Book Review: ‘Not Religion, but Love’, by Dave Andrews (Lion Publishing, 2001).

Twenty-five years ago Walter Brueggemann published his classic ‘The Prophetic Imagination’ (Fortress Press, 1978), in which he said there are two ways to relate to the poor. They can be disempowered/ignored by religious or political regimes; or empowered by the word of the Lord through prophets.

Dave Andrews is a prophet who, with his wife Ange and family, practises what Brueggemann preaches. I met Dave when I was speaking at a church on the edge of the city of Brisbane, Australia. My topic: ‘The Church and Social Justice.’ Talking with him I wondered why they’d asked me to come from Melbourne when someone was doing justice right on their doorstep!

This is Dave’s third book. His previous work, ‘Christi-Anarchy’ (Lion 1999)

created quite a storm.

Dave says we should ‘do mission’ the way Jesus did. Using Jesus’ Manifesto for mission in Luke 4 as his starting-point, he is highly critical of religious institutions’ organizing for mission but missing the point. It is easy to systematize doctrine (and sometimes not cooperate with others who also follow Jesus but do not believe what we believe) or behaviour – into creeds and constitutions respectively – which all helps us feel better about not actually relating to people on the margins the way Jesus did.

The book is filled with stories about how it’s done – sometimes with very difficult people (like Rita, who was so dysfunctional after spending half her life in psychiatric institutions, but was able eventually to respond to the love of a young Christian woman). The purpose of mission is to empower people to change in the context of loving Christian relationships.

This book will move you out of your comfort-zone. It’s one of the first from an evangelical publisher to use the ‘f’ word (in context). Dave calls us to empathy – feeling what others feel. He invites us to remember the basis on which we will all be judged – the way we treated those considered ‘least’.

Gotta go, to visit a single mum and her daughter who’ve just moved in to the Housing Commission flat around the corner.

Rowland Croucher

John Mark Ministries

http://jmm.aaa.net.au

February 2002