on the death of Boris Yeltsin

If the words Boris Yeltsin, Russia, freedom, democracy, Bill Clinton, and Christianity appear to you to be an unlikely combination of words, consider the following email I received today from the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (another seemingly unlikely combination of words, not associated with the Southern Baptist Convention), abbreviated to save some space:

April 24, 2007
A reflection on Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton and religious liberty

By Carolyn Staley*

I have just read the news about the death today of Boris Yeltsin. It brought to mind a conversation that Bill Clinton related to me about a meeting he had with Yeltsin in 1994 -- a meeting during which he shared his faith with Yeltsin.

I was in Russia in January 1994 when President Clinton's mother, Virgina Clinton Kelley, died. [Staley was a soprano soloist for the Verdi "Requiem Mass." Detailed summary of how she got to Russia omitted. ]

About a week later, the president traveled to Russia, . . . Sarah Caldwell took a chamber orchestra to Moscow to perform for Clinton. . ., and I sang a group of American hymns with them to honor Clinton's visit and his mother's memory.

After the concert, Clinton asked me to please come by the hotel where his staff was staying in Moscow, so that we might visit for a while about his mother's funeral after an official trip to Yeltsin's dacha for dinner earlier that evening. . . Clinton told me that Yeltsin asked him many questions about how a democratic society worked. . . .

When I met with Clinton, he shared with me an account from dinner that evening. . . . He said that during dinner, Yeltsin leaned over to him and asked, "You're a Christian, aren't you?"

"Yes," President Clinton answered. "My faith is the most important thing in my life."

"Well, I have to do something about all these Christians coming to Russia. They are ruining our country [because the Russian Orthodox Church was threatened with demise]. Everyone is becoming a new Christian, a born-again Christian, and they are being rebaptized and putting crosses around their necks. It is ruining our country's culture."

President Clinton told me he looked at Yeltsin and said, "Democracy doesn't work that way. Either you're free or you're not. You can't have it both ways. You need to allow Christians the freedom to come into your country and preach and teach, and you have to allow the Russian people the freedom to choose their faith."

I thought to myself, "what a remarkable exchange. . . Clinton may very well have helped keep the doors to Russia open for Christians and the spread of Christianity beyond Russian Orthodoxy. President and also advocate for religious liberty." . . .

I have often wondered what might have been if Clinton and Yeltsin hadn't formed a warm friendship that allowed Yeltsin to ask such questions of Clinton as he did about his faith. . .

" The Rev. Carolyn Staley is an advocate of religious liberty, a longtime Baptist Joint Committee supporter and the minister of education at Pulaski Heights Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark.