Dave Andrews

David Frank Andrews (born 20 May 1951) is an Australian Christian anarchist author, speaker, social activist, community worker, and a key figure in the Waiters' Union, an inner city Christian community network working with Aboriginals, refugees and people with disabilities in Brisbane, Australia. Andrews has been an educator at large for TEAR Australia, a Christian international aid and development agency; a teacher for Christian Heritage College; and a trainer for the Community Praxis Cooperative. He has been described as a "prophet" by both Mike Riddell and Rowland Croucher. Andrews is married to wife Ange and the father of Evonne and Navi and grandfather of Lila and Kaedin, Jaxon and Leonardo. Andrews is currently a full-time career for his wife who has dementia. In 1973, Dave and Ange and their friends started a residential community called Dilaram in New Delhi and then in 1975 started another intentional community called Aashiana out of which grew Sahara, Sharan and Sahasee–three well-known Christian community organisations working with slum dwellers, sex workers, drug addicts, and people with HIV/AIDS. Present in that country at the time of the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, Andrews helped protect Sikhs from the backlash that ensued through non-violent intervention. David Engwicht claims that Andrews and a friend "put themselves between an armed mob and a Sikh family and saved them from certain death." Andrews and his wife were forced to leave that year.

Excommunication, Reflection, Action

Andrews was excommunicated by the International Council of Youth with a Mission who had acquired Dilaram.a Andrews has stated that he and his wife committed themselves to a creative, constructive course of reflection and action and experienced "a profound level of healing" over the next five to ten years. Andrews also developed his distinctive approach to Christianity which he called "Christi-Anarchy", which critiqued top-down hierarchical structures and advocated bottom-up self-managed other-orientated Christ-like community development processes.

The West End Waiters' Union Dave and Ange returned to Australia with their daughters Evonne and Navi, they were employed by Queensland Baptist Care.

Empathic Interfaith Engagement After 9/11 exploded Andrews became alarmed at the way Christians were demonising Muslims in the lead up to invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. So he went to the local mosque and said ‘Christians, Muslims and Jews all believe Abraham is the father of our faith, and we all believe our God is the God of Abraham. So rather than let the press play us off against each other, why don’t we show our unity by coming together for prayer. And to start that process, why don’t I come and pray with you at the mosque on Friday?’ Sure, they said. So he did. They started by deciding to simply fast and pray together during Ramadan and invite Christians and Muslims to break the fast by eating a meal together to talk to each other about what prayer and fasting meant to them. This was the beginning of a series of empathic interfaith engagements they organized on the basis of four common sacred beliefs: That there is only One God - The God of Abraham; 2. That Our God is a God of Mercy and Grace; That God is bigger than our religions and can speak to us through one another’s traditions; And last but least, that all truth is God’s truth, regardless of who speaks it, and we need to hear it.

Over the last few years Andrews fasted and prayed during Ramadan with his Muslim friends and, based on those conversations, he has written two collections of Christian-Muslim interfaith reflections. One is on the Bismillah- ‘Bismillahi r Rahman r Rahim’ - the invocation at the beginning of each sura in the Qur'an, which encourages us to work ‘In the name of God the most merciful, most gracious and most compassionate". The other is on Isa (or Jesus) whom Andrews and Amath believe embodies the Spirit of the Bismillah, and whose Be-Attitudes in the Beatitudes provide the framework for all their work.

The Jihad Of Jesus Within the context of his community work in which he connected regularly within interfaith networks, Andrews' interactions within the Muslim community led to a great deal of concern about the rising tide of anti-Islamic sentiment. Not content to simply sit and be uninformed, he spent significant time in study and in intentional conversation with Muslims, seeking to understand the true heart of his Islamic neighbours religion. The outcome of this work resulted in The Jihad of Jesus (2015).