Tensions within the Group

Foreword by MICHAEL CASSIDY

Profile by Dr CUTHBERT CHIDOORI

JOHN BOND by Peter Watt

Prologue

Some Personal Notes

My First General Conference of the Assemblies of God

H. C. Phillips

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

- Mylet Bhengu

Bhengu’s “Isinthunzi”
- Government and Politics
– Some Faults, Virtues and the Burden of His Heart

President Lucas Mangope of Bophuthatswana

Early Days in Durban

The Glad Tidings Assembly

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

John and Yvonne Stegman

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

Letting Go of the Reins

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)

As Jim Mullan advanced in years, he became concerned to have in place a leader to replace him when the time came for his retirement. His incessant energy and zeal brought into being numbers of young assemblies that he had to care for. Working in conjunction with him were an equal number of ministers who by and large had been launched into the work under his mentorship. Among these were Mike Attlee, Noel Scheepers, Paul Lange, Reg Bendixon and myself.
When he approached his seventieth birthday, he took a decisive step towards providing for the care of the assemblies. He presented the five names mentioned above to the assemblies in the Group requiring that each individual assembly make a choice of one of these men mentioned to receive leadership from them. He did not designate anybody as an apostle or as a successor to him. Nor did he retire outright, but he began to withdraw into complete retirement. He made it clear that in his opinion all the brethren named had the potential for apostleship, and he trusted that time would show where the true leadership of the group would emerge.

I have already mentioned that Paul Lange declined the role of leadership and moved into an independent itinerating ministry. Reg Bendixon continued for some little time but he too fell out of the running. The three men who exercised anything like a real gift were Noel Scheepers, Mike Attlee and myself. We each operated in our respective spheres independently of the others but we used to meet informally every few months to discuss the overall work. We even commented on developments in each others’ sphere of influence. Jim Mullan would meet with us too as a father-figure and respected mentor.
I truly believe that as Isaac favoured Esau and sought to manipulate the blessing to rest upon him rather than upon Jacob, Jim Mullan favoured Mike Attlee. Mike Attlee even claimed that Jim Mullan had once laid hands upon him for leadership. However, Jim Mullan countered that the only significance in his act was that he blessed Mike Attlee’s leadership in a general sense, not specifically to favour him above his brethren.
There was never an intention in Jim Mullan’s mind to form a committee for the oversight of the assemblies. He resisted the very thought, hoping for one man to emerge to replace him.

Both Mike Attlee and Noel Scheepers were highly charismatic, brilliant personalities. Noel has a keen mind and is trained academically. Mike was astute and shrewd, not at ease in any academic discussion. He clung dogmatically to the teachings on worldliness and rules of dress that had prevailed in the assemblies when he was converted in about 1953. His disposition caused him to operate increasingly in isolation. As a result, he became bizarre in some of his teachings. He was rigid in his discipline, particularly in rules applying to women. For instance, tea-parties among the ladies were discouraged lest they encourage gossip. Hair had to be “short back and sides” for men and long for ladies who were encouraged to tuck away from sight every wisp under a knitted cap, since hair, a woman’s glory, was to be shown to the husband alone.
Because I had led Mike Attlee to know the Lord in Port Elizabeth when God healed his little brain-damaged son, it was a personal sorrow to see him increasingly cultish.
Jim Mullan thoroughly approved of Mike’s rigid standards of dress, but he glossed over the palpable weaknesses in Mike’s policies. No doubt he trusted that time would bring about a balance. He was offended when I warned Mike of what I perceived to be Gnostic tendencies in Mike’s point of view.

Increasingly my two brethren looked askance at me. Even Jim Mullan disapproved of what he thought was my compromising attitude. I found myself odd-man-out in our discussions.
To illustrate what I mean, I mention one discussion that arose in a meeting with Mike Atlee, Noel Scheepers, Jim Mullan, Reg Bendixon and myself. It concerned ladies’ dress and the fashion of wearing maxi skirts that was in vogue at that time.
Reg Bendixon agreed with my stand-point but Noel Scheepers, Mike Atlee and Jim Mullan wanted me to issue a fiat forbidding women to wear maxi skirts. I said, “Why, they are at least modest, not like mini skirts? I can’t domineer by introducing such rules”. Their answer astounded me. It was simply this, “Modest or not, it is fashionable to wear maxi skirts; Christian women should avoid being fashionable!”

