Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash
These words come from our Spring 2023 “Contact” leaflet.
Britain spends almost £4bn each year gathering and analysing secret intelligence. Our intelligence agencies – MI5 (domestic targets) and MI6 and GCHQ (foreign and international targets) are world-class in term of resources, advanced techniques and global reach. Only a handful of countries boast such a capability. So what is the purpose of all this effort, and what do we get for our taxpayers’ money?
The goal of secret intelligence gathering is to make Britain a safe and secure place. It’s all about countering threats – threats from terrorists at home and abroad, potential threats from regimes that could do harm militarily, politically or economically, threats from drugs gangs, people smugglers, those who launder money and international criminals. Then there’s the big emerging threat of the unseen war in cyberspace. GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre was established in 2016 to protect critical national infrastructure from attack and to rapidly respond to attacks on organisations in the public or private sectors.
Secret intelligence provides the government with the information advantage over our enemies and threats to our national well-being. It enables us to neutralise threats before they become a reality and do actual harm.
Does it work? Well, the acid test of whether intelligence gathering is effective and successful is when nothing happens – the headlines are free from major incidents and threats to our peace and stability. It’s a strange way to measure success, but behind the scenes a total of 32 terrorist plots on UK soil were foiled between 2017 and 2021, and 188 arrests were made for terrorism-related activities in 2021 alone. Those were all non-events, prevented by meticulous detective work from intercepted communications and infiltration of terrorist groups.
On a wider stage, intelligence from the UK is being used to help Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion. By gathering intelligence during Russian weapons development the MOD has been able to develop weapons to counter them by exploiting vulnerabilities. This is one of the reasons the invasion has all but stopped in its tracks. At time of writing, supplies of British and American anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine have taken out over 3000 Russian tanks and have prevented Russia gaining air supremacy.
So secret intelligence is a game changer at home and abroad. But occasionally there are intelligence failures. Nobody foresaw the 2001 attacks on the twin towers in New York, the London bombings of 2005, or the Manchester Arena bombing of 2017. As we used to say in the trade: “We need to be lucky every time, the terrorists need to be lucky just once”. After all, there is no such thing as 100% foolproof and watertight intelligence to prevent a threat … or is there?
As a Christian, I have found the Bible, God’s words to us, to be a rock-solid, reliable source of intelligence on the human condition, and on a threat which faces every human being who has ever lived. This is not a potential threat; it is real and is definitely going to happen. In the Bible God often warns of an impending Judgment Day: “God has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness”.
God is committed to justice, to putting all things right. All those people you think have got away with it will be dealt with and take the consequences. But here we have a problem: it is not just the Hitlers, Stalins and mass murderers who will be punished. God’s standards are high. He declares that “nothing impure” will be acceptable, “nor anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful”. Have you ever had an impure thought? Ever done anything you have been ashamed of? Ever been deceitful, told a lie? Even children grow up to tell lies without ever being taught how to.
This is what God calls “sin”. We tend to make light of sin and excuse it as making a mistake, but God sets out his standards in the Ten Commandments and he says even a single failure to obey them will incur his judgment and eternal punishment. A just and holy God has promised to cleanse the world from every last bit of sin, of imperfection, uncleanness, injustice, hate, misery, unkindness, pride, selfishness and lust.
This all sounds like gloom, doom and bad news.
But the Bible is actually full of good news. The bad news is the sorrowful condition humanity finds itself in through its behaviour. The good news of the Bible is that there is a solution, a way to avoid the judgment to come. And God’s solution is his son Jesus Christ, whom he sent to rescue the world from sin. The Bible records “Whoever believes in him is not condemned”. And Jesus himself declares “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death to life”.
This is why Christians make so much of Jesus. He was the only man who lived a 100% perfect life, but he was unjustly put to death 2000 years ago. God punished Jesus instead of us and he suffered hell so that his followers do not have to suffer it. In his death Jesus took the full force of the threatened punishment for sin and imperfection for those who believe in him.
Here is intelligence that is not secret – open access to an impending threat and a tailor-made solution. You don’t need special techniques and clearances to discover it. Find a Bible and read one of the gospel accounts of Jesus’s life where he talks about judgment and saving faith. I personally trusted Jesus many years ago through reading the Bible, and now I can look forward to the future without fear of eternal punishment for my many failings.
The government goes to great lengths to warn of and avoid threats – and keeps most of it secret. Now you have been forewarned. Will you be forearmed to meet the threat?
Peter Cox, Former Intelligence Officer at GCHQ
Peter spoke about his work and faith at our church on Friday 26th May 2023