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Chapter 5:

CONNECTING WITH NATURE

 

HUMAN CONTEXT

Distinction has disappeared in the modern world between the natural and the artificial - be tween what is already given and what is human-made.  So-called natural disasters like drought and floods, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, super-cyclones and typhoons are very often due to selfish systems and greedy policies of some people and governments.  Modern market- driven development depletes faster the resources of the earth.  Large-scale pollution of the earth, air and water is the order of the day.  We are facing serious environmental problems and ecological crisis at the dawn of the new millennium. Therefore, we are not surprised at forest fires in Indonesia; nuclear explosions causing pollution; bio-piracy of animal and plant species; global warming and the green-house effect; the hole in the ozone layer and the general pollution of populations and the environment.

The UN Climate-change Conference in 1995, the Save-the-Planet crusade, the Earth Angels, Greenpeace, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Kyoto Environment Summit in ’97 and many other movements have raised the consciousness of the people about such calamities.  But life seems to go on as usual.  At one time, we were alarmed by the Bhopal Gas tragedy (1984) and the Chernobyl (1986), but not any more.  There is very little outcry against some of the issues raised above and more recently against the one hundred metric tons of cyanide spill over from a goldmine in Romania, affecting rivers and wildlife in Romania, Hungry and Yugoslavia.

In India, the Mangalore Power project, the granite industries in Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu, and the nylon industry in Goa have all provoked some protest but the majority still allow big business and industry to go on. The delicate, fragile

 

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 balance in the ecosystem has been disrupted by such developments. Individuals like Vandana Shiva, Medha Patkar and more recently Arundhuti Roy (all women) have carried on a sustained and systematic campaign against undue encroachments on the environment. Much earlier Sundarlal Bahuguna had launched his own campaign through the Chipko Movement.  Carl Sagan, an astro-physicist had sounded a warning about the possibility of a ‘nuclear winter’ or even of a ‘nuclear summer’. But governments and politicians have paid very little attention to such warnings and debates, to such individuals and movements. Economic development and environmental well-being are inseparable. Certainly poverty is the greatest pollution.  Over-population is both the cause and a consequence of poverty.  It is time to pay serious attention to the Bible about the environment and respond positively to its principles and goals.

 

OLD TESTAMENT BACKGROUND

According to the Old Testament God created all the living creatures - the plants, animals, fish and the birds. The very first chapter of the Bible describes in detail the timing and the nature of creation.  God took quite a long time to do this.  According to the Biblical calculation, five days did not just mean 5x24 hours, the equivalent of 120 hours.  The Psalms affirm, ‘For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.’142  From this point of view, the Biblical tradition does not contradict the scientific truth that the universe originated billions of years ago. God planned it very carefully and organised it meticulously. It is neither too big nor too small; neither too far nor too near to the sun; neither too hot nor too cold.  It has a divine design and is the artistic expression of the mind of God. It is grand in scope and beautiful in character.  It was made just right and consequently, each time the earth developed, “God saw and it was good” 143 and finally, it is said, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good.” 144 The Bible does not give the detail of ‘how’ and ‘what’ of creation but it certainly tells about its ‘why’?

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142 Psalm 90:4

143 Genesis 1:4, l0, l2, 18, 21 and 25

144 Genesis 1:31

 

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There seems to be an inherent logic in creation, a causal relationship and a built-in interdependent structure that enables or facilitates nurture and nourishment and provides support and sustenance to life in its totality.  Therefore it is quite clear that human beings and human life are located within this larger universal framework.  Human beings are never perceived in isolation or in separation.  After creating for five long days, heaven and earth; light and darkness; water and dry land; vegetables and fruits; creeping creatures and big animals, only on the sixth day, God creates the humans,

Let us make humankind in our image... according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air... So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.145

Thus at the outset there is the priority and the perspective of the environment within which human beings are placed.  There is a definitive and inextricable relationship of nature and the humans in terms of dependence and interdependence.  Such an unambiguous ambience is crucial to the understanding of human life and living.

