Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, 2007

hat it ‘did misery really well’. 20 Lithuanian cultural heritage is rooted in melancholic, monotonous tunes and restrained harmony, which also should 18 ‘Eik drasiai keliu jau pradetu’, in Giesmin vainikas. No. 198. ‘You” is singular, which would reflect the majority of the songs. 19 I explore some of these tendencies in greater detail in ‘As Songs Turn into Life and Life into Songs’. 20 Private conversation with Jeff Sutheran, a leading member of the community, Prague, 22 May 2006. For more on the Community see their website, http://www.northumbriacommunity.org/. 30 Journal of European Baptist Studies make us naturally ‘do misery well’. That quality, however, is virtually nonexistent in our translated Baptist songs; even where words speak of pain and affliction, they are accompanied by cheery or methodical Anglo- American or German tunes. Both consciously and subconsciously, we have been reinforcing our ‘negative identity’—being ‘not-Catholic’, where, of course, use of folk motifs happens quite freely. Thus the challenge of the continuous struggle with the reality of suffering extends to songs in their entirety; not only words but music; not only music as it is written but also the way it is actually sung. 22 Thus, a conclusion would seem to be at hand: we need to be prepared to deal with that difficult recognition of the reality and indeed necessity of suffering. It is difficult, but doable, as is demonstrated by many an instance in Christian history when the calling to be the nation of strangers has been embodied, even at the price of becoming the calling away from the mission for the people in the midst of where they live, with the chosen strangers focusing on their non-belonging and on suffering per se. Yet this is where 1 Peter is not listened to carefully enough: for what this calling to become a people of strangers means is that it liberates them from conforming to the stagnating, shackling patterns (‘desires’ - 1:14; or ‘futile ways of the ancestors’ - 1:18) of the world so that they might engage that very world, ‘the Gentiles’. It is in that engagement that suffering becomes transformative and redemptive, coloured in the light of what is yet to come. The followers of Christ embody the future that the world has with God; they become part of the new age which started with the bursting of the tomb on that Resurrection day. 2 ’ It is for that, rather than any other reason that Peter can say, ‘Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called - that you might inherit a blessing’ (3:9). 21 Russian hymnody presents an interesting case. Traditionally, the majority of songs, both in the larger Russian culture as well in the church, have been set in the minor key, naturally communicating the element of soberness and struggle. My observations of the dynamics of the Russian-background churches within the Lithuanian Bap