Eternal now

Elektrostal in crisis times

This unfinished building is behind ours; no progress for months.

But this new Dixie grocery store across the street from us just opened a couple of weeks ago.

This week brought two distressing news items, both concerning deaths. Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer and 37-year-old father of two children, died in Moscow, in detention. And a 26-year-old antifascist campaigner, Ivan Khutorskoi, was shot outside his apartment on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.

Both Magnitsky and Khutorskoi had high-stakes involvements, although in very different spheres. The lawyer was caught up in charges and countercharges concerning William Browder and Hermitage Capital Management. The activist was reputedly part of the increasingly violent racist/extremist-vs-antifascist scene in Russia, and was himself no apostle of nonviolence. Both believed that their lives counted for something, and both lives are now over.

These were some of my thoughts yesterday morning as I picked up Thomas Kelly's Testament of Devotion again and began reading his essay on "The Eternal Now and Social Concern." Kelly wants neither the escapism of other-worldly piety nor the obsession with here-and-now effectiveness of church-as-social-agency. It is the constant awareness (fading inevitably from foreground to background, and back again) of Divine Presence that gives us both endurance and perspective. As I contemplate how life is not a chess game where we have unlimited time to construct a perfect strategy, it's a great comfort to me to consider that my only real task at any given moment is to remain in that Presence.

Do you, like me, sometimes wonder what your "score" would be if you were taken from this life right now? Here's a bit more from Kelly (back-translated from Olga Dolgina's translation; background here) on how Quaker spirituality speaks to me and maybe to you, too:

... I am convinced that in the Quaker experience of the Divine Presence, there is a serious combining of temporal and timeless, with the main emphasis on the Eternal, which is the creative basis of time itself. "I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness."

That we can experience this Divine Presence as a constantly perceivable and true fact, that changes and transforms everything in life--this is Friends' main message to the world.

So the most important thing I can do at this moment can in fact be accomplished now--not in some indefinite point in the (uncertain) future. That is to say "yes" to God's Divine presence in my life.

Having once discovered this wonderful secret, this new dimension of life, we don't live any longer simply in time, we also live in Eternity. The temporal world is no longer the only reality we're aware of. A new Reality arises that enlivens and excites us, that moves us toward action, fills us with energy, breaks into our souls and with love embraces us--along with all those who find themselves in the Presence.

We can see the importance of George Fox's classic statement that "Jesus Christ has come to teach his people himself." As the Russian Orthodox martyr Alexander Men', said, the history of religion is the honorable struggle of human beings to reach the Divine; but Jesus is the opposite--the Divine reaching to us, giving us access to the Eternal in this very moment.

The more time I have, the more ways I might be able to tell others about what God is doing through Jesus; and the more I might be able to remind Friends that this is our main task, directly and indirectly, in whatever ways we're gifted and led, instead of trying to figure out ever new ways to tell people how wonderful or modest or subtle Friends are. But who knows how much time that will be? To live this reality myself--that I can do right now. And for right now, that is enough.

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Alexander Markovich Poroshin is a friend of ours here in Elektrostal; he is an artist and his studio is about a block away from where we live. We can't usually afford to buy art, but there are occasions when we simply can't resist. This painting of the Charles Bridge in Prague is now part of our microscopic collection. Here are some more of his works: Fall 2007 exhibition; December 2007 visit to his studio (starting with second row of photos.) We already have his "Birth of Faith" crucifixion picture, shown in the December 2007 page.

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Righteous links:

Another very untimely death that I do not understand.

Serbia grieves Patriarch Pavle. Video tribute.

Russia's Interfax news agency reprints a Guardian column: "Christianity ended the Cold War peacefully." Looking back on 1989,the 24/7 Prayer movement's Peter Greig refers to "Revolutionary Prayers."

In the USA, Thanksgiving is coming in a week--and here's how our Yearly Meeting plans to use the 2009 Thanksgiving Offering.

Reminder: Os Guinness comes to Reedwood Friends Church tomorrow (Friday) evening.

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Texas comes to Denmark: A nice slice of blues by Guy Forsyth and a wonderful band:

When do we shift from "neutrality" to "advocacy"?

Oslo album

Oslo inner harber--view from Akershus Fortress

Akershus at dusk

Pride: the polar ship Fram, which has sailed farther north and farther south than any other conventional ship.

Shame: the wartime home of Vidkun Quisling, now the Holocaust Museum.

The office building where Oslo Quakers have their new premises.

