Recognising the historiographical lacuna concerning indigenous agents in Pentecostal missions, the article foregrounds Bhengu’s influence on key African Pentecostal leaders and situates his work within broader currents of interdenominational evangelical Pentecostalism.
Objectives
This article critically examines the contribution of Reverend Nicholas Hepworth Bhengu’s influence in desyncretising the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) of South Africa, which took the form of evangelicalisation of its black constituency.
Method
The article utilises literature review, secondary analysis of interview data and narrative methods to answer the question: What is Rev. Bhengu’s influence in the AFM and by what means did he achieve such influence?
Results
The article finds that Rev. Nicholas Bhengu had a formative impact on AFM ministers such as Richard Ngidi, Shadrack Mofokeng, Masusu Mofokeng, and Molefi Malete, who became critical role-players in desyncretising the AFM, especially the black section in the northern Free State District.
Conclusion
The article argues that Bhengu’s legacy significantly contributed to the evangelical Pentecostal identity of the AFM.
Contribution
This article contributes to an understanding of Rev. Nicholas Bhengu’s interdenominational legacy by situating his influence in the context of the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa in relation to phasing out vestiges of African traditional customs and associated beliefs, as well as inculcating evangelical praxis within the African sector of this church.
Apostolic Faith MissionAssemblies of GodEvangelical PentecostalismNicholas BhenguRichard NgidisyncretismFunding information The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.Introduction
This article examines Rev. Bhengu’s influence within the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) of South Africa and the mechanisms through which it was disseminated. It draws on existing scholarship on Rev. Nicholas Bhengu, including works by Balcomb (2005), Lephoko (2018), Resane (2018), Motshetshane (2015) including Mofokeng (2021a, 2021b) as well as Mofokeng and Madise’s (2019) research on the evangelicalisation of black Pentecostalism in the AFM. The article also incorporates interview material generated during a prior project on the AFM’s evangelicalisation. Thus, the article employs a combined methodology of literature review and secondary analysis of qualitative interview data to address the central research question: What is the nature and means of Rev. Bhengu’s influence in the AFM of South Africa?1
As Strydom and Delport (2011:284) notes, secondary analysis is a valuable method for reanalysing empirical data originally collected for different purposes. This approach involves extracting only data pertinent to the current research question, interpreting it and recontextualising it into coherent narratives. Here, the analysis constructs narratives of religious conversion that illuminate connections between Rev. Bhengu and key black AFM pioneers of evangelicalism, particularly in the northern Free State district. The article therefore adopts a narrative structure, tracing the AFM’s origins, religious praxis and the missionary quest to desyncretise this praxis. It further highlights key indigenous figures, in these desyncretisation narratives, and examines their links to Rev. Nicholas Bhengu and his Assemblies of God Movement (AOGM). Motuku (2010:20–21) describes the AOGM as the black congregations within the Assemblies of God (AOG), which Rev. Bhengu planted through his Back to God campaign. Ultimately, the analysis posits that without Rev. Nicholas Bhengu’s influence on these indigenous agents, the AFM would likely be a markedly different church.
By situating Rev. Bhengu’s influence within the AFM’s black sector evangelicalisation,2 this article identifies and honours lesser-known indigenous actors. This recognition dignifies their contribution and those of their descendants while laying groundwork for future research. Furthermore, it underscores the intertwined histories of Pentecostal denominations in South Africa.
The origins of the Apostolic Faith Mission and Assemblies of God
The AFM together with the AOG, the Full Gospel Church of God (FGCG), Pentecostal Holiness Church (PHC) and the United Apostolic Faith Church (UAFC) represent the oldest Pentecostal tradition aligned to north-Atlantic Pentecostal revival of the early 20th century (Mahlangu 2021:1; Mathole 2005:183).3 Assemblies of God, FGCG, PHC and UAFC had pioneer individuals who were initially associated with the AFM in its foundation phase (Anderson 2007:167; Mahlangu 2021:3; Poewe 1988:149).4 The beginnings of all these churches were as missions in which individuals of Euro-American descent assumed leadership thus expressing the racial domination tendencies then endemic in the South African society (Mahlangu 2021:4). Anderson and Pillay (1997:227) consider it a Pentecostal peculiarity to adapt to the cultures this movement finds itself in, with Ingaboh (2024:4–5) and Guadalupe and Carranza (2021:91–96) pointing out how Pentecostals thrive in autocracies and democracies alike as well as in rural and urban environments. This trait lies at the centre of Pentecostalism and its derivative movements’ popularity and growth.
