







































Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2),  Winter 2021 

Dejean and Kurlberg, Book Review  97 

  

Book Review 

 

Tearfund and the Quest for Faith-Based Development 
By Dena Freeman 

 
Reviewed by Catriona Dejean and Nina Kurlberg 

 
 

 
 

New York: Routledge, 2019, NY: Orbis Press. $26.00 

 

In 2018 Tearfund celebrated its 50-year 

anniversary. To celebrate this significant milestone 

since its birth from the Evangelical Alliance in 1968, 

Tearfund committed to an organizational sabbath and 

embarked upon a year of reflection and introspection 

on its rich history. From responding to the 

humanitarian needs of the Biafra war in Nigeria, to 

being a leading voice on climate change, Tearfund has 

been on a journey of adaptation, learning, and spiritual 

exploration. Dr. Dena Freeman was commissioned in 

2017 to look back over the 50-year history and explore 

how faith has formed and shaped the organization and 

its practice. The research was taken further by Freeman 

into this book. The book is rich and does well to draw 

out some of the tensions and complexity surrounding 

Tearfund’s journey to outwork its faith in practice over 

the years. Yet this review suggests that the author has 

misunderstood what is at the heart of these tensions, 

which has ultimately influenced her analysis. Tearfund 

has always been faith-based, so it is less about a quest 

with an end destination, and more about a journey; one 

that has enabled the organization to navigate the 

complex space between mission and development.    

Through the course of the book Freeman narrates 

a history of Tearfund, with a particular focus on the 

ways in which faith is evidenced in its activities “on the 

ground” (13). Academically, Freeman has situated the 

book within the field of religion and development. As 

such, her analysis of Tearfund is guided by the three 

themes most prevalent within the existing body of 

literature in this field: work that seeks to categorize faith-

based organizations (FBOs) to enable comparison in 

relation both to each other and to so-called secular 

organizations; studies that explore the role of faith in 

faith-based development organizations (FBDOs); and 

research that examines the role of religion in 

development. Freeman aims to “speak into” a gap 

within this body of academic literature by offering an in-

depth analysis of Tearfund as one particular FBDO (3). 

It is one of the first books of its kind within the field of 

religion and development. 

To lay the foundations for her analysis, Freeman 

first provides a brief history of humanitarian and 

development organizations in the UK from as early as 

the nineteenth century leading up to Tearfund’s 

establishment in 1968. She highlights the complex 

dynamics between “Christian social engagement, 

overseas missionary activity, and the growth of secular 

humanitarianism,” noting that these foreshadow many 

of the internal debates that have arisen within the 

organization over the years (19). The following chapter 

surveys Tearfund’s early years, focusing particularly on 

the evolution of its identity through this period from 

being a missionary organization that supported relief 

and development work to becoming the UK’s largest 

evangelical charity. As well as sending personnel 

overseas, by the early 1990s Tearfund was awarding 

grants to missionaries and partner organizations 

through both an Overseas Relief and Development 

Department and an Evangelism and Christian 

Education Department (52). Yet Freeman highlights 

the growing discomfort within the organization during 

this time regarding the separation between the 

“spiritual” and the “material” in its work (57), a theme 

that continues throughout the book. 

Freeman then explores what she sees as the next 

season of the organization’s existence, during which its 

relief and development work underwent a major 

process of professionalization, leading to Tearfund 

gaining increasing respect and recognition within the 

sector. Secularization consequently became its greatest 

risk and from the early 2000s was at the top of the 

Board’s risk register (78). During this period, Tearfund 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2),  Winter 2021 

Dejean and Kurlberg, Book Review  98 

  

also established its advocacy and campaigning work, 

recruited its first theology advisor and adopted the 

framework of integral mission. The final chapters of the 

book describe Tearfund’s efforts to develop and 

mainstream church-centered approaches that 

empowered the local church as the “central actor in 

community development” (138). Freeman views the 

initiatives developed during this time as among the 

more innovative aspects of Tearfund’s work. Yet she 

challenges the extent to which it has been possible to 

implement this approach throughout the organization, 

arguing that it is still wrestling with “fundamental 

questions about how to effectively combine evangelism 

and development, whether it is possible to be a 

mainstream NGO and yet still retain an evangelical 

identity, and what it means to do faith-based 

development” (157). 

Throughout her research and analysis, Freeman 

has brought an “outsider” perspective to Tearfund and 

its work (Merton 1972). This has been incredibly 

valuable and enriching for the organization. Not only 

has it been insightful to get a glimpse of how Tearfund 

is perceived from the outside, and more specifically 

among the academic community, but it has also 

illuminated areas for growth and learning. For example, 

Freeman has shed light on some of the organization’s 

internal narratives, such as how to continue to 

demonstrate impact, balancing risks as an FBDO within 

restricted contexts, and how to leverage church and 

community mobilization processes given they are 

different compared with other development processes. 

Nevertheless, Freeman’s understanding of the 

insider perspective is weak, which has impacted her 

analysis. For example, she does not fully appreciate the 

distinction between “faith” and “religion” and the 

significance of this for an FBO such as Tearfund. 