The Maurer family grave, where several generations are buried, including the original Johan Fredrik Maurer.

Two Johans, both named after the same ancestor. Right side: my cousin Johan Fredrik Heyerdahl.

Since my last visit to Norway, Oslo Friends Meeting has moved its premises to an office building near the city's main railroad and bus stations. The new location, far from the beautiful and expensive neighborhoods of its previous homes, seems to have been a good choice--at least in terms of increased attendance.

The meeting seems to have congenial neighbors. Across the courtyard is the German cultural center. Dental offices nearby. Educational programs are downstairs. And sharing the Quakers' floor: the Joint Committee for Palestine.

If I understand correctly, many Norwegian Friends have sympathy for Palestinians in their conflict with Israel. The Gaza war may have increased that sympathy and lent it urgency. However, for some Friends, sympathy is not enough--it is time for strong action in solidarity with Palestinians. Other Friends feel strongly that to abandon Friends' tradition of neutrality in conflicts would be wrong.

The question of whether it is ever right for Friends to support (or appear to support) one side over another in a conflict is not new. I'm sure it predates the American Revolution--a conflict that definitely provided Friends with a huge dilemma. Case studies and books have been written about Friends responses to these situations--none of which I have with me here in Elektrostal. But while I was in Oslo, I was asked for my own thoughts on how to decide when neutrality was no longer a sufficient position. Here are a few of my reflections:

• First: there is a difference between conscientious neutrality, confirmed by a searching process of prayer and study, and the neutrality that is adopted from indifference or fear. If the book Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship (which I mentioned here) taught me anything, it is that Friends may at times be as likely as other groups to find reasons for avoiding the costly implications of our Christian faith. How often, for example, Friends put off desegregating their schools because it would upset too many parents or donors. Does ignorance, fear or apathy play a role in Friends' decisions concerning advocacy for Israel or Palestine?
  


• There is an important discipline of modesty in a neutral position: we may not actually know as much about the situation as we might assume. We might not be as important in the overall picture as we're tempted to believe. Perhaps we believe we are giving a voice to the voiceless, but are underestimating the capacity of the "voiceless" to speak for themselves. Perhaps we are people-pleasers, addicted to the approval of those we're tempted to champion. Our more important task may be to understand how our own affluence or indifference feeds the conflict.
  


• Conflict tends to distort truth and flatten nuances, and by joining a conflict (however nonviolently) we may compromise our commitment to truth. We are well aware that every conflict is very complex, and no side is perfectly evil or perfectly innocent, but such nuances vanish in practice. How do we respond assertively to oppression without demonizing the human beings on the oppressors' side, and without associating ourselves with the extreme rhetoric of the victims' defenders? The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a great example: I've heard incredibly blatant oversimplifications coming from both sides. To be fair, I've also heard both Israelis and Palestinians who are capable of balanced analyses.
  


• In the past, our reputation for neutrality has enabled us to host private negotiations between conflicting parties. In weighing the decision to give up neutrality, we should take into account the cost to all sides of losing that credibility. The other great benefit of maintaining neutrality becomes particularly important when conflict leads to suffering and violence--when the raw demands of serving the hungry and injured may require us to work on all sides simultaneously, regardless of our sympathies for one side or another. In addition, without neutrality, how will we support the nonviolent dissidents on all sides--at just the time they are least likely to find support among "their own"?
  


• However, those peacemaking and relief functions are not served by a lazy sort of neutrality--we must be well-informed and accessible to all sides. The Quaker U.N. offices in New York and Geneva have sometimes functioned this way. Are we continuing to support these offices and preparing Friends to serve in this ministry? There is also a danger of ordinary Friends and their congregations assuming that "they" (the paid professionals) will do it--but "they" need our prayers, they need to be held accountable--and they need us to continue our own traveling ministries, to continue to be willing even to live in conflict zones as students, businesspeople, caregivers, even just conscientious tourists--in other words, continue to be the body of Christ worldwide, whether we are "at home" or in a cross-cultural situation--or both.
  


• We all have our own spiritual gifts, which may often help us discern what our role is in ministering to conflict. Even when we must support one side, or (for example) boycott the other side economically, we may have Friends who are especially gifted to pray for the side we perceive to be in the wrong, and even to continue to communicate with the people we disagree with. The prophets among us who might be leading our public advocacy will still need to be held accountable by others in the meeting.


