Cecil Andrews
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Cecil Andrews (born Belfast, 1946) is the founder of Take Heed Ministries, a fundamentalist Christian organisation based in Ballynahinch, Northern Ireland.
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[edit] Biography
Cecil Andrews was born in Belfast. He was educated at Methodist College, a grammar school in Belfast, leaving in 1963 (aged 17) with 'A' Levels in French, German and Latin. He did not attend university. Instead, he worked in business for most of his life. He was a Building Society Branch Manager in Portadown when he underwent a religious conversion in 1984. Soon afterwards, he moved to Belfast to manage a Building Society Branch Office in city, resigning in 1989 to pursue full-time religious work. He has no formal qualifications in theology, nor has he ever studied theology at any college or university, and his ministry is financed entirely through donations from supporters.
[edit] Take Heed Ministries
Cecil Andrews founded Take Heed Ministries on 1 September 1992. The organisation takes its name from a text in the Bible, in which Jesus Christ warns his disciples to "take heed that no man deceive you" (Matthew 24:4). Prior to the foundation of the ministry, Andrews was involved with the Breda Centre, a ministry in Belfast founded by Jim McCormick focused on responding to religious cults and the occult. After the death of Jim McCormick in 1989, Andrews determined to continue his work. Take Heed Ministries was the outcome. He continued to be involved with the Breda Centre as a "cult consultant" until March 1999. Since then, Andrews has worked solely on Take Heed Ministries.
In July 1993, Andrews responded to an invitation from the Slavic Gospel Association, and spent two weeks lecturing on cults at a summer youth camp in Poland. This partnership produced other invitations. In 1995 he lectured in Slovakia for 11 days on the "New Age Movement" in four separate towns across the country. In January 1998, he gave lectures on cults in Romania to trainee pastors/church planters.
He was a vociferous opponent of the "Toronto Blessing," which he regarded as an "epidemic." He spoke at gatherings in Ireland, Scotland, England and elsewhere outlining objections to the events surrounding that spiritual movement.
In October 1997, he became the first speaker at a new Bible Conference hosted by Reformed Bible Church in Vermont, U.S.
During that same visit to the U.S., he spoke against Roman Catholicism (which he regards as an anti-Christian cult) at the first "Ex-Catholics for Christ" conference in Los Angeles. The keynote speakers at one event included John MacArthur and Dave Hunt.
He has often used the letters page of the Belfast Telegraph to challenge those whose theology he disputes in Northern Irish culture.
[edit] Creationism
Andrews believes in the literal truth of the book of Genesis's account of creation in six days. He is a young earth creationist who argues that the universe is thousands, rather than billions of years old. In 2002 he helped organise a tour of Northern Ireland by the American creationist Roger Oakland. Afterwards, Andrews mailed a creationist video of Oakland to all 659 MPs in the Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster. Only four MPs responded in writing.
[edit] Theological beliefs
- Fundamentalist Christianity.
- Five points of Calvinism.
- Anti-Catholicism: he regards the Catholic faith as a non-Christian cult and regards any Protestant prepared to associate with Catholics in ministry as either apostates or non-Christians.
- Young Earth Creationism: Andrews staunchly opposes evolutionism and Darwinism and argues for a literal reading of the book of Genesis.
- Opposition to Charismatic renewal movements within Christianity
- A defender of Penal Substitutionary atonement theology. He regards this as definitionally Christian. Any "professing Christian" who rejects this account of the atonement is, in Andrews's view, a non-Christian.
- King James Only-ism: the view that the Authorised Version of the Bible (or King James Bible) is the only version appropriate for use by Christians in their personal biblical study and by churches in their corporate ministry.
- Opposition to homosexuality: He regards homosexuality in practice as a sin and in orientation as a fundamental temptation to be resisted. He rejects the idea of a "gay Christian" as contradictory to the Bible and argues that gay and lesbian people who profess Christian faith are "probably not" born again."
- Subordination of women: he believes the Bible prescribes that women should be subject to the governance of their husbands in domestic affairs and opposes any role for women in the teaching ministry or leadership of the church.
- Teetotalism: Andrews believes Christians should abstain from alcohol.
- Cult watching: he monitors and preaches about cults and sects of every kind within society (e.g., Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostalism, Charismatic Christianity, Postmodernism, etc.)
- The writings and teaching ministry of John F. MacArthur are a major inspiration to Andrews's work.
- Rejecting fellowship with apostasy: he refuses to associate in prayer, fellowship or ministry with anyone he regards as a non-Christian or an apostate.
[edit] Theologial vigilance
Cecil Andrews's ministry involves monitoring new developments within Christianity, particularly as it relates to evangelicalism in Northern Ireland. He publishes files on his website. He applies a conservative, arguably fundamentalist, definition of Christianity in order to determine whether a particular person is a true Christian. Thus he has attacked the theology of C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham and Tony Campolo as "unfaithful" to the witness of scripture. He opposes the Billy Graham organisation's mission tours because Graham has associated with Catholics and compromised on the exclusive claims of Christ (quoting from Billy Graham interviews with Robert Schuller and David Frost) in the furtherance of his evangelistic work.
He has also challenged Belfast Bible College as an institution which has, in practice, abandoned its declared evangelical Doctrinal Basis.
