Nicholas Bekinkosi Hepworth Bhengu
Nicholas Bhengu was converted in about 1930 through the ministry of two young American evangelists preaching in a tent in Kimberley. Up to that time he had been a nominal Christian reared in the Lutheran Church. Prior to his conversion he had dabbled in Communism and even, I believe, joined the Communist Party. After his conversion he worshipped in the Full Gospel Church for a time. He left that church because the Full Gospel Church doubted his sincerity, it seems, and objected to his views, then held, on speaking in tongues.
Nicholas B H Bhengu
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)
The Full Gospel
Church maintained that the “initial evidence” of the baptism
in the Holy Ghost was speaking in tongues. Nicholas Bhengu disagreed,
although he believed strongly that speaking in tongues was a manifestation
of the Holy Spirit along with other gifts. In 1934 he formed a friendship
with Gideon Buthelezi, who also had become disillusioned with formal
church life. Together they worshipped in their own non-denominational
meeting, averring that they would never join any church movement. Alfred
Gumede, too, joined them at about this time.
The young Bhengu enrolled at the South African General Mission Bible School
at Dumisa in Natal. There he was greatly influenced by the principal, the
Reverend Fred Suter. Bhengu spoke of Mr Suter in these words: “He
was a real father to the students, an excellent Bible teacher of matured
(sic) years and a gentleman in the true sense of the word. I personally
loved him above my own father. He was so loving. He called me his son,
and his teaching had a charming power to my soul.”
At some time in his early life, Bhengu was a health assistant doing malaria
control, and then a court interpreter. It was in 1937 through an advertisement
in a magazine, that he came into association with Mr H C Phillips and the
Emmanuel Mission in Nelspruit. Not long afterwards the Emmanuel Mission
agreed to become part of the Assemblies of God in South Africa. The move
brought Nicholas Bhengu into the Assemblies of God. He persuaded Alfred
Gumede and Gideon Buthelezi to join as well in spite of their disillusionment
with church bodies.
The events outlined above marked the most seminal period in the Assemblies
of God. Their effect was to change the Assemblies of God from a struggling
missionary body to a thriving indigenous South African church consisting
of Blacks, Whites and Coloureds and Indians, one of the more significant
denominations in the land.
Nicholas Bhengu was a great pioneer of the movement, but he was not the
founder as some people seem to believe. Our beginnings go back to 1908.
They even precede the formation of the American Assemblies of God which
came into being at a conference in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1914.
Nicholas Bhengu met James E Mullan at the conference of the Assemblies
of God held in the Eastern Transvaal round about 1940. James Mullan was
then a missionary of the Elim Four Square Movement in England and Ireland.
Even in those days he had a burden to open up white churches in South Africa.
This he attempted while doing his best to evangelise as a missionary in
the South African field.
Missionary work in those days was extremely frustrating for white missionaries.
Already it was evident to missionaries like the Reverend Fred Suter of
the Dumisa Bible School that the training of African leaders would be the
most effective way of evangelising Africa. It was the Africans who knew
their own people and it was they who could present the claims of Christ
to them in a way that no white missionary ever could. They still needed
the white mans’ help and co-operation, but they themselves must be
given more responsibility and entrusted with leadership. Perhaps Nicholas
Bhengu embraced this teaching which was a strong element in his philosophy
of ministry from his three years Bible training under Mr Suter at Dumisa.
Most of the missionaries in the Assemblies of God agreed in theory with
Suter’s thesis, and even tried to apply it in their efforts at spreading
the gospel. But I am not aware that any one of them truly applied it effectively,
save only James E Mullan.
By the year 1945 Jim Mullan had moved to Port Elizabeth with the intention
of starting a white Assembly of God as well as preaching to Africans in
the so-called “Native Townships”. He lived in very trying circumstances
with his wife and three children in a home-made caravan parked in the Summer
Strand Caravan Park in Port Elizabeth. During the week he conducted Bible
studies, gave out tracts door-to-door, and preached in the streets of Port
Elizabeth, and so gathered together a congregation of about fifty people
to form a white assembly. On Sunday afternoons he preached in the African
townships, gathering together maybe ten or twelve hardly-interested hearers,
reaping no converts.
