H. C. Phillips
The mission at Nelspruit was planted by Mr H C Phillips, a pioneer missionary of the Elim Foursquare Gospel Church in England which in its day had been founded by the Pentecostal evangelist, George Jeffries. H C Phillips was a slightly built man, dark-haired with a neatly trimmed moustache, a clerical air about him and a quizzical way of cocking his head to one side when he spoke. He was a distant relative of Sir Lionel Phillips, at one time a notable figure in South African history. H C Phillips cleared the ground, built the church and house for the mission, founded a printing press and a tract society which operated from the mission, and he was the leader of the Emmanuel Mission which he founded in Nelspruit. His manner was gentlemanly, soft-spoken and reticent, but nobody who achieved what he did is without an element of steel in his disposition. People who tried to work with him found him inflexible, testy and difficult. He was a good General Chairman of the Assemblies of God. and the African ministers respected him hugely as a fair-minded English gentleman, which indeed he was.
My First General Conference of the Assemblies of God
The Congress on Mission and Evangelism held in Durban
W F P Burton and some Congo Missionaries
Nicholas
Bekinkosi Hepworth Bhengu
– His Youthful Dreams
– His Preaching
- Bhengu
and Education
- Bhengu and Money
- Miraculous Experiences
- Spiritual Happenings
- The Sanctifying Spirit
of God
– His Departure
Bhengu’s “Isinthunzi”
- Government and Politics
– Some Faults, Virtues and the Burden
of His Heart
President Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana
William
Frederick Mullan
The Fairview Assembly
Fred Mullan and the Gifts of the Spirit
A Miracle and a Vision
The Revival in Norwood
James E Mullan
Paul O Lange
William Branham in Durban
Oral Roberts in South Africa
Billy
Graham in Salisbury and Durban
The American Missionaries from Springfield, Missouri
C. Austin Chawner and the Portuguese Work
August Kast and the Mount Tabor Mission Station
Colin
La Foy and the Coloured Leadership
The Work in Zimbabwe
Mauritius and Reunion Island
Special
Answers to Prayer – 1
Special
Answers to Prayer – 2
A Beautiful Square with Good Vibes
Prayer and the Hippie Revival
The Young Turks
Tensions within the Group
The Split
of 1981 – Part One
The Split
of 1981 – Part Two
The Beginnings of the Faith Movement in South Africa
The Statement of September 1989
The Charismatic Renewal
The Start of the Pentecostal Revival World Wide and The Swedish Pentecostal Assemblies
Epilogue
APPENDIX 1 : How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit
APPENDIX 2 : The National Church by Nicholas Bhengu
APPENDIX 3 : Article from the Argus 5/02/1981
APPENDIX 4 : Pointers to the future of the Assemblies of God in the New South Africa (10/06/94)
C. A. CHAWNER & HC PHILIPS
He tried to understand the Africans he served, and I suppose he really
thought that he did understand them. But I suspect he fell into the snare
that many missionaries have fallen into; he did not grasp the subtleties
of tribalism that have bedevilled so much denominational work in Africa.
This fault made him susceptible to being manipulated by African associates
whom he trusted.
A man called Luke Mjaji was one such. I remember Brother Phillips recounting
with relish how Mjaji had supported him in his denigration of certain
false church practices prevalent among African Christians. Mjaji had
said sententiously that if all the cows you had ever seen were full of
ticks, you would assume that ticks were in fact part of all cows that
exist, not realising that ticks were unwanted parasites on cows. And
likewise, with these false practices in African churches. I have observed
how that sort of nativistic illustration makes a big impression on most
whites when trotted out in a sermon by an African preacher. It tickled
Brother Phillips no end. Of course there is no harm in that. But Mjaji’s
reflections imparted to Brother Phillips a sense of being introduced
to depths of arcane wisdom hidden in the African mind, even when Mjaji
discussed other African leaders such as Nicholas Bhengu. In his time
Brother Bhengu endured much opposition from Assemblies of God Churches
and missionaries in the northern and eastern Transvaal. It stemmed from
such subtle manipulation. Unfortunately, it has never been fully revealed
for what it is, tribalism. It persists in the Lord’s work in those
regions even to this day.
Brother Phillips has gone to his rest and Mjaji passed on in 1999. Before
his death he was influential in the Elim Assemblies. The Elim Assemblies
are the mission first established at Nelspruit by H C Philips. They broke
away from the Assemblies of God some time in the seventies, acting in
sympathy with Luke Mjaji and his tribalistic anti-Bhengu sentiments.
Having implied a certain gullibility in H C Phillips, I must state that
no one understood better than he the dynamics of the Assemblies of God.