The focus on the AFM and AOG in this article is informed by Rev. Bhengu’s association with the latter, while the former is the context of investigating his contribution. These two churches together with FGCG are claimed to be the largest Pentecostal denominations in South Africa. The AFM is the oldest of these churches, having been established in 1908, followed by FGCG in 1910, UAFC in 1912, PHC in 1913 and AOG in 1917 (Hobe 2016:14; Mahlangu 2021:2; Resane 2018:37).
According to Motshetshane (2015:148, 177), unlike the AFM, the AOG was established as a black church with expatriate missionaries. Congregations of people of European extraction developed later. In contrast, John G. Lake and his missionary cohort quickly transformed the AFM into a church dominated by people of European extraction, mostly former members of the Dutch Reformed Church with memories of the revivals of the latter half of the 19th century (Mofokeng & Madise 2019). This power dynamic was formalised in the AFM’s 1913 Articles of Association, signed by 30 leaders of European extraction, and clarified by a 1936 amendment that designated 200 000 white people as full members while classifying Africans merely as adherents (‘Articles of Association’ 1913:8; Lapoorta 1996). Other Pentecostal missionaries who considered the developments in the AFM a betrayal, according to Motshetshane (2015), shifted operations to Doornkop where they laid the foundation of what would become the AOG in 1917. According to Bond (1974:14), AOG missionaries were not only successful in converting Africans to Pentecostalism, additionally they maintained a recognisable evangelical ethos through discipleship. Bond (1974:14) implicitly contrasts AOG success in this matter with the early AFM missionaries whom he blames for the existence of syncretic Spirit-type African Independent Churches (AICs). Mofokeng (2021a) draws attention to how the mentioned syncretism of these churches existed within the AFM’s African sector until the 1970s.
The Apostolic Faith Mission’s religious praxis and the missionary quest to desyncretise it
Hwata’s (2005) article of the AFM both in Zimbabwe and South Africa finds that this church displayed different phases of the Pentecostal phenomena in its history. Of immediate interest to my article are two phases he characterises with Spirit- and Christ-centredness (Hwata 2005:110). These phases relate chronologically to each other with Spirit-centredness preceding Christ-centredness in the history of the AFM in Zimbabwe and the former black sector of the South African AFM. Mofokeng and Madise (2019) as well as Mofokeng (2021b:6) concur with Hwata (2005) in his characterisation albeit using concepts, Zionist-Pentecostalism and evangelical Pentecostalism,5 to characterise the history of the AFM among its African members. Zionist Pentecostalism correlates with Hwata’s (2005:104) spirit-centred phase, in which he ascribes to the African members of the AFM, faith, holiness and spiritual power. Khathide (2010a:44) ascribes the same qualities to the AFM of the 1950s in Kwa-Zulu Natal, despite characterising it to have been plagued with ‘Zionist-tendencies’. These tendencies, for Clark (2001:89–90) and Maxwell (2006:52), either exhibited deep influence of the Old Testament in Africans’ conception of the Pentecostal faith or were a convenient expression of African customs through the Old Testament.6 According to Mojola (2014:2–4), the similarities between African traditional culture and the Old Testament or what he calls ‘the Hebraisms of African culture’ were behind missionaries like David Picton, the 19th century Congregational missionary, arguing against translating the Old Testament into vernacular languages for fear of confirming Africans in their already existing culture.