Although Freeman’s use of these terms within the book 

is referred to in a footnote (17), it is surprising that this 

is not given deeper treatment within the main body of 

the text, particularly bearing in mind the book’s 

emphasis on faith. She seems to have misunderstood 

the question at the root of the internal debates and 

tensions within the organization, which are not at their 

core about how to combine development with 

evangelism, but rather about how the organization can 

more truly express its faith through its work. This might 

appear to be a subtle difference, but it has implications 

for Freeman’s analysis. 

As is clear from her framing of the book, Freeman 

views the dominant feature of Tearfund’s most recent 

decade as being its efforts to become a distinctively 

evangelical FBO, having been established as a 

missionary organization and gradually evolving to 

become a well-respected development NGO. From 

Freeman’s perspective, Tearfund’s struggle to combine 

evangelism and development, noted above, has been 

the common thread running through each of these 

three stages. Yet from Tearfund’s perspective, the 

common thread has been the question of how to live 

out its faith as an organization. This journey has led to 

the adoption of “integral mission.” While Freeman 

views integral mission as the organization’s attempt to 

combine “evangelism and development into one 

integrated activity” (156), Tearfund understands it in 

this way: 

 

Mission is more than just verbal evangelism 

plus social action. It does not just bring two 

types of missional activity together. Rather 

mission is our participation in God’s mission 

to redeem and restore the world, seeking the 

kingdom and its justice in all spheres of life. In 

our mission we take Jesus Christ as our 

example, understanding that his incarnation 

reveals the Father’s love, justice and kingdom 

to us in every aspect of his life and ministry – 

in his words, his deeds and his character. We 

also believe that by becoming a part of the 

Body of Christ and being shaped by this 

relationship we learn how to follow in his 

footsteps and participate in the mission of 

God. (Tearfund 2016) 

 

 In other words, integral mission should lead to a 

focus on “being,” from which all “doing” flows, and on 

a move away from a body-spirit dualism that categorizes 

activities as either “material” or “spiritual.” Through the 

lens of integral mission, it is not possible to isolate 

activities from the beliefs and motivations that underpin 

them. Indeed, Tearfund’s participation in God’s 

mission to seek justice in all spheres of life might result 

in the organization carrying out the same activities as so-

called secular organizations, since from this perspective 

working to enable communities to access clean water is 

not simply a social or material action, but one that is 

deeply spiritual (c.f. 139). While the outsider 

perspective is valuable, deeper interaction between the 

outsider and insider perspectives would have 

strengthened the analysis within the book. 

One of the questions that Freeman sets out to 

address concerns whether and how Tearfund’s faith 

impacts its practice. Yet what is distinctive about 

Tearfund’s practice is the nature of the questions 

underlying its decision-making, which are rooted in its 

faith. It is this continual, faith-based questioning and 

wrestling that has brought into being those aspects of 

the organization’s work that Freeman has assessed as 

innovative, while at the same time enabling it to 

continue carrying out aspects she would label “secular.” 

It is faith that has enabled the organization to hold those 

two supposedly contradictory elements of its work in 

tension – although this has not always been easy. 



Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy 2(2),  Winter 2021 

Dejean and Kurlberg, Book Review  99 

  

  The critique is but minor, for this is a well-written 

book and an excellent addition to the literature within 

the field. One of its main contributions lies in the 

questions it raises, both for Tearfund and for other 

FBOs. It also brings a challenge to the academic 

community in relation to the focus of its research on 

FBDOs; as Freeman notes, academia needs to be more 

in tune with their reality. She writes: “As the detailed 

historical and contextual analysis of this book has 

shown, many of the questions and assumptions of this 

literature have little to do with the reality of actual faith-

based development organizations” (163). 

Tearfund was born out of evangelical Christian 

roots, with faith being part of its DNA from the start. As 

an organization it has continued to grapple with what it 

means to be a biblically and Christ-centered 

organization. To assume that there is an end goal to the 

quest, as the title would imply, is misleading. Tearfund’s 

journey has seen global and local expressions and 

outworkings of faith with churches, partners and 

networks. If the organization had not, and does not 

continue to grapple with its faith identity, then it could 

risk becoming irrelevant in a dynamic and ever-

changing world. Tearfund’s difference lies in its ability 

to sit in the gap between mission and development; and 

for that it must continue to learn, grow, and adapt. 

 

References 

 

Merton, Robert K. 1972. “Insiders and Outsiders: A 

Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge.” American 

Journal of Sociology 78(1): 9-47. 

Tearfund. 2016. Tearfund’s Theology of Mission. 

Tearfund internal document. 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catriona Dejean is the Strategy and Impact Director for 

Tearfund. She has also worked on strategy and 

development programs for World Vision, as a 

social enterprise consultant, and as an 

environmental consultant in the private sector. She 

is a Board member of the Joint Learning Initiative 

on Local Faith Communities, and Intrac, both in 

the UK. 

 

Author email:  catriona.dejean@tearfund.org   
 

 

Nina Kurlberg is Tearfund’s Theology Development 

Officer, with a focus on Diversity and Inclusion. She 

is in the final year of a PhD at the University of 

Edinburgh (School of Divinity / Business School), 

where she also works as a senior tutor in research 

methods at the School of Social and Political 

Science. 

 

Author email:  nina.kurlberg@tearfund.org   
 

 

about:blank