It was he who watched W F Mullan with Brother Austin Chawner draw a number
of circles in the dust at Brother Phillip’s mission station in
Nelspruit and then Mullan encompassed them all by one large circle. The
smaller circles represented the several missionary groups who wished
to cooperate together while remaining fully in association with their
respective home boards. The large circle was the Assemblies of God in
South Africa. Each group would be part of the Assemblies of God, responsible
to it as one movement in the local sphere. Yet each group would be fully
responsible to their own home board. Property would be held independently
by each group. This scheme of things made possible the existence of the
Assemblies of God even to the present time. Brother Phillips watching
Mullan and Chawner said, “It will work”. Hence the Emmanuel
Mission became part of the Assemblies of God in South Africa.
In 1959 or thereabouts, Brother Phillips planted a seed which affected
the structure of the Assemblies of God. By the middle and late fifties,
tensions between Brother Bhengu’s black assemblies and some missionary
groups (the American Assemblies of God in particular) had become serious.
Early in 1959 the General Executive convened at Witbank what they called
a wider executive meeting to discuss various problems. The term “wider
executive meeting” meant that anyone interested was free to be
present at the discussions and to take part in them. At one stage Brother
Phillips drew Brother Gumede aside, handed him a slip of paper and said, “If
you want to do the Assemblies of God a favour, propose this”. On
the paper was the suggestion that the three sections - white, black and
Coloured and Indian - should meet separately in the interim years between
the biennial General Conferences and that each interim conference should
elect a six-man executive to represent them. The three interim executives
should combine to make up a General Executive. Each interim executive
should deal with matters relating exclusively to their particular section.
Matters of common interest would be within the purview of the General
Conference and General Executive. Brother Gumede made Brother Phillips’s
suggestion into a proposal which was passed at the General Conference
of 1959. Somewhat to my surprise when the white members elected an executive,
I became chairman of the European Executive. Thus I gained a place on
the General Executive which I have held for more than forty years. Brother
Fred Mullan was General Chairman, a position he relinquished in 1967.
I replaced him in the position he vacated, so for a few years I wore
two hats, General Chairman and European Chairman. Brother Phillips’ tricameral
arrangement worked very well while it lasted. It was abolished in 1973
because it looked too much like the Nationalist system of separate development
(a euphemism for apartheid). Although abolished in its simple, straightforward
form, the Assemblies of God have had the greatest difficulty in finding
a more politically correct formula to structure ourselves by. We seem
to be trapped by our history.
Simply for the record, I should mention that from 1965 to 1967, I served
as General Secretary as well as being European Chairman.
The years 1965 to 1967 were painfully full of stress. In 1964 there had
been a serious split. The American Assemblies of God missionaries left
us to form a new movement, the International Assemblies of God. They
did this in a most traumatic way. When I became General Secretary, I
had to become involved in numerous contentious situations. It brought
me to a point where I suppose I must have been nearing a nervous breakdown.
There were times when I would sit at my desk, knowing I had to write
a letter, but staring at my pen, unable to stretch out my hand to take
it up to write. Brother Bhengu too must have felt such stress. Once when
I mentioned to him my strange inertia, his reply was merely a long and
significant, “You see!” I can hear his deep voice now uttering
those two words. Maybe that’s what people call “burnout”.
The effect of it on me was that I resolved not to stand for election
to any office whatsoever at the coming conference in 1967. Let someone
else be General Secretary, a thankless job. I did not stop to ask whether
that was the Lord’s will. God had to deal with me over my unwillingness
to serve and even to suffer for His work’s sake. At length I surrendered
after humbly praying about it. I decided to leave the whole matter of
election in the Lord’s hands. Let the conference vote as they saw
fit. I would accept in a spirit of service anything they said. They elected
me General Chairman, and conference after conference thereafter they
re-elected me until 1995. After 28 years in office as General Chairman,
they demoted me to vice-Chairman and made an African, Brother Isaac Hleta
from Swaziland, General Chairman. I pledged my support to Isaac Hleta
and have earnestly tried to support him to the full. At the General Conference
in 1997, I declined nomination for any office at all, although I did
allow my name to go forward to be elected as a member of the General
Executive. I was voted into that position. This time I was not motivated
by burnout. It is simply that as an old man I know I can’t go on
forever. South Africa is changing. For many years I have sought to be
faithful, honourable and unstinting in serving all sections of the Assemblies
of God and my brethren can’t demand much more from me now. The
time comes to stand down from official matters and devote oneself to
spiritual ministry. I hope to be busy in this way until the Lord takes
me home.