Dave Andrews - Excommunication, Reflection, Action

Excommunication, Reflection, Action

Andrews was excommunicated from Youth With A Mission by their International Council. The reasoning, according to Andrews, was that "I was a rebel and, as an unrepentant rebel, would be summarily excommunicated," and that "it 'was what the Lord told' them to do." Andrews described the aftermath as devastating: "I became suicidal because all the significant people I turned to denounced me, no one else would speak to me, and the people who had promised to protect me ended up having psychological breakdowns. One guy was taken away to an asylum." 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.