The Leviticism theory, whether as indicative of biblical influence or an excuse to retain aspects of African culture and customs, is at least a positive appraisal of the praxis of Zionist-Pentecostalism. The negative appraisal comes from Hwata (2005:104) who laments the existence of ‘human infiltrations and emotionalism’ in the Zionist phase of the AFM, with Burger and Nel (2008:245) presenting a missionary view of the practices of black Pentecostals to have involved the use of ‘charms’ and ‘ancestral rituals’ as well as ‘demonic dances’. Elsewhere, Burger and Nel’s (2008:245) ‘demonic dances’ are referred to as ‘immoral’ or ‘heathen’ dances (Frescura 2015:68; Mills 1995:157). These missionary descriptions are worrisome if true. However, there is evidence to suggest that missionaries generally made little to no effort to understand and sympathise with African traditional and contemporary customs. Consider as an example, lobolo or mahadi (a process basic to new family formation involving exchange of gifts between the groom’s family and that of the bride). Both Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal missionaries considered it a sale of daughters and condemned it as an evil practice together with the drinking of traditional beer as well as the attendant dances (De Wet 1989:122–123; Frescura 2015:68; Mills 1995:153, 155). Another piece of evidence is the missionary misapprehension of special church garments or religious dress, which became a peculiarity of most African Christians. Dube (2024:63, 71) remarks that the practice of wearing special church garments is uniquely an African phenomenon even in multi-racial churches associated with Western Christianity. Wherever it exists in these churches, it is as a result of Africans triumphing over attempts to discredit and destroy this practice (Haddad 2016:159; Mofokeng & Madise 2019:3, 7). The merits of the practice to its practitioners have not been entertained. These merits include the sense of belonging, the ease of identification in ecumenical spaces, and ejecting fashion consciousness from believers with its potential to expose the poor among them (Mofokeng 2021b:7–8). Notwithstanding the above, some validity to some of the concerns raised against these practices exists. Some of these concerns include spiritual elitism and idolatry (Burger & Nel 2008:243; Dube 2024:72; Kizito 2002:56–57).
The AFM missionaries, being certain of aberrations in black Pentecostal apprehension of the faith and its related practices, embarked on a multipronged corrective project, which Mofokeng and Madise (2019:6, 8–10) discuss. The missionaries laid the foundations of this project through resolutions adopted at the 1929 Native Conference held in Johannesburg. However, they became insistent on delivering change between 1943 and 1968 (Burger & Nel 2008:244). During this period, missionaries established and ran six training institutions for black Pentecostals. Besides the General Native Conference, which treated church business, they launched a teaching platform called Spiritual Conference in which they unpacked various pertinent topics among which was ‘the error of Zionism’ (Mofokeng 2021a:84). However, the missionaries alone would not have achieved success were it not for local black agents who played a secondary role and even extended the transformation beyond what missionaries aimed at (Mofokeng 2021b:14). Examples of over-extension include what pastors told congregations about the custom of unveiling of tombstones, wearing of special church garments or uniforms, and their vociferous refusal to use medicinally potent herbs (Clark 2001:95–96; Mofokeng 2021b:9). According to Becken (1993:337), the practice of erecting and unveiling tombstones derives from white Christian culture and has ‘African churches’ and ‘specialists within mission churches’ as its acculturating agents. Through acculturation, this formerly white Christian practice acquired ancestral significance, which invoked missionary objection. While the missionary-led black conferences permitted tombstone erection, they reduced them to a family affair that was to be conducted without any ceremony, especially suggesting any involvement with the ancestral cult (Burger & Nel 2008:246). However, black ministers banned the erection of tombstones altogether (Mofokeng 2021b:9). While the 1968 conference ceased the campaign against the wearing of special church garments, that decision did not reach the members. Instead, black clergy worked to eradicate uniforms completely and succeeded (Mofokeng 2021b:9).
Key individuals in the narratives of desyncretising the Apostolic Faith Mission
Regarding the narratives of desyncretisation, several names emerge from literature and secondary analysis of interview data. The names to be mentioned hereafter are only confined to the consulted data set, therefore not exhaustive of all role-players in desyncretising black Pentecostalism within the AFM. Among these role-players are Richard Ngidi, Shadrack Mofokeng, Masusu Johannes (M.J.) Mofokeng and Molefi Malete. Excepting Richard Ngidi, who primarily operated in Natal, the rest operated in the Northern Free State district of the AFM during a period in which the dominant form of Pentecostalism among Africans was Zionist.