• Inevitably, sometimes individuals experience strong leadings toward advocacy that their meeting cannot confirm. This is not the end of the world--even if the congregation must make it publicly clear that the individual involved does not speak for them. A generation later, maybe the meeting will come to understand that the individual was right. But maybe he or she was wrong--or was simply being used by God in a completely different way, while the meeting needed to continue to offer a credible neutrality.


• When we turn to God for guidance rather than relying on conventional analyses, we may find that God opens our eyes to a completely different sort of conflict. Rather than one side being right, and the other wrong, we may find that both sides are trapped in roles and myths by a larger system of powers and principalities. Our most important role may be to unmask and confront that larger system, through prayer and public witness and a ministry of interpretation. For example: in many cases, people and groups press competing claims to the same land, forgetting that all claims to specific pieces of land are strictly temporary. The land is God's, not ours--and what is dry land today may be underwater in future generations, or swallowed by earthquakes, or rendered uninhabitable by ecological sin. Flat assertions of eternal ownership by either side won't solve the problem, no matter how wonderful their claims might be from inside their own worldview.

To sum up ... I don't have a summary! What do you think? In the case of Israel and the Palestinians, both "sides" have their champions among Friends; how might we find unity, either on a fertile neutrality, or on a conscientious advocacy?

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Righteous links:

Christianity Today's Books & Culture reviews a fascinating set of books on East Germany. If you've read any of them yourself, what did you think?

Statsministeren: A delightful Scandinavian newspaper comic strip that reminded me of Pontius Puddle (new site!) and that has an English version.

"A portrait of a journalist [Erling Borgen] against the background of a fortunate country [Norway]."

Afghanistan may get 10,000 military trainers?? Who else sees a problem with Western countries sending trainers to a country that has consistently shown itself capable of resisting Western militaries? Shouldn't Afghanistan logically be sending trainers to us? Is the true function of "trainers" to make military intervention more palatable to a reluctant public? Or are they planning to train local forces in the use of equipment they've not needed in the past, but that we'll later regret having left there?

Today's annual presidential speech by Dmitri Medvedev to the joint plenary of the Duma--covered in this English-language report by the semi-official Russia News channel. I can predict most coverage in the West will go along this tired line: good cop, bad cop. The reality is more complex and less predictable.

Moscow's Winter Bazaar--where we hope to be on November 28. (Among other things, they'll have used books!)

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Albert Collins, "Lights On But Nobody's Home." (1991)

Oslo shorts

We're in Oslo for a few days, planning to return to our home shortly with new documents. In the meantime, I'm dealing with my mixed feelings about how things look today in this country where I was born.

I've written before about the "wooden Norway" of my early childhood. I certainly have no business wishing that those who live here would still be coping with postwar shortages, but today's well-oiled national affluence (whatever inequalities it might mask) is startling. Clackety wooden commuter trains have been replaced by sleek, silky-smooth models. A small candy bar costs nearly $4, a Colgate toothbrush $6. The roads, too, have been transformed--so many surface intersections have been replaced by ramps and tunnels.

Norway's multicultural society is now redefining what it means to be Norwegian and testing whether Norway's long-held humane values can support actual flesh-and-blood diversity. (My grandparents, no longer alive, were having a hard time adjusting, which struck me as ironic considering my grandfather's participation in the resistance against the Nazis.)

From utilitarian Elektrostal, where the encroaching consumer culture still looks out of place, to glittery and efficient Oslo, where even the bathrooms are showcases of clever design--no wonder I have to look at my conflicting scales of values. After all, in Elektrostal, we have all the necessities of life: food, shelter, friendship, books. What more do we need, and why? (And why, all the same, is it so nice to be here, too?)

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Natalia Strelchenko, who appeared this evening at the National Library; this clip is in Norwegian with English subtitle.

My cousin Johan (we're named after the same ancestor) invited us this evening to a piano concert at the National Library on Henrik Ibsens Gate. I'd not heard of the pianist nor of the composer around which she arranged her evening. Pianist: Natalia Strelchenko. Composer: Thomas Tellefsen. It turned out to be a fascinating evening, but not exactly a standard experience of classical music.

Strelchenko is a Russian-Norwegian, born in St Petersburg but living in Norway for most of her adult life. I listened to her rapid Norwegian and wondered if my Russian would ever be as fluent. The clip I've embedded to the right gives a few hints of her performance style, which was full of impish flourishes. Sometimes she seemed to be exchanging confidences with the audience, sometimes with the composers; sometimes signaling her own delight at turning out a nice riff, sometimes maybe marking a cliche with ironic eyebrows. For most of the pieces she played, she began by standing before us and giving informal, unpretentious comments on the composers and their historical context, and then she flew straight to the piano, with no pause at all between landing on the bench and striking the first notes.