The second chapter of the first Book of the Bible, leaves out all the detail of the first chapter but fundamentally, it is a reiteration with certain significant additions about the whole of creation and the fall of humanity. For our purpose it is important to note that both the creation narratives indicate the divine origin and purpose of creation, locating the ochlos (people) in the theos (God); ochlos in the context of the oikos (environment, literally, it means household or family).  But in spite of their similarities it is the first creation narrative146, which was documented around 450 B.C., is definitively theo-centric in character, accenting on the intrinsic worth, dignity and value of the non-human creation. Genesis chapter two, written around 800 B.C., maintains an anthropocentric point of view. Therefore, although chapter two is earlier in terms of chronology, the selection process gave priority and preference

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145 Genesis 1:26-27

146 Genesis 1

 

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 to the latter tradition. Thus the Bible is clear about its stand or position.  The ancient seers and sages of Israel were grasped by the cosmic vision.

Both the creation narratives mention about God handing the responsibility to the humans to maintain and promote, sustain and strengthen the work of creation.  It is written,

Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. 147

Human beings are summoned to be co-creators or partners with God for the on-going creation.  It has to be a creative process, full of imagination and innovation, reflecting the glory and grace of God. But humanity failed and failed miserably. Instead of being good and wise trustees or oikonomos (steward), they started to exploit and harness nature to such an extent that it lost its beauty and balance, grace and glory.  The original human sin must refer to this fundamental alienation from the natural ambience. Obviously, they took quite literally the Hebrew words, radish (dominion) and kabash (literally subdue by putting one’s legs on the neck of a slave).  Two models are presented at the outset - one to dominate creation and the other to take custodial responsibility for it.  Misinterpretation of such texts gave rise to radical dualism between human and nature, leading to serious fragmentation and brokenness - fragmentation of totality of life and brokenness of relationship, Thus for a long period of time and even today, human development and progress have been understood as disrupting totally the rhythm of life, losing its intended harmony.  It was perceived as an enemy and therefore to be harnessed, hunted and conquered.  Human greed and selfishness have taken a heavy toll!  Later in the Old Testament we hear the songs in praise of creation,

O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! . . When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

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145 Genesis 1:26-27

146 Genesis 1

 

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 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour; you have given them dominion over the works of your hands. . 148

It is unfortunate that such Old Testament texts have led human beings to plunder and pillage Mother Nature and thereby inflict a grievous wound. Obviously, humanity has to suffer the consequences of such deliberate cruelty.  The law of causality must take its course.  But God does not give up.  God is willing to forgive, make a new covenant with humanity and restore the balance.

God gives another opportunity to the humans. The SABBATH and the JUBILEE systems were codified in ancient Israel for the redemption of the earth and humans.  We have briefly discussed these time-tested and time-honoured Jewish institutions in the last chapter in terms of liberation and justice.  These were systematic attempts to renew, restore and reclaim the whole of creation so that it does not slip into nothingness- ‘a formless void and darkness.’149  In the law of Leviticus, it is stipulated,

That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; you shall not sow, or reap the after growth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you; you shall eat only what the field itself produces.150

It is significant to note that the jubilee is to be celebrated “on the Day of Atonement’, emphasising fellowship with the land; being at-one-with the mother earth.  This point becomes clearer with the sabbatical laws as enshrined both in Leviticus and.  It is stated,

...the land shall observe a Sabbath for the Lord.  Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land.151

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148 Psalms 8:1, 3-6a; Psalms 104

149 Genesis 1:1

150 Leviticus 25:11-12; 27:17-24

151 Leviticus 25:2b-4a; 26:34-35, and 43; Exodus 16:23-26; 20:10; 31:14-16, Deuteronomy 5:12-15

 

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Sabbath was to be a time of rest, remembrance and release both for land and the people.  The theological reason for this system is that God created for six days and on the seventh day had rested.152  It was to be a day and a year when they must remember with gratitude God’s deliverance from Egyptian slavery and consequently their fundamental responsibility to engage actively in atonement and redemption153.

In a way, this is the historical-theological reason for observing the sabbatical year.  According to those assertions in the ancient world, it is clear that the land needs rest as much as human beings, left fallow so that it can recover to restore its further productivity and yield.  It is a time of hope and happiness.  For them, it is not a holiday but HOLY as it originates in God and instructed by the priest.  Such is the respect or even reverence for the God-given earth!  Rest and remembrance is for the purpose of releasing the potential that is within the bosom of land and humanity.  Indeed both the systems had profound meaning and objective.