Rev. Richard Ngidi
Rev. Richard Ngidi’s biography and achievements in the work of God have been captured in Khathide’s (2010a) book, Richard Ngidi: What a Giant of Faith. There is no need to repeat Ngidi’s full life story here. However, he was converted to Pentecostalism in the 1950s at the age of 35 years (Khathide 2010a:26, 31–32). He had a high school education (Junior Certificate) before enrolling at the AFM’s Leratong Bible School, then located at Lady Selbourne, north of Pretoria (Burger & Nel 2008:255; Kgatle 2020:6; Khathide 2010a:27–28). He concluded his ministry training, served his probation and was ordained in 1965. He immediately served in the district committee as a secretary and became a member of the Executive Committee of the African section of the AFM by 1980 (Burger & Nel 2008:224; Kgatle 2020:6; Khathide 2010a:99). He was the only African leader to rise to the level of deputy chairperson of the African section of the AFM during those years of segregation (Burger & Nel 2008:257; Kgatle 2020:7). In the 20 years between his ordination and death in 1985, Rev. Ngidi and his assistants planted new congregations in Natal, increasing the total tally of congregations from less than 50 to just above 200 – a remarkable feat (Khathide 2010a:11).7 Additionally, Rev. Reinhard Bonnke, whose renowned parachurch evangelistic ministry contributed to eradicating the old Zionist paradigm in the AFM and replacing it with evangelicalism (Mofokeng 2021b:7–8), credits Rev. Ngidi for introducing him to signs and wonders evangelism (Bonnke 2010:237, 252–253). Of relevance to this article was Rev. Ngidi’s negative attitude towards Zionist Pentecostalism then pervasive in the AFM for which he almost did not remain in the AFM. However, choosing to continue with the AFM, the congregations he planted embodied a different Pentecostal spirituality compared to the congregations he found when he joined this denomination.
A schoolmate of Rev. Richard Ngidi at the Leratong Bible School, Rev. Shadrack Mofokeng, was a cradle Pentecostal born at the farms near Bethlehem in the South African Free State province, in 1933. His parents were members of Rev. Senkgane’s AFM congregation in Senekal. Rev. Shadrack Mofokeng was converted at the age of 21 years, during a gospel campaign in Welkom, one of the mining towns in northern Free State. He was baptised at the Bothaville AFM congregation under Rev. Ananias Mokoena, who also had a branch congregation in Welkom. Rev. Shadrack Mofokeng began preaching immediately and assumed oversight of the Welkom branch of the Bothaville congregation. Upon sensing a call for the ministry, he enrolled at AFM’s Leratong Bible School in Lady Selbourne in 1961. He was ordained in 1966 and continued pastoring the Welkom congregation until 1977 after which he accepted the invitation to pastor the Kroonstad congregation. A year earlier, he had assisted Rev. Ngidi to conduct a gospel campaign in Kroonstad. Whereas the Welkom congregation was an evangelical Pentecostal one – and the only one in the district, the Kroonstad congregation was a typical Zionist Pentecostal congregation with members wearing church uniforms. All the time he was in Welkom, Rev. Shadrack did not confine himself to pastoring his congregation only. Instead, he would conduct revivals in congregations without pastors across the Northern Free State district. By the 1980s, he was deputising the white district chairperson among black congregations and earned himself the moniker, Mookamedi – Overseer!9 As a pioneer evangelical Pentecostal minister, he, together with the district chairperson, ensured that they fill vacant pulpits with young evangelical Pentecostal ministers fresh from seminary – a strategy whose success meant desyncretising the AFM from its Zionist expression to clear evangelical expression.
Rev. Masusu Johannes Mofokeng<xref ref-type="fn" rid="FN0010"><sup>10</sup></xref>
Another schoolmate of Rev. Richard Ngidi at Leratong Bible School was Rev. M.J. Mofokeng, a son of Sotho traditionalists. Rev. Masusu was born in 1937 in the vicinity of Arlington, Bethlehem, Lindley and Paul Roux. He only had a primary school education as most farm schools offered only up to grade 4 or then standard 2. For a farm child to go beyond this grade would require that he stays in the township. This involved a lot of planning and worked better if one had relatives in such a township, which was not the case with Rev. M.J. Mofokeng. He became a Christian in 1958, at the age of 21 years, while working in Welkom. He was baptised at the AFM church in Arlington, and enrolled at the AFM’s Leratong Bible School in Lady Selbourne, in 1962. He then served his probation under Rev. Matthew Mtsweni of AFM Kwathema, Springs, and was ordained in 1972 (AFM Bantu 1972). The northern Free State AFM district appointed him to be an itinerant evangelist who traversed the townships, planting churches and evangelicalising existing ones (AGS N.O.V.S. Distrikraad 1978). Between his ordination and resignation from the AFM in 1992/1993, Rev. M.J. Mofokeng claimed to have revived and planted 38 congregations in Northern Free State district, Lesotho and the former homeland of Bophuthatswana (M.J. Mofokeng pers. comm., 15 April 2009).
