Pause for thought:
By Rev’d Robert Parrish.
How a Barry man paid a price for speaking the truth
When I was getting Merthyr Dyfan Church ready for a service recently, a visitor came and introduced himself.
He had heard that the ashes of the Barry journalist – Gareth Jones (1905-1935) – had been buried in the churchyard and wanted to check if there was a memorial to him in the church. Sadly, there isn’t, but I was fascinated to hear of the connection between Gareth Jones and my church, as not long ago I saw the award-winning film Mr Jones, which starred James Norton.
Gareth Jones was one of the few Western journalists to report on the man-made famine inflicted on Ukraine by the Russian dictator Stalin from 1932 to 1933. Enforced collectivisation of the land led to a drop in food production. Furthermore, villages and towns in Ukraine were prevented from receiving food as the country had resisted becoming part of the Soviet Union. Around 4 million Ukrainians died in what came to be called the Holodomor (Ukrainian for extermination by hunger).
Western appeasers of Stalin ensured that Gareth Jones had difficulty getting work after publishing his report. He was kidnapped and murdered while investigating in Mongolia in 1935.
Gareth Jones is a man whose example should be remembered as we look to restore integrity and honesty to public life. As the Sunday Times columnist Matthew Syed has noted: “When we can take people at their word, when we can rely on them to do the right thing, we can co-operate effectively and invest confidence in the promises of elected officials. That is why trustworthy societies have higher rates of growth.”
In a recent speech on this theme of restoring integrity to public life, Kemi Badenoch, a contender for the leadership of the Conservative party, said “the truth will set us free”.
Perhaps not all her hearers realised she was quoting the Bible (John 8 v32). ‘Truth’ is an important theme of John’s Gospel for Jesus himself is ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life’ or ‘the true and living way’ (John 14 v6). But that representative of worldly power, Pontius Pilate, had no time for ‘truth’.
“Truth? What is that?”, he said to Jesus (John 18 v37-38). For Pilate, ‘truth’ is moonshine. What matters is power; then you can get away with almost anything. Pilate terrorises the Jews, but he lives in fear of the Emperor, so he can easily be manipulated into condemning an innocent man (John 19 v12). Even the Emperor lives in fear of assassination.
But by his courage and integrity in the face of death, Jesus pulled the rug from under those who ruled by terror. We can be brave and self-sacrificing like Jesus, and like Gareth Jones, because Jesus has gone ahead of us to prepare a place for us in his heavenly kingdom (John 14 v1-3).
The Truth has set us free.
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- The views expressed by columnists of this newspaper do not necessarily reflect the views of the Glamorgan Star, its employees, or proprietors.
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🌟 This article first appeared in the printed edition of the Glamorgan Star on 30.06.22. Read it in print first!
• | Pause for thought – a previous column by Rev’d Parrish
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