When the Jewish people came out of Egyptian slavery under the ‘powerful’ Pharaoh, they had to experience forty years in the wilderness.  It was a time of trial and tribulation, of temptation and tragedy.  But in and through such an excruciating experience, they were well tested.  More than that, for them, ‘wilderness’ was not just a physical-geographical area or territory.  But after forty years, it became for them a religious metaphor.  In the initial years, the wilderness was a painful experience for them - utterly barren, without proper food, water, and direction.  It was an experience of uprootedness or rootlessness.  It must have made them recall their original nomadic, wandering existence.  God’s presence, shekinah, made the difference. God did not desert them in the desert.  They were reminded,

And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness. ...that God might make you know that human beings do not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.  Your clothing did not wear out upon you, and your foot did not swell, these forty years.154

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152 Genesis. 2:2-3; repeated in Exodus 31:17b

153 Deuteronomy 5: 15

154 Deuteronomy 8:l-4; repeated in 29:5t see also Joshua 9:12; Numbers 32:13; Amos 2:10; 5:25

 

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Such an experience created an indelible impression in their minds and began to comprehend the possibility of the wilderness of the mind and of life.  It became very intimate and personal particularly in terms of desolation, desertion and even the possibility of destruction.  They were disobedient to the larger cosmic vision.  At one level, God did not forsake them but sustained them155, giving food before them in the wilderness156.  But at another level, they began to experience “the howling waste of the wilderness”.157 For them ‘wilderness’ came to symbolise life and death. Later they suffered again in the hands of the Babylonians and experienced Exile.  It was during and after the Exile in Babylon (6th Century B.C.), they were grasped by the vision of the ‘new heaven and new earth.’  Their renewal and restoration included the whole environment, the animals, plants and the atmosphere.  They began to anticipate,

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.  The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.  They will not hurt or destroy.158

In terms of the ‘wilderness’, they began to hope,

 ...the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.  Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of righteousness will be peace and quietness and trust forever . . . Happy will you be who sow beside every stream, who let the ox and the donkey range freely.159

They aspired for justice to the earth that had been denied for the trees and plants, water and animals.  They looked forward to the day when the wilderness would prosper and flourish.  Such an expectation followed their experience of the Exodus, Exile and the forty years of wilderness in-between.  It is significant to note such an earth-orientation or earth-justice was articulated in a present perfect lan

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155 Nehemiah 9:21

156 Psalm 78:19

157 Deuteronomy 32:10

158 Isaiah 11:6-9; Isaiah 65:17-25

159 Isaiah 32:15b-17 and 20; 35:1and 6; 40:3; 41:18-19; 43:19-20; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 11:19; 18:31; 36:26

 

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guage - as if it has already happened to them!  Such is the assurance and confidence in God.  They did not give up because the God whom they believed is a long-suffering, resilient God.

 

APOSTOLIC WITNESS

According to their own witness, one of the disciples of Jesus betrayed him for ‘forty’ pieces of silver in the garden of Gethsemane; his beloved disciple, Simon Peter denied him three consecutive times after the arrest of Jesus and Thomas, an ancient apostle doubted him after the resurrection.  The rest of the disciples ran away, thinking Jesus to be an impostor and a grand failure!  Such was the scenario delineated by the apostles, immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus.  But we also know from their testimony, that something happened to Jesus after three days that enabled and empowered the frightened lot to reassemble and organise a powerful movement, advocating ardently the universal and cosmic significance of the life and work of Jesus the Christ.  We continue to hear this at the dawn of the third millennium.

The apostolic tradition mentions that the whole ecosystem has an enormous potential within it, which needs to be recovered in the name of God. They understood Christ’s liberating work in this wider cosmic sense.  Therefore, it would be utterly wrong to reduce the message of Jesus.  The good news cannot be privatised and unduly spiritualised. The work of Jesus was not individualistic, otherworldly and exclusive.  The apostles perceived of God’s salvation in a human, social and cosmic way.