Rev. Molefi Malete
Rev. Molefi Malete was born into a Christian family belonging to the Dutch Reformed Church in 1936. He attended school until standard 6 before searching for employment. He converted to Pentecostalism at a gospel campaign in Kroonstad in 1958 (Mofokeng 2021b:10). After expressing a desire to enter the ordained ministry, the elders of his new found church placed him in Viljoenskroon with the mandate to establish a congregation (M.L. Malete pers. comm., 28 March 2008). He began with street preaching and sought accommodation of his converts at the Full Gospel Church until they bought an old church hall belonging to the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1979, he eventually succumbed to the wooing of Rev. Masusu and Rev. Pieter Coertzen, the AFM’s northern Free State district chairperson, to join the AFM (M.L. Malete pers. comm., 28 March 2008). Rev. Malete assumed the leadership of the Bethlehem congregation – a Zionist Pentecostal congregation – completely antagonistic to attempts to convert it to evangelical Pentecostalism (Mofokeng 2021b:10–11). He pastored this congregation until 1994 when he accepted a call to pioneer an African congregation in Vereeniging, working with Rev. Bennet Brazer, who was presiding over an Afrikaans-speaking AFM congregation. When Rev. Malete left Bethlehem, his congregation had already converted into evangelical Pentecostalism. The greatest contribution Rev. Malete made to the transformation of the AFM was in the number of men who converted under his ministry before he joined the AFM. These men followed him into the AFM and became pastors (M.L. Malete pers. comm., 28 March 2008; M.S. Mofokeng pers. comm., 27 March 2009). They were some of the young evangelical Pentecostal pastors who contributed to the spread of evangelical Pentecostalism within the northern Free State district (Mofokeng 2001b:7).
Rev. Nicholas Bhengu’s links with some key Apostolic Faith Mission individualsWho was Nicholas Bhengu?
Rev. Nicholas Bhengu’s biography is well known and needs no repeating here. However, it may be necessary to trace the influences and connections in his life in relation to the AFM. He was born to a Lutheran family in 1909 (Balcomb 2005:338). He became a communist in Durban in the 1920s and converted to Pentecostalism in Kimberly at a gospel campaign by Full Gospel missionaries in 1929 (Balcomb 2005:338). He became an apprentice under Rev. Job Chiliza, who was at this time pastoring a Full Gospel Church in Durban (Motuku 2010:24). Rev. Chiliza was attracted to Pentecostalism by Rev. Ezra Mbonambi of the AFM and Zion Apostolic Church in 1922 (Khathide 2010b:46; Mofokeng 2018:53). Judging the Mbonambi group’s Pentecostalism too fanatical, he found refuge for his congregation under the Full Gospel Church until 1942 when, together with his congregation, they joined the Holiness Pentecostal Church (Lephoko 2018:49). He would later take his congregation out of the Holiness Pentecostal Church to become an African-founded-and-led church in 1948, which he called the African Gospel Church (Lephoko 2018:49). Lephoko (2018:49) observes that Rev. Bhengu took from Rev. Chiliza the fierce independence and jealous guarding of his ministry and converts.