She played the piano like a classical version of the Funk Brothers' Earl Van Dyke--totally in charge of the instrument. Most of the time she seemed to be at full volume--only a few pieces this evening seemed to have much of a dynamic range--although maybe that's just an impression. The three mazurkas she ended with had their quiet moments. She was technically amazing, but few would use the word "sensitive" for her interpretations, much less "delicate." Maybe a classical concert is supposed to inspire loftier descriptions, but I found myself thoroughly entertained, and certainly more informed as well--I enjoyed getting to know the 19th-century Norwegian composers Thomas Tellefsen and Agathe Backer-Grøndahl. Tellefsen was at the center of her attention this evening; other composers were selected to show his influences (Chopin was one of his teachers), his contemporaries, his social circle (especially in Paris), and those who helped define his era. In his own time, she explained, Tellefsen was acknowledged as a superb pianist, but his compositions were neglected since they didn't fit the prevailing mood of romantic nationalism. Aside from Tellefsen himself, Agathe Backer-Grøndahl, and Chopin, the evening's composers included Rachmaninov, Liszt (who taught Backer-Grøndahl), and Balakirev.

Even her choice of piano played a role: instead of the National Library's Steinway, she used the Scandinavian-built Hornung & Møller grand piano to represent an instrument of Tellefsen's own period.

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Righteous links:

A bit more about Natalia Strelchenko.

. . . and about the National Library in Oslo.

I Am Second--an evangelistic presence on the Internet. (Some background here.) What do you think?

From Steve Fuller's blog: What he learned from an incomprehensible loss, even as he still wondered where God had been: "Church is family. Yes, there are other reasons for going to church, but as I've mentioned before, a lot of the functions of church can be met elsewhere. What you can't reproduce in a vacuum, or find online, or get from reading a book, is the sense of community that happens in church."

“I just don’t feel like I’ll ever be good enough.” More.

Less than a third of U.S. congregations report a decline in giving--see the Alban Institute story.

R&B keyboardist and doctor John Peterson of Muncie, Indiana, has a book out--and a delightful Web site to promote it. Friday PS: If you're in or near Muncie, the book release party is today! Details on the site.

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Buddy Guy provides dessert (at least until the clip is pulled by YT)...

Rules are rules

There have been a lot of discussions on blogs and other outlets concerning the Russian Ministry of Justice's proposed amendments to the 1997 law "On freedom of conscience and religious association."

The amendments propose a normative definition of evangelistic activity: "... activity of a religious association intended for the dissemination of its confessional teaching among persons who are not members, participants, or adherents of the given religious association, for the purposes of attracting said persons into the religious association, and conducted by religious associations or persons immediately authorized by them, in public with the assistance of means of mass communication or other legal means." Controversies arise on several accounts--the fact that such activity, to be legal, must be (1) conducted by persons who are members of the governing body of the religion or confession, or who are authorized in writing by that body; (2) must not involve any sorts of material, social, or other benefits, or any form of pressure or manipulation; and (3) must not seek to attract young people into its activities against their will or against the will of their parents.

Discussions among representatives of a wide range of religious representatives and the Ministry of Justice have revealed that many representatives welcome at least some legal clarifications. Others approve in theory but are not clear why the Ministry of Justice is competent to make these distinctions. (What constitutes "benefits" in charity work, for example; and did Jesus and the Apostles wait for documents before spreading Christianity?) Still others are quite alarmed at the possibility that an ordinary citizen might get into trouble simply for sharing his or her faith innocently with a seeker, or giving that seeker the address of the citizen's church. And must churches stop working with addicts or street people, if such assistance could be interpreted as pressure or manipulation? Will the rules be applied to minority confessions such as Baptists in the same ways they will be applied to Russian Orthodox believers?

I've also heard a more general observation: These proposed regulations are not part of a special drive to control religion, but might be considered examples of a wider trend--an increasing tendency toward regulation and bureaucratization. In support of this theory, I heard one scholar say, "It's now harder to get a dissertation approved than it was in Soviet times."

Other observers basically advise not getting overexcited. "People with common sense have nothing to worry about." Yes, individual abuses of power will happen, but in general, courteous people who talk about their faith in public without slandering other faiths or provoking intolerance will be able to keep doing so without worry.