Paul in particular, participates purposively in the prophetic promise when he says,

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futurity, not of its own will but y the will of the one who subjected it. In the hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom . . . the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves . . .groan inwardly.160

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160 Romans 8:18-23

 

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This is the definitive text in the New Testament for actively promoting and strengthening eco-justice in terms of God.  Paul has been able to capture the mind and spirit of Jesus about the whole creation.  The suffering of God and humanity is intrinsically connected to the suffering of the environment.  But it is interesting that such a suffering is compared to the suffering of a pregnant women.  This pregnant pain of nature is equally dangerous and challenging; filled with joy and tears.  It is creative, liberating and transformative. Labour-pain or the pain-love of God gives birth to the new heaven and new earth161. God as the creator of the earth must be her liberator. Humans must cooperate with God for the renewal of creation.

In the very purpose of God, creation has to be a cosmos and not chaos; a universe and certainly not a ‘multi-verse’.  There is an inherent unity which must be embodied and expressed in human life and work, in our society and culture. In this way humans can express solidarity with the whole of creation and become an earth-community.  The above text from the Romans is not an isolated one. It is repeated differently in other Pauline epistles.  To the Colossians he affirmed,

He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the first- born of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created. . . He himself is before all things and in him all things hold together. . . For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.162

This Christological text bears evidence to the apostolic fervour to relate clearly Christ and cosmos.  God sent Jesus to the world to save the whole of creation including human beings. God is the unifying power the coherent principle that holds everything together. Thus our estrangement or alienation is not only from God and other humans but from the whole of creation or the wholeness of creation. So we lead a broken, fragmented existence.  Jesus comes to reconcile us to everything, connect us together, even through his death on the cross.  Such is the price God pays for cosmic reconciliation.

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161 Isaiah 21:3; 42:14; Jeremiah 6:24

162 Colossians 1:15-20; similar language is used in Thessalonians and Ephesians

 

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GOSPEL TRUTH

The apostolic witness, particularly the Pauline perspective grew out of and emerged from the Jesus tradition in the ancient world.  The origin and source of the apostolic testimony was the active life and work of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the synoptic (first three gospels) and the fourth, John’s gospel.  Christianity is founded or grounded in history and specific space. This historical sense should not make the Christians unnatural.  The gospel writers did not conceive of Christ in isolation, in a vacuum or in the ‘air’ but located his life and work within the wider horizon.

The cosmic horizon of Jesus is demonstrated in his relationships and references.  He was in complete harmony with the natural world with animals, birds, plants and of course human beings.  He had stated, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”.163 Earlier, the Christmas story is described in terms of shepherds164; cowshed or a stable and a manger165 and the song of the angel, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!” 166

Jesus’ many parables and illustrations are well connected to the earth.  He talked about the ‘lilies of the field’ and the ‘grass of the field’167; the parable of the sower; wheat and weeds, harvest, grain of mustard seed and treasure hidden in a field168. He had understood the relationship between himself and his followers,

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.... Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches...169

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163 Matthew 8:20; repeated in Luke 9:58

164 Matthew 2:8f

165 Luke 1:7

166 Luke 1:14

167 Matthew 6:28 and 30

168 Matthew 13:3-9; 18-23; 24-33 and 44; see also Mark 11:20-23; Matthew 9:37-38; Luke 10:3; John 4:34-38

169 John 15:1- 7

 

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Thus Jesus reaffirms in speech and action, the lordship or sovereignty of God over history and the whole of creation.  Nothing is outside of God’s abiding love. God in Jesus came into the world to save it from decay and death. To be in the world in an authentic way, God in Jesus had to be made flesh.170  Therefore, we cannot abandon the cosmic Christ. Jesus did not come to save souls apart from the body and away from the world.  God’s good news is not a flight or escape from the world into another world but to make this world like the latter - ‘Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven’.171  Anything else or less is not the gospel of God in Jesus.  We are ‘in the world’ but ‘not of the world’172, meaning that we must maintain a critical or a prophetic relationship with it.  In the name of God, we must exercise an element of transcendence in our immanent, empirical life.  That will enable us to comprehend “the abundant (fullness or wholeness) life”173 as mentioned by Jesus or shalom, as articulated in the Old Testament, In this way we can truly support, sustain and strengthen the oikoumene (the whole inhabited earth) and thereby be ecumenical.