In 1936, Rev. Bhengu joined the Emmanuel Mission as a teacher in Nelspruit. This ministry joined the AOG in 1937/1938 (Lephoko 2018:68). Rev. Bhengu rose within the AOG to become ‘the leader and founder’ of what was at the beginning of the 1950s ‘the greatest revival this land has seen’ with ‘thousands respond[ing] to the gospel and assemblies [being] formed throughout’ the East London area and beyond (‘Missionary News Notes’ 1954:7). The Pentecostal Evangel magazine later in the same year published that Rev. Bhengu’s Back to God Movement comprised a 4000 strong congregation in East London and 300 assemblies across the country (‘African Evangelist to Attend Evangelism Convention’ 1954:12). Despite his successes as an evangelist and a church planter who played important roles within the AOG and international Pentecostalism, his ministry philosophy alienated him from American missionaries because it transcended the constitutionally delineated operational spheres. He refused to be restricted to certain areas in favour of delineating all Africans across the country his field (Motshetshane 2015:26–27, 31; Resane 2018:38–40). Effectively, he insisted on heading the black Pentecostals of the AOG, especially those who converted through his ministry.
Rev. Bhengu further took from Rev. Job Chiliza an aversion to fanatic expressions of Pentecostal spirituality such as witnessed among the Mbonambi Pentecostal Zionists who at some point had been in the AFM (Mofokeng 2018:53). Rev. Bhengu prided himself in his difference to churches with an orientation towards African traditional culture and the Old Testament (Balcomb 2005:341). Most AICs with a Pentecostal background and influence exhibited an orientation towards both African traditional culture and the Old Testament (Anderson 2001:116; Moripe 1996:157). Black Pentecostals of the AFM too, were counted among those inclined towards African traditional culture and the Old Testament until the 1970s in some instances, according to Mofokeng (2021a:93–94). Important markers of Bhengu’s aversion to and difference with Zionistic expressions of the Pentecostal faith included his appeal to his movement’s New Testament credentials (Balcomb 2005:321).
The links between some key Apostolic Faith Mission individuals and Rev. Nicholas Bhengu
Reflecting on Rev. Nicholas Bhengu, Mathole (2005:184) considers him to be a pioneer of evangelical Pentecostalism among Africans in South Africa. This raises questions about figures such as Rev. Elias Letwaba of the AFM, why is there no such consideration? Of the possible answers to this question, one of them may have to point at the age of Rev. Letwaba in the 1950s and the height of his ministry. He belonged to the generation of founders of Pentecostalism in South Africa (Kgatle 2017:5). He was over 80 years old at the turn of the 1950s and the church he was part of, the AFM, was in turmoil because of missionary attempts to transform Zionist forms of Pentecostal belief and practice into recognisably evangelical forms (Kgatle 2017:7; Mofokeng & Madise 2019). Additionally, although Letwaba’s concern for holiness was well known, he was not averse to Zionistic tendencies such as the wearing of special garments. He claimed that his own wife introduced such for women (Burger & Nel 2008:243). As for Rev. Bhengu, beginning with the successful planting of a 4000 strong congregation in East London in 1950 and a growing number of congregations across South Africa and beyond (‘African Evangelist to Attend Evangelism Convention’ 1954:12), his ministry influenced the charismatic renewal of the 1960s and 1970s. His name is among those whose ministries played a role in pentecostalising student Christian organisations in high schools and tertiary institutions, including the emerging independent Charismatic fellowships or ministries of the 1980s and 1990s (Mathole 2005:184).
While some non-Pentecostal churches were being pentecostalised, the AFM, which is a Pentecostal church, was undergoing evangelicalisation by the same forces. One should not be surprised by this claim and association of pentecostalising forces with evangelicalising forces. Van Dijk (2000:12) captures this dynamic well in his discussion of ‘fundamentalisation’ of sub-Saharan Christianity. The names he mentions as agents of fundamentalisation are the same names associated with pentecostalisation. Among the agents are organisations such as Full Gospel Business Men’s Forum, Scripture Union, Youth With A Mission, Rhema, Christ For All Nations and individuals like Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland, Reinhard Bonnke and so forth (Kalu 2005:402; Mathole 2005:179, 190, 204–205; Van Dijk 2000:8).
