Free Enough to Grow

Free Enough to Grow provides an absorbing analysis of the multifaceted mission that gave rise to the Turkish Protestant movement. Delving into four central factors—religious freedom, missionary activity, religious choice, and plausibility structures—that have shaped the movement’s development, author James Bultema draws upon an array of qualitative interviews, historical research, and thematic analysis to decipher the movement’s first 55 years. Bultema explores the complex interplay of these factors, using hermeneutics and abductive reasoning to tease out his argument that imperfect but sufficient religious freedom created a fertile foundation for the growth of countercultural, vulnerable Turkish Protestant churches. In doing so, Bultema contributes an intriguing case study on the complicated give-and-take of Christian mission and religious freedom in a Muslim-majority context, an original framework of interrelating conceptual constructs, and an impressive mission history of the Turkish Protestant movement. Students of Turkey and mission and scholars of religious studies, missiology, and modern Christianity, be sure to engage with a rewarding reading of Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish Protestant Movement, 1961-2016.