We Americans tend to want absolute guarantees for our freedoms. Our Constitution and our truly extraordinary doctrine of "due process" attempt to provide that assurance, but real life has very few actual guarantees. U.S. history is checkered with due-process failures, especially for minorities. Even so, we (mostly) believe we have a covenant with our government--the latter agrees to enforce the rules fairly, and we agree to obey them. In many other parts of the world, an entirely different understanding prevails: the rules on paper may be stricter than we'd be comfortable with, and there are fewer guarantees of fair application, but people feel far more comfortable bending them and getting around them, and trading favors and negotiating exceptions on a common-sense basis with the powers that be. The attitude is something like, "Do what you like, but just be sensible, don't cause scandals, and everything will be OK."

In such a sensible society, "where are the prophets?" you might ask. The prophets' function is precisely to cause scandals in God's name when needed. Good point, but I wonder the same thing about our freedom-obsessed U.S. society, too. We have plenty of Americans who are proud of our religious liberty in theory, but when our own government was dancing around the definition of torture, where were our prophets? Have we devoted so much of our "freedom" to the dissemination of trivial vulgarity that we have no energy left to demand accountability from our so-called democratic leaders? Too often, we fall into the American trap of comparing our ideals with others' realities. Our ideals are in fact excellent--and far more attractive when expressed with more humility.

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For a vivid illustration of many Russians' pragmatic attitude toward the authorities, just watch the fare-dodgers on our suburban train line. At some point on nearly every trip, we see people lining up in large numbers to leave the train car at the next stop. Well, that's normal, you might think. But (1) hardly anyone usually gets off at this next stop, and (2) all those passengers standing at one end of the car seem to be making frequent glances back toward the other end. They've somehow become aware that ticket inspectors are on their way. Sure enough, two uniformed inspectors begin checking the tickets of those passengers who've remained seated. We show our tickets, which get checked. The inspectors continue forward, but when they get to the front of the car, they don't wade into the compact mass of passengers waiting to get off.

As soon as the train halts and the doors open, we see a truly fascinating spectacle--a rush of passengers of all ages running full-tilt right past the windows, re-entering the train at a point already passed by the inspectors. They are right to run; it might be only a half-minute stop. When the train has departed that station and the inspectors have moved forward into the next car, many of our fellow passengers resume the exact same seats they vacated before the inspectors came.

These are the same people you can absolutely trust to hand your money forward to the driver and your change and ticket back to you in a crowded bus.

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P.S. to my posting a few weeks ago on Gordon Browne: A friend of Gordon's and his family responded to my words with a very kind letter that helped fill me in on the last years and months of his life. My favorite part of this letter was the description of how the decision was made that Gordon should move into a unit that would have the support necessary for someone with Alzheimer's and similar symptoms:

...After a staff/family conference that Gordon actually clerked--the medical and social services staff sat there with jaws dropping as he determined that we all felt this was right and said "then this is what I ought to do"--he moved in for the last 18 months of his life.

Now that sounds like Gordon! Am I right?

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Righteous links:

English translations of Russian religious news; most items are probably at the "worried" end of the spectrum.

Poemless asks us to look past the "managed democracy" headlines.

Deciding about Afghanistan--what do we do with the Soviet Union's hard-won experience?

"Russian charities hit hard by the recession."

One more Russian item ... on mushrooms.

The Pew Forum: "The 'zeal of the convert': Is it the real deal?"

Margaret Benefiel writes on "soulful leadership in the Republican Party."

"Christian Palestinians are an essential part of the Holy Land solution." A conversation with Elias Chacour.

Quaker time travel ... This item from Ireland Yearly Meeting has been attracting a lot of comment on the friends-theology list.

Gracebase guide to graceful e-mail handling and storage.

And in honor of Ubuntu 9.10 (downloading as I write), Google's Easy Linux Tips for Beginners.

Os Guinness is coming to Reedwood Friends. If there were any practical way, I'd be there.

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Another slice of blues dessert from one of the most memorable slide guitarists (and wonderfully expressive singer): J.B. Hutto. Many thanks to YouTube contributor shrine52.

Odessa blues

Institutional Gothic: The building where the FHM Board met.

Our meeting with AVP facilitators --a dedicated, impressive group! (Natasha and Sergei of FHM staff at right.)

Odessa: Along the route of Streetcar 5.

More of Streetcar 5's route.

Streetcar 5 passes these famous fishers.

The Arkadia boardwalk, off-season.

Train 34, ready to take us back to Moscow.

At the Konotop station in Ukraine --nothing but toys.

