the Community’s writings. The resonances with liberation theologies were readily discernible across the analytic dimensions, particularly in discussions of the role of power and disempowerment at both individual and social structural levels in perpetuating economic marginalisation. Participants’ discussions about appropriate responses to economic marginalisation centred around motifs of respectful relationality, ensuring that the voices of people in economic need are heard and can have influence, and the empowerment of people as authentic agents of change. Participants understood scripture as consistently concerned with God’s love for people in poverty and under oppression, which echoes the defining thesis of liberation theologies that God loves the poor preferentially. However, participants did not elaborate the sort of hermeneutical circle that constitutes the relationship between Christian practice and theological reflection within liberation theologies. A focus on action makes sense in a context where Community members come from diverse denominational backgrounds and where reflections on the relationship between initiatives and theological/spiritual commitments could be difficult to negotiate easily. Yet it may be worthwhile for the Community to accord attention to this.