This year we are going to -celebrate the 1700th anniversary of Armenian Christianity. Since Christianity was established in our homeland through the evangelizing thrust of the apostles first, and then by St. Gregory the Illuminator and King Tiridates of Armenia, the Arme-nian Evangelical World Council and the Unions of the Armenian Evangelical churches world wide are making plans to re-evangelize our people and to rekindle among them the Christian faith and life for the glory of God and the spiritual renewal of our nation. The re-evangelizing plans and efforts should involve and enthuse not only us, the Evangelicals, -but all Armenian churches, be they Apostolic or Catholics. Our ardent desire is that our Mother Church take the lead in this timely and most important venture. Proclaiming the gospel of salvation anew must be considered the primary and most important objective of our anniversary celebrations. All other concerns should be regarded secondary. If our nation should be looked at as the first Christian nation in the world, all observers of the forthcoming celebrations must be able to testify to our Christian -faith and life. The spiritual revival of our nation should be considered a top-most national concern, because, we believe that the security and prosperity of our homeland ultimately depend on its people¹s Christian faith and praxis.

What is evangelism? Briefly stated, evangelism means to tell others of the gospel (good news) of salvation through Jesus Christ. It calls for repentance from our past sinful life in order to receive forgiveness through God¹s grace in Jesus Christ. In short, it means shedding everything that binds us to our old selves and to be transformed into new beings in the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. The author and the activator of this good news of salvation is not a human being, not even the church, but God himself This means that neither a human being, nor an institution (church) has the right to transform the gospel into philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or political and social ideology. The gospel of salvation cannot be divided, subtracted, or added upon if it is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is always new and has the power to renew all humans, defying all man-made traditions. Furthermore, this gospel is not and cannot be mo-nopolized by any church denomination, be it Catholic, Orthodox, Apostolic, or Protestant. Neither can it be stored up and safeguarded by a person or institution.

The second big question is how can we evangelize in this post-Christian era, and specifically, to our Armenian Christian nation? How can we "sell" the gospel of Jesus Christ to a people who are proud of being the first to accept Christianity as a state religion? Here, we are not talking about the ways and manners of evangelizing. The word "relevance" may jump into our minds; how can we show the relevance of the gospel to our Armenian ethos? Can we make the gospel of Jesus Christ talk to us through our two thousand years of Christian history? Can we look back and see if God has done anything good in the life of our nation and people? What about the rise and fall of our two kingdoms in Eastern and Western Arme-nia? Can we throw a long glance at the immediate past history of our people ‹ the last one hundred years - and talk about God¹s loving kindness to those who believe in him and worship him? The Turkish atrocities against our people with the intent of wiping us out from the face of the earth, and the 70 years of "Babylonian exile" of our compatriots in Armenia under the Soviet atheistic rule have deeply alienated us from the God of our Christian forefathers. Will our evangelism do any good to help our people reconcile with God? During the Turkish massacres in Cilicia, in 1909, which lasted less than two weeks and claimed 30,000 innocent victims, one of our most venerable Catholicos, Sahag Khabaian, cried pitifully saying, "I cannot believe in a God who permitted such atrocities."

This Editorial does not deal with the political, ethical, and legal implications of the Armenian Genocide leaving them to authorities and experts in those areas. There is no doubt that the Genocide also left subsequent generations with quandaries of a reli-gious nature. How could God allow such atrocities to be inflicted upon a people who had become the first nation to accept Christianity as its state religion? Will our evangelism be able to heal this national trauma?

We have no pretensions that our evangelism will bring a great reversal in the attitude of our people towards God. However, we must remember that Jesus Christ and his gospel of salvation are, and must be, -the essence of our evangelism, and the Holy Spirit its motivating and persuading factor. Our evangelism will make a difference among our people if we, the evangelizers, remain faithful to our calling and to the integrity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. After stating this, I do firmly believe that a contextual evangelism can be more effective and meaningful to many of our compatriots who remain indifferent in matters of faith and religion because of the tragedies that our people went through throughout its history. Today, more then ever, we need biblical Deutronomic and prophetic historians and redactors who, under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, will produce a Christian interpretation of our national history. We need today Armenian Christian historians - like Movses Khorenatzi, Yeghishe Vartabed (5th c.), Nerses Shnorhali (12th c.), and Giragos Kantzagetzi (13th c.) to mention only few, - in order to minimize the impact of Marxist, materialistic, and ultra-nationalist interpretations of our history.

I am aware of the dangers of contextual evange-lism and of the pitfalls of relativism and situationalism that may narrow our evangelism down and make it subservient to national and cultural cause and interest. However, we must take this risk as God himself did by revealing himself within the life and culture of the nation of Israel. When we evangelize our people, the gospel of Jesus Christ should touch the psyche of each Armenian to remind him/her of our Christian heritage, millions of saintly martyrs, and the need of our nation¹s spiritual revival. We must let God speak in Armenian and to Armenians, to make his gospel relevant and meaningful in all the areas of our national life and consciousness.

May the 1700th anniversary of the Armenian Christianity be a turning point for us, Armenian Evangelicals, to realize that we need to know more of the history of our people, its culture, of its religious experience, and the past and present struggles of our Mother Church - where she succeeded and where she failed - in order to make our evangelism more fruitful for the kingdom of God and for the spiritual re-vival of our nation.

Note; Rev. Barkev N. Darakjian is a retired minister with the Armenian Evangelical Union of North America and the past editor of The FORUM.