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As of 2022, the Azerbaijani body of Christ is still a small minority (less than 0.2% of the 10 million) in a nation dominated by Islam, statism/ secular humanism, and widespread corruption. Yet Azeri pastors and missionaries to AZ describe a season of unprecedented religious freedom in the country. Many Azerbaijani believers are now courageously taking the message of hope and salvation through trust in İsa Məsih (Jesus the Messiah) to the rest of the country and beyond. As cultural and linguistic insiders, they are doing this much more effectively than foreign missionaries.
“What must I do to be saved?” Every day more and more Azerbaijani people are hearing from their friends, neighbors, co-workers and relatives the truth about “what must an Azerbaijani do to be saved?” Yet there remains a significant void when it comes to the logical next question: “What must a saved Azerbaijani do?” What must a saved Azerbaijani father, mother, child, businessman, teacher, baker, politician, lawyer, doctor or neighbor do? These are some of the most important questions which the global church has wrestled with over the centuries, and on which great progress has been made, especially from the historical Reformation. Much of the fruit of this progress, unfortunately, never reached places like Azerbaijan. It is this void that the work of ARM seeks to fill.
In addition, Azerbaijani families currently lack good and God-honoring options for educating the next generation, their children, in a biblical world and life view. Since 2019, Azerbaijani public schools began to teach mandatory religion classes which promote a rather mild (not fanatical) form of Islam. Moreover, the quality of education is notoriously poor. This is a major concern for almost all Azerbaijani parents. But what are the alternatives? For Azerbaijanis the option of homeschooling, let alone other private and Christ-centered education options, are yet to be pioneered.
A civilization is built on the books it reads. Ideas, relationships, culture, sermons, news, arts, politics, ways of thinking and living – they don’t appear by themselves, rather they are the product of the ideologies present in a society. And these ideologies come from a few thinkers formed and wrote in books for others, typically millions of others, to learn from. So, to understand a civilization, read its prominent books.
And if you want to build a new civilization, produce the books for it.
America was established as a Christian civilization largely on the basis of the books of the Reformation which shaped the thinking of the early settlers. Everything they did – their communities, their laws, their business practices, political actions, etc. – had an intellectual foundation, a foundation of knowledge to which they could always refer when they needed an answer to a question. Though much of America is ignorant or resentful of this heritage of a Biblical worldview, without that foundation of knowledge, the America we know would never have been created.
By contrast, Central Asia never had the foundation of knowledge that America had. The Reformation never reached it, and the heirs of the Reformation never reached it. Central Asia does have Protestant churches, and it has certainly seen its share of Western missionaries. Yet despite much good that has been accomplished, so far they have been unable to start a significant revival, let alone build a comprehensive Christian culture among Azerbaijanis. There is a reason for this lack of widespread success: there is no widely available foundation of knowledge.
This is the vision and work of Azerbaijani Reformation Ministries. We are busy creating that Christian foundation of knowledge so that Azerbaijani speakers will have the books that teach the application of the Word of God to every area of man’s life and society. Starting from the Reformation, all the way to our days, authors have worked on how a Christian is supposed to live, both individually and collectively, in obedience to his Lord and Savior. With God’s blessing we will provide the best of these resources to Azerbaijanis.
We at ARM are trusting God for a future Christian civilization in Azerbaijan and beyond (e.g. for the ~30 million Azerbaijani speakers in Iran). We want to give missionaries, pastors, entrepreneurs, activists, educators, parents, evangelists, and laymen the tools for success in their task of manifesting the Kingdom of God, making the culture submit to Jesus Christ and acknowledge Him as King of kings and Lord of lords.
This is not a short-term project. Such a foundation of knowledge will require many thousands of pages, carefully and patiently translated, edited, and published. Related to the long-term vision of building a Kingdom culture, ARM also seeks to catalyze and support private, Christ-centered education (e.g. homeschooling, co-ops etc) for Azerbaijani believing families as an alternative to the state-controlled schools. All this will take years of teaching and learning. It won’t happen overnight.
But it must be done.