Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish Protestant Movement, 1961-2016 (Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies) - Hardcover

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James Bultema, a graduate of Wheaton College (BA), Denver Seminary (MDiv), and ETF Leuven (PhD in Theology and Religious Studies), lived in Turkey from 1990 until 2025. He was the founding pastor of two international churches and the leading founder of other entities and ministries. While he has published several articles and chapters, this is his first monograph. Intrigued by the intersection of religious freedom and Christian mission, he is planning a sequel to this book that will be focused on the Turkish Protestant movement from 2016 to 2026. He is currently a postdoctoral affiliated researcher with ETF Leuven, mission mentor, writer, and speaker, living with his wife Renata in Málaga, Spain. They have three married children and one granddaughter—all close in spirit, but, alas, not in space.

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This open access volume provides an absorbing analysis of the multifaceted mission that gave rise to the Turkish Protestant movement. James Bultema identifies and investigates four central factors that have contributed to the movement’s development: religious freedom, missionary activity, interdependent choice, and plausibility structures. He explores the complex interplay of these factors, drawing upon an array of qualitative interviews and historical studies to decipher the movement’s first 55 years.

By means of hermeneutics and abductive reasoning, Bultema teases out his argument that imperfect but sufficient religious freedom created a fertile foundation for the growth of mostly tiny Turkish Protestant churches that were countercultural and vulnerable, but also vitally interconnected. His work 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 a most extensive 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—winner of the Science Award on Religious Freedom 2026 from the Freie Theologische Hochschule (FTH) Gießen.