When James Mullan met Nicholas Bhengu at the Assemblies of God conference,
he recognised gifts and leadership in this man. He formed a relationship
with him. The two of them agreed that Jim Mullan would set up crusade meetings
for Bhengu, using his European status and whatever other means he had to
gain permission from the authorities for Bhengu to hold crusades in the
area. Bhengu was to look after the converts, forming them into churches.
When the time was right he would call on Jim Mullan to give Bible studies
to the new converts. Jim Mullan would come in strictly by the invitation
of Bhengu who assumed apostolic oversight of the newly formed congregations.
The first such crusade took place in Port Elizabeth. Miracles of healings
happened through Bhengu’s ministry. Crowds flocked in. A thousand
conversions were recorded in a few glorious weeks. After six weeks or so,
Bhengu announced that he intended founding a church. He invited those who
wished to join him to stay with him. The others he urged to return to their
churches. About 500 stayed and were formed into three congregations in
different areas in Port Elizabeth. Those congregations continue until this
day. Many of the other converts did return to their churches, to the pleased
reaction of their ministers who became well disposed to Nicholas Bhengu,
if not supportive of him. They never expected that he would return any
converts to their churches.
James Mullan was invited to teach the Word of God in the fledgling assemblies.
After fifty years there are still elders and ministers in the Eastern Cape
who were taught and established as Christians by James Mullan’s teaching.
From Port Elizabeth, the next target was East London. The results were
even more spectacular. A thousand new converts were baptised in the Buffalo
River. Bhengu, dressed in a deep-sea divers suit, presided over the baptisms
which were conducted by helpers. Miraculous things happened. People were “slain
in the Spirit” by the score. It is said that even the unconverted
bus drivers who tried to lift the inert passengers into their buses when
five o’clock came and it was time to go home, fell under the power
of the Holy Spirit as they touched their recumbent forms.
Not surprisingly, the devil reacted to so much blessing. Converts brought
stolen goods and weapons to the meetings, laying them at the evangelists’ feet
in repentance. Some person of ill-will reported to the police that Bhengu
was receiving stolen goods. The police contacted Jim Mullan. When Jim Mullan
told the investigating police major what was actually happening, he was
awe-struck. He said, “Mr Mullan, we don’t want this to stop.” Arrangements
were made for the police to collect the returned goods. Three truckloads
were collected. News of this flashed abroad in the press and the revival
continued in unabated measure.
The mayor of East London was so impressed by the revival that, under his
own auspices,he put on a meeting in the East London city hall for Nicholas
Bhengu to address. But the occasion was perhaps too much for the relatively
inexperienced Bhengu. His address lacked the eloquence and fire with which
he spoke to his own people. He told me that the mayor said to him, “Bhengu,
where was that smile? Where was that chuckle of yours?” Those of
us who knew Bhengu well can recall his chuckle, and the deep moving tones
in which he so often said, “We have a great God”. We can well
understand the mayor’s disappointment at Bhengu’s lack of sparkle
before a white audience held under such august auspices.
Port Elizabeth and East London were the only two crusades organised by
James Mullan for Nicholas Bhengu. I asked Bhengu why the agreement made
between him and Jim Mullan was abandoned. It turned out that the arrangement
foundered on paternalism. He told me that Mary Mullan, James Mullan’s
very dynamic wife, took to questioning him on financial matters connected
with the crusades and the new assemblies formed. Unknowingly she was treading
on dangerous ground. Anything like interference in the administration of
Bhengu’s work was anathema. Although Nicholas Bhengu continued to
honour James Mullan and to have fellowship with him, active partnership
came to an untimely end. Brother Mullan’s assemblies and many of
his workers made it a point to help Brother Bhengu’s assemblies and
crusades wherever they could but no-one dared transgress in attempting
to administer the work financially or in any other way. In later years,
I came to recognise Bhengu’s attitude as an early manifestation of
what Steve Biko and Bishop Desmond Tutu called “black consciousness”.
One wonders where Nicholas Bhengu picked up this philosophy of ministry.
Was it from Mr Suter at the Dumisa Bible School? Or was it already an attitude
prevalent in the African townships? It provoked quite damaging criticisms
from elements in the white work of the Assemblies of God and from certain
overseas missionaries who thought Bhengu was latently anti-white and too
political. The truth is that Bhengu’s vision and philosophy of church
life was above their heads and a considerable way ahead of their thinking.