Faith & Freedom

By Tom Terry

Book Overview

Is the Great Commission apolitical? "Faith & Freedom" links the missionary principle to movements of freedom and democracy around the world; and shows how missionary leads to political freedom. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1597817252
• ISBN13: 9781597817257
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Xulon Press
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Great historic cause-and-effect link

People often don't reckon with the way ideas have consequences in history these days. Tom Terry has done an excellent job of showing the idea connection between Christian missionary evangelism and the development of government forms that embrace reasonable freedoms for the peoples governed. This book is a refreshing blast of clarity in a culture steeped in a "political corectness" that cannot deal honestly or rationally with the cause-and-effect consequences of different worldviews. Terry has done an awesome job of connecting the dots historically and epistemologically--dots that desperately need to be connected in order to make sense of what is happening not only in modern church missions, but in the world at large. Great book!

A new paradigm for the redeemed

Rarely does a book grab your mind and shake it like a rag doll, yet leave you agreeing from the outset because the concept seems so obvious. This book will challenge your preconceptions about faith and freedom. The church in America seems to have forgotten what our American forefathers instinctively, and experientially, knew: Freedom without a foundation of faith in God is no freedom at all. The Bible says that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Apparently, then, where the Spirit of the Lord isn't, there is bondage. Tom has lived in many countries of the world and has seen the connection between faith and freedom. I encourage you to read this book more than a few times. Mr. Terry's insight goes against main stream thinking, and a mighty bravo for that. Rarely do I read a book anymore that makes me really think. This one does.

Clear Thinking, Solid Research--A Really Good Book

Good writing is the product of clear thinking and solid research. Tom Terry's Faith & Freedom: How the missionary principle facilitates political freedom is good writing. Tom Terry knows his subject from decades of field work, but he was not content with basing his book on his own experiences. Terry dug deep and wide to gather his information; but even beyond that, he surveyed hundreds of other missionaries. Tom Terry is an astute observer-of human nature and of cultural efforts to corral and harness it. In Faith & Freedom, Tom Terry uses his own missionary experiences-particularly his roller-coaster struggles with the Mongolian government-as a jumping-off point to explore the unavoidable foundational topic within missionary work: Is it wrong-or even impossible-for Christian missionaries to spread the gospel without also spreading seeds of democratic government? Terry argues eloquently that (Christian) faith and human freedom are so inextricably connected that no culture can for long have one without the other. On the one side, Terry points to post-Christian (postmodern) cultures that are desperately trying to cling to their freedom, but are losing ground because they have abandoned the faith. On the other side he sees militant Islamic cultures ready to kill for their faith, but succumbing to the oppression that utterly resists freedom. (But he doesn't just take on Islamists; he also shows the many failures Christianity endured when its leaders tried to impose the faith on the culture.) Terry argues for a "free market" in which all faiths and philosophies compete equally. He believes that in such a "market" Christianity flourishes and the citizens benefit. Tom Terry's advice to Christian leaders-and political leaders who happen to be Christians-is not to fight for Christianity, but to fight for the freedom in which Christianity thrives.