Somebody has advanced the thought that if you have not changed an opinion in the past five years, you should feel your pulse; you might be dead! Of course, like all generalisations, that is an over-statement. There are parameters that cannot be changed. But within those parameters, adjustments can and must be made. Christians live on an ethical knife-edge between what should and should not be changed.
My spiritual beginnings were in a fairly early stage of the Pentecostal movement when rules were rigorous. As a matter of course I conformed to the standards generally expected. Moreover, my own native conservatism prejudiced me against what seemed eccentricities in dress. My gorge would rise at the sight of a man with long hair like a woman, and I would never think of attending church dressed in anything other than a suit and a collar and tie. But the time came when I was forced to rethink on customs in dress.
It came about when the Reverend Jack Cook, a Methodist minister in Johannesburg, started in Hillbrow something he called the Narnia Club. The Narnia Club took its inspiration from the “Jesus Revolution” which at that time was strong in the United States of America. It set out to draw in young people who had abandoned the church, rejecting the culture and standards of their parents. Many of these young people set out to be hippies; others aped the hippie style in dress and behaviour.
It was not long before young people from the Narnia Club came to Cape Town. They were enthusiastic young Christians but outrageously non-conformist. In Cape Town they looked around for a church they could attend. After a while they decided that of all the churches in Cape Town, our congregation at Harfield Road was the one they liked. They sent their leader, a young artist, to ask me if they would be welcome with us. My immediate reaction was negative. It went against the grain to think of dozens of scruffily-dressed young people, long-haired youths and slinky-hipped girls clad in jeans filling up the pews. But at least I knew I should pray about it before turning them away. And that was my undoing. It seemed in my meditations that the Lord drew my thoughts to His parable where the invitation to a banquet had to be given to those in the highways and the byways and in fields and under the hedges, a motley crowd indeed to be bringing into church. Reluctantly I told the young artist spokesman for the Narnia crowd, “You can come; but remember we have standards which we will expect you to adjust to”.
And so they came. And they brought their friends. And many of their friends accepted Christ. And all of them had mums and dads who were amazed at the change in their young fry. They came hot-footing to church to find out what had happened to their offspring; and many of them were converted. Before long, our church was packed with people wall-to-wall. We called that our “hippie revival”. It became a talking point throughout Cape Town and country-wide. I have never had any doubt that we made the right decision in opening our doors to these unconventional young people. Crowds of them became truly born again and today they are well established Christians, many of them scattered about here and there in various churches throughout the country. But I certainly had to change my views about a number of things.

My brethren and co-workers, Mike Attlee and Noel Scheepers proved less flexible. They too experienced a flush of growth in their assemblies in Natal and the Eastern Cape, but it did not compare with what we experienced in the Western Cape. As our work multiplied dramatically, it might be that the green-eyed monster, jealousy, got to work. There was no joy for them in witnessing the growth in the assemblies that I was leading. Rather than applause, it provoked denigration. Undermining criticism became common. I was accused of throwing all standards of holiness to the wind simply to open the doors for crowds to flock into the church.
Gradually over a few years what had once been a warm closeness and fellowship between us diminished to become a mere gentlemanly acknowledgement of each others’ existence, and then into something more frankly hostile. Recriminations passed between us. I felt I was the butt of undermining criticism and subtle propaganda. A circular letter about me was distributed. It seemed that the intention was to completely undermine and destroy me.
At one stage I thought that criticisms against me were held generally throughout the movement, but in fact it was only the concerted agitation of a minority. The test came in the General Conferences when voting took place to elect a General Chairman. I always swept in with an overwhelming majority that made the number of my critics seem negligible.

However, concerted propaganda has its effect. Even Nicholas Bhengu was shaken, I thought. Several times I asked him whether I should resign from my position as General Chairman for the sake of peace and unity in the work. Each time his counsel was that I should not resign but that I should take note of how the voting went in the coming election and let that indicate how I stood in the eyes of the movement.
Yet there was a flaw in his advice. My critics argued that always it was the overwhelming black vote that put me into office, while my popularity with the white and coloured voters was nil. Unknown to me, Nicholas Bhengu determined to test this hypothesis. He instructed his black followers at the conference not to vote at all when the General Chairman’s office had to be filled. None of the black ministers or delegates voted. Once again, I came in by an overwhelming majority.
It was only later that somebody told me what Nicholas Bhengu was actually saying during the voting on that occasion. He was addressing his people in a light almost playful way from the platform, crying in a gentle, high-pitched voice the Zulu words, “Asingeni” which meant, “Don’t enter into this”, or in other words, “Don’t vote”.
When the result was announced, he cried out in the same tone, “Ingeni”, and the conference erupted with a storm of clapping as I was inaugurated for another two years.
When I later was told how Bhengu had orchestrated the voting, I felt piqued. But it was long after the event and too late for me to do anything. It did at least give an answer to the criticisms. I was General Chairman by the will of the whole constituency and not merely that of the Africans.

I recall the division between Mike Attlee, Noel Scheepers and myself with much regret. I describe it from my own viewpoint, but others might see it otherwise and find me at fault. Ultimately only Christ can judge that at His judgement seat. One thing I’m sure of; had Noel Scheepers, Mike Attlee and I been able to co-operate in the work, the Assemblies of God would have been in a tremendously strong position for the advancement of the Gospel. Our combined leadership could have been an unbeatable team. As it was, our differences were another seed of division that caused the split of our movement in 1981.