This article asserts that Rev. Nicholas Bhengu had a role in desyncretising the AFM. This is not a claim of him playing an intentional role when it comes to the AFM, rather an implicit one. The assertion is grounded in the AFM members in the northern Free State district, who, when rejecting the changes young evangelical pastors attempted to make in the 1970s and early 1980s, labelled these pastors’ attempts an introduction of Bhengu’s ideologies and/or white culture, both which they considered destructive to the AFM church (M.L. Malete pers. comm., 10 March 2009; M.J. Mofokeng pers. comm., 15 April 2009). The invocation of white culture as a detriment to black Pentecostal experience of the AFM was steeped in what Mofokeng and Madise (2019) call Zionist Pentecostalism and Mofokeng (2021a:75–76) has considered a form of syncretism on the basis of scholars like Larbi (2002:150) designating African Zionist church movement as syncretic. Apostolic Faith Mission missionaries had been working to eliminate this form of Pentecostalism as they considered it an aberration for its African traditionalist bent – a view shared by Bond (1974), an important AOG leader and a contemporary of Bhengu (Lephoko 2018:257). Balcomb (2005) presents Bhengu himself as holding a distinction between his own work and that of a church such as the AFM, whose African members displayed ‘Zionist tendencies’ (Kgatle 2020:6). He writes:
We clap no hands or dance in the service of God … There are no traces of native or tribal or traditional customs in our great work … We base our faith and conduct on the teachings of the New Testament. (Balcomb 2005:341)
Therefore, the charge of some black Pentecostals that Bhengu’s ideologies were being introduced to the detriment of black Pentecostalism as experienced among themselves begs the question: Was there a link between some pastors of the AFM and Rev. Nicholas Bhengu? The answer to this question is affirmative. The evidence lies in the narratives of conversion of the ministers mentioned under the section titled ‘Key individuals in the narratives of desyncretising the Apostolic Faith Mission’, which I intentionally glossed over in that section.
Starting with Rev. Richard Ngidi, his narrative of conversion locates him at a tent where Rev. Bhengu was ministering in Lamontville in 1956. He even had a private session in which he asked Rev. Bhengu questions and received prayer and would have joined Rev. Bhengu’s team had he not had a vision in which the name of the AFM was emblazoned on the clouds (Khathide 2010a:43). Rev. Shadrack’s conversion narrative presents a challenge in that his conversion was not at a venue or event where Rev. Bhengu was present. Additionally, Rev. Shadrack did not recall the affiliation of the gospel campaigners through whom he came to Christ (M.S. Mofokeng pers. comm., 27 March 2009). Despite this difficulty, it is probable that the preachers were associates of Rev. Bhengu as Welkom was one of the bases of operation for AOG missionaries and there was a sizeable congregation belonging to this denomination in the area.11 As it would happen, Rev. Masusu Mofokeng converted to Pentecostalism through the AOG in Welkom (M.S. Mofokeng pers. comm., 27 March 2009). Considering his own version of conversion narrative in which he attributes his conversion to a mystical being, Rev. Masusu Mofokeng may have had a vision which he acted upon by attending the AOG campaign (M.J. Mofokeng pers. comm., 15 April 2009). Whereas the links of the two Mofokengs’ to Rev. Bhengu are mere probabilities, Rev. Malete’s (M.L. Malete pers. comm., 28 March 2008) narrative is clear. He converted to Pentecostalism at a Back to God campaign in Kroonstad in 1958. The leaders in Rev. Bhengu’s movement later commissioned him to establish a congregation in Viljoenskroon. Rev. Malete joined the AFM following his recruitment by Rev. Masusu (M.L. Malete pers. comm., 28 March 2008; M.S. Mofokeng pers. comm., 27 March 2009). He brought along some of his converts from the AOG Viljoenskroon who became pastors in the AFM and were fielded at congregations whose pastors had retired, an act that advanced the evangelicalisation of these congregations (M.S. Mofokeng pers. comm., 27 March 2009).
Means through which Rev. Bhengu influenced the Apostolic Faith Mission
Considerations of the means of Rev. Bhengu’s influence over the ministers mentioned in this article may require factoring in his background, education and profile as a successful black Pentecostal revivalist and church planter.
As Mathole (2005:184) acknowledges, Rev. Bhengu stands as a pioneer of evangelical Pentecostalism among black Pentecostals. Rev. Bhengu’s evangelicalism originated from his upbringing at a Lutheran mission station (Lephoko 2010:48), surrounded by a father and siblings committed to Christian ministry (Lephoko 2010:51).12 Motuku (2010:23, 25) avers that Rev. Bhengu’s adherence to and