Going to and from Odessa these past few days, we were on trains for fifty hours, giving me lots of time for reading--includng a book that Judy gave me for my last birthday, Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us about Suffering and Salvation, by Stephen J. Nichols, published under Baker's Brazos imprint.

Blues music (lyrics included) compresses history, pathos, and ecstasy into deceptively simple packages of sound that go far beyond my ability to analyze with words. I have to admire a scholar who tries! Nichols takes blues lyrics, shows links between them and the Bible (often mediated by the overlapping genre of spirituals), and also reveals how those lyrics reflect the realities of their writers' and performers' lives. Surrounding all these details are two overwhelming realities molding life and art alike: the thick social/political/economic/psychic reality of racism, and the "Christ-haunted" culture of the American South.

I've often wondered how to express the difference between musicians who inhabit the blues, and those who are just visiting. It's not strictly race--as Johnnie Billington says, "The blues is truth," which tells me that its core is universal--but it has something to do with being the one who is consumed rather than doing the consuming. It's not happy trails, it's more like the end of the line. Although the blues musician might lament being alone in the world, the appreciation of his or her music is definitely a communal experience--we've probably all been there, and we feel a bit strange when someone who may not have "been there" tries growling those lyrics.

It's not that the blues is only an expression of passive victimhood--not at all. As Nichols points out in examining Rev. Gary Davis's song "If I Had My Way," in the biblical story, Samson got himself into his predicament. At the end, with God's help he reclaims his strength and tears the building down. Many blues lyrics are blunt about succumbing to addiction and temptation, describing unsentimentally what it's like to be at the end of the line, whether the cause is personal weakness or external oppression, or both. Sometimes the response is resignation; sometimes it's anger; sometimes it's prayer. This is not music for those who can buy their way out of any pickle--but when we drop our facades of self-sufficiency, sooner or later we all confront mortal loss. In the meantime, the blues can give those with choices in this world a sensory sample of what it feels like to be without choices.

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In Odessa, I attended Friends House Moscow's board meetings--my first experience of being back on the board after several years off. Highlights for me included adopting an ambitious English-Russian translation agenda, agreeing to seek funding for a promising new educational initiative for mental health providers, and a warm farewell (for now) to co-clerk Bonnie Grotjahn, who has given many years of loving service to Friends House Moscow, both on the board and, earlier, on the staff.

For me, one of the most inspiring moments was a wonderful Saturday afternoon session with fifteen facilitators from Alternatives to Violence Ukraine. (AVP background; in Russian.) Although AVP deliberately transcends its Quaker roots and is "not allied to a particular faith or sect," we saw that a number of the facilitators have made fertile links between AVP and their own faith. As one facilitator told us, "The principles are very biblical." Another explained how AVP enabled her to respond to the pain she experienced the first time she visited a juvenile detention center. "Afterwards, I could not get the guys' faces out of my mind. I cried for three days." Through her AVP work, she began to see hope in their faces. "Sometimes, progress is very slow, almost invisible. But when I see hope in their eyes, it's as if I'm seeing God."

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Our brief visit left me determined to visit the city of Odessa again. Even though it rained for 3-1/2 of our four days there, the beauty and humor of the city shone through.

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My reading on the train included a Russian Protestant newspaper that someone was selling door-to-door along the length of our train carriage. Having mentioned Obama's Nobel Peace Prize last week, I should report, with as straight a face as possible, that he is now being nominated as the Antichrist. The newspaper columnist (citing this blogger) pointed out that Obama appears to conform to the Russian theologian Vladimir Solovyov's predictions concerning the Antichrist--that he would be a pacifist, an ecologist, and an ecumenist.

So is Obama the Antichrist? We can't know for sure, says the columnist, but "the fact that his policies are antichristian is obvious to any fair-minded observer."

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Just a few links this week:

Christianity Today summarizes Nobel Peace Prize reactions, and other news.

Jon Watts produced the much-commented-upon "Dance Party" video clip--a five-minute serving of quakerly fun that delighted me for the first few seconds, until I listened to the lyrics. In this blog post, Watts reflects on the sudden attention and the mixed reactions he received. Whether you liked the clip or not (I'm afraid my reaction ended up being strongly negative), his thoughts are well worth reading.

ABS in English--"Science fiction by Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky for the English-speaking world." (And more here.)

Challenges facing the Mitchell mission in the Middle East--bitterlemons.org.

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In honor of Gary Davis, here is Peter, Paul, and Mary's version of "If I Had My Way."