 

THEOLOGICAL-ETHICAL AFFIRMATION

The Biblical corpus as a whole, testifies to God’s affirmative relationship to the whole and all of creation.  God advocates its essential and intrinsic goodness and significance. This means that as a response, we have to go beyond denominational, inter-denominational, inter-Church or even inter-religious thinking and action to be authentically ecumenical. Cosmos (world, universe)-theos (God)-Christos (the Christ) is a hyphenated reality. So also oikos (household, nation)-ochlos (people)-oikonomos (steward trustee, custodian) are inherently related.  Therefore, connecting with nature is not a peripheral, external exercise.  It is central and crucial to the divine purpose and goal.  We are made for each other according to the will of God.  We need to recover this organic, vital relationship.  Liberation and justice must be viewed from this cosmic perspective.  Creation is not a once-and-for-all event in the past.  It is a process, a constant happening, ongoing in character.  God is not a

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163 Matthew 8:20; repeated in Luke 9:58

164 Matthew 2:8f

165 Luke 1:7

166 Luke 1:14

 

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watchmaker or an absentee landlord. God is with us, Emmanuel, and in partnership with God we can engage in the task of re-creation.  We need to be caught up in or be grasped by God’s unified vision - “That they may be ONE even as we are one.”174

 

QUESTIONS FOR GROUP DISCUSSION

 How has humanity in general and Asians in particular inflicted wounds to the earth or the environment?

 What are the similarities and differences between what we read in the Bible and what we experience in the modern world about environment and ecology?

 Identify the most important ecological problem in your country/region.  Show how it has affected your culture and society and particularly the poor and the minority.

 

FIELD EDUCATION:

Make an empirical study of one of the most important ecological problems in your area, e.g., pollution, deforestation, forest fires.  Collect data, organise them systematically and examine and evaluate them particularly in terms of their impact on the general population.  Do one thing towards its solution.

 

QUOTATIONS FOR GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION:

Human beings participate in the patterns and processes of interdependence of life in the world.  We can and should intervene for the sake of humans and nature itself.  Our participation is a response to events and conditions in which we live; it involves valuing aspects of nature in relation not only to our own interests but also the ‘interests’ of other aspects of nature.  Human life is dependent not only upon the processes and patterns of nature, but also upon human intentional participation. . .

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174 John17: 11,21-23

 

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 we look to an ordering of nature as one basis for deciding what goods for whom, and for what, ought to be pursued.

Patriarchal categories which understand destruction as ‘production’ and regeneration of life as ‘passivity’ have generated a crisis of survival . . . Nature and women working to produce and reproduce life are declared ‘unproductive’ . . . The devaluation and de-recognition of nature’s work and productivity have led to the ecological crisis . . . Biotechnologies are reductionist, centralised, excluding and homogenising.  The approach to life needed for ecological stability is holistic, decentred, participatory, and respecting diversity . . .

‘Creation’ isn’t a synonym for unperturbed nature as gazed upon by awestruck humans.  It is a theological word for the totality of all things, together, before God and in whatever blessed, despoiled, or hapless condition may prevail at the moment. . .The word ‘creation’ in the Genesis story, underscores the dynamic sense of a yet-unfinished world and cosmos.  The recent translation of the Hebrew Bible renders the beginning of book 1, page 1, verse 1, as ‘At the beginning of God’s creating...’”

 

REFERENCES

Gustafson, James M., A Sense of the Divine: The Natural Environment from a Theocentric Perspective, 1994.

Narmada Bachao Andolans, Towards Sustainable and Just Developments: The People’s Struggles in the Narmada Valley, 1992.

Rassmussen, Larry L., Earth Community, Earth Ethics, 1996.

Roy, Arundhuti, “The Greater Common Goods The Human Cost of Big Dams” in Frontline, June 4, 1999, p.p. 4-29.

 

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Shiva, Vandana, The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics, 1994.

Takenaka, Masao, God is Rice: Asian Culture and Christian Faith, 1986.