Tag: security

Green Tau issue 125

Defence or security?

16th June 2026

A recent article in the Church Times reported on 

The director of Trinity Centre for Post-Conflict Justice, at Trinity College, Dublin, Dr Jude Lal FernandoI, was among the participants, alongside Anglican church leaders, theologians, church partners, and USPG support. He warned that security concerns were increasingly being prioritised over communities’ basic needs, while hundreds of millions were still living in extreme poverty. “When space for peace and dialogue decreases, the space for violence and oppression increases, especially for women and children,” he said.

This led me to ponder what is the difference between security and defence?

Defence typically refers to the armed services and all their equipment and resources that can be used to repel enemy invasion either of our territory (here in the UK or elsewhere, eg the Falklands) or to support our allies where they are similarly threatened. Such defence would also include defence against cyber attack. 

Security I think is a wider issue that encompasses not just protection from enemy attack or aggression, but is about safeguarding the wellbeing of society as a whole. Thus security issues would include:

  • Food security: can we feed our population? Can we do so largely independent of imports? Do we keep enough in store to weather emergencies and/or supply disruption? Do we pay enough for farmers to survive financially? Do we ensure sufficient incomes so that everyone can afford healthy food? Do we grow the right range of crops (inc livestock) that allows us also to ensure the security of biodiversity and the environment?
  • Health security: are we doing enough to ensure the population is in good health? Do we have enough medical staff, hospital beds, drugs etc? Do we ensure everyone has access to a healthy diet? Do we ensure everyone has access to secure, safe housing – ie accommodation that does not damage their health? Do we ensure everyone has access to dental care? To mental health care? To social care? Do we ensure everyone has access to green spaces essential for mental wellbeing and to sports/ exercise facilities etc essential for physical health?
  • Community security: do we ensure everyone has access to education? That everyone can read, write, calculate and interpret information such that they are not likely to be deceived by false information. Do we ensure enough community spaces that are essential for developing and maintaining good social bonds and networks? Do we do enough to tackle discrimination essential for ensuring equality and harmony within communities?
  • Job security: do we ensure that everyone has access to an appropriate and fulfilling job? Do we ensure everyone has suitable skills and qualifications to enable them to contribute to the economy? Do we ensure sufficient investment in businesses to ensure that they contribute to our wellbeing and do not damage our environment? Do we ensure sufficient investment in our businesses that we can be self-reliant for all essentials? Do we ensure that all stakeholders in a business – staff, customers, nature etc – have a fair share of power and influence in determining the shape and future of the business? Do we ensure that everyone derives a fair benefit from the economy? 
  • Economic security: do we ensure that the economy that supports us financially does so in a way that is fair for everyone, that allows everyone to afford a healthy lifestyle, that protects the environment, that is sustainable over the long term?
  • Energy security: do we ensure we can produce enough energy ourselves to be self sufficient? Do we ensure that we do so at price that is affordable? Do we ensure all buildings, equipment and infrastructure is energy efficient? Do we have measures to ration water if necessary?
  • Water security: do we ensure that everyone has access to sufficient water for a healthy lifestyle? Do we ensure water efficiency at every level to ensure we do not consume more than we extract from our water resources? Do balance the need to maintain water resources against competing demands – whether from industry, agriculture, data centres, domestic users – and do we have measures to ration water if necessary?
  • Environmental security: do we look after the wellbeing of the natural environment to ensure that it can continue to support our wellbeing? Do we see it an essential life support system ensuring clean water supplies, for flood prevention, for clean air, plants to absorb carbon dioxide and provide protection from heat and winds, biodiversity to ensure fertile soils for food and insects for pollination, biodiversity to enrich life and safeguard against future unknowns?
  • Political security: do we ensure fair and democratic forms of government? Do we ensure truthfulness from political parties in both what they say and what they do? Do we ensure fair access to politicians such that those with money and power do not override the views of others? Do we ensure freedom of speech and nonviolent protest? Do we ensure a society where everyone feels valued and everyone feels their voice can be heard?
  • Judicial security: do we ensure a judicial system that provides access to justice to everyone and which is not influenced or used by those with money and power? Do we ensure fair policing? Do we ensure appropriate sentencing that will benefit the whole of society including both those who are victims and those who are offenders? Do we ensure a well designed and resourced custodial system that protects society and ensures the wellbeing of those imprisoned? 
  • Internet etc security: do we ensure that our internet and other communications systems are secure, that they cannot be compromised by error or deliberate intent? Do we ensure there are other systems in place such that if primary systems fail, essential services will be maintained?  Do we ensure that social media etc enhances rather than detracts from our wellbeing?
  • National security: do we ensure all the above which are essential for national security? Do we ensure good diplomatic, trade and welfare relations with other nations such that we work together to ensure peace? Do we ensure through good diplomatic, trade and welfare relations the wellbeing of other nations? – for unless they are at peace and thriving there will always be the risk of conflict and war that will impact us as part of a shred global economy.  Do we with care for the consequences of war, ensure  our nation has appropriately trained personnel and equipment that we can defend ourselves attack?

It seems to me that this bigger vision that the need for security rather than just focusing on defence, is essential if we are to be a happy secure nation. Indeed I’m not sure we gain much from defence if what is being defended doesn’t ensure happiness and well being for everyone.

Counting on … day 23

3rd February 2025

“Farmers are the backbone of our agricultural industry, working tirelessly to bring food to our tables. However, the practice of price manipulation in agricultural markets has severe consequences for these hardworking individuals. One of the most significant impacts on farmers is the financial struggles they face, coupled with a sense of uncertainty about their future.” (1)

Food waste can also be linked with capital waste. Farming requires capital inputs – seed, fertilisers, equipment – for which the return can be unpredictable. Crops may fail due to adverse weather or pests. Prices may fall because of changes in demand or because of the manipulation of the markets by  investors such as hedge funds. 

Recently there seemed to be a surge in demand for British grown fruit – apples, cherries etc. demand peaked and with inflation consumers (and supermarkets) opted for cheaper imports. What do farmers do who have invested in planting orchards? It can be years before the capital is repaid: should they grub up the new trees and cut their losses? 

Do we need more control over prices – limiting the role of investors who are simply playing the market, using subsides to guarantee prices for British grown produce?

  1. https://fastercapital.com/content/Price-Manipulation-in-the-Agricultural-Markets–Impacts-on-Farmers-and-Consumers.html

Proper 27 – and also Remembrance Sunday

10th November 2024

Reflection with readings below

When we talk about the House of Windsor, for example, we are talking about a family – a family that goes back many generations and which we anticipate will continue on for many more generations to come. Our first reading is also about the continuation of  dynastic House, that of the House of David. It is a story of the forebears of David, significant for Jews for whom he is Israel’s greatest king, and significant for Christians for David himself is the forebear of Jesus. But the story is also subversive as Ruth, the mother, is not a member of the one of the tribes of Israel but is a Moabite. 

The character of God is thus highlighted as being one who includes rather than excludes. The House of Israel is not exclusive but inclusive. This inclusivity is also the message of the gospels and of the Pauline letters. In writing to the community in Galatia, Paul reminds them that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.

Today is Remembrance Sunday when we remember those who gone before us as victims of war. We remember their sacrifice made in the hope of a better future, a future where all people may live together in peace. Naomi says to her daughter-in-law, Ruth, that she wishes to find security for her – and she does this by enabling Ruth to become part of her extended family. The more we can incorporate each other into one family, the greater will be the peace that we can enjoy. 

Another word for house is home, a dwelling place but perhaps more importantly a place of belonging. So we may talk about our home town, or our homeland. In his encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis talks of the earth as being ‘our common home’. This is the one home we all share and for which we must all care, if it is to be a home for generations to come.

Today’s psalm reminds us that unless our deeds and actions are both inspired and guided by God, they will fail. It is God’s first command to us in the Garden of Eden. And the call to care for the earth, to care for the vulnerable and the needy, and to pursue justice for all, is the repeated refrain throughout the Bible. Only by so doing, can our common home, our global family, survive and flourish. 

Next week many people with power and influence will gather in Azerbaijan for the global climate conference – COP29. If our common home is to be a place of safety and well-being, we need those people to act positively, speedily and effectively in cutting the use of fossil fuels, in transitioning to renewable energy, and in ensuring a just sharing of resources  – and finances – for all our brothers and sisters, for all our House.

And then we too need to be willing to change our lifestyles, changing the way we use and share resources, so that together we can tackle the issues of climate change, biodiversity loss and social injustice. Typically we need to consider not flying; driving less and using public transport more; eating less meat and dairy and instead eating more locally produced fruit and vegetables, grains, pulses and nuts; replacing gas with electricity and using that economically; better insulating our homes; reusing and repairing what we already have in preference to the ‘buy, buy’ culture that advertisers promote; and in the words of Christian Aid, living more simply so that others may simply live.

Today’s gospel reading contrasts the different responses that Jesus observed in the ways people followed God’s ways. Some – and it would seem to have been those with wealth and positions of authority – who made token gestures: a biblical equivalent of green washing. Whilst others gave their all, allowing their whole live to be shaped by God’s will. 

Let us pray that both we and those attending COP29 will be be from the second rather than the first camp. Let us pray that the wellbeing of our House, of our common home will be given priority over personal gain; that by allowing our actions to be guided by God, so that our labour will not be in vain. 

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17

Naomi her mother-in-law said to Ruth, “My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you. Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working. See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do.” She said to her, “All that you tell me I will do.”

So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.” Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighbourhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Psalm 127

1 Unless the Lord builds the house, *
their labour is in vain who build it.

2 Unless the Lord watches over the city, *
in vain the watchman keeps his vigil.

3 It is in vain that you rise so early and go to bed so late; *
vain, too, to eat the bread of toil,
for he gives to his beloved sleep.

4 Children are a heritage from the Lord, *
and the fruit of the womb is a gift.

5 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior *
are the children of one’s youth.

6 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them! *
he shall not be put to shame
when he contends with his enemies in the gate.

Hebrews 9:24-28

Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year after year with blood that is not his own; for then he would have had to suffer again and again since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Mark 12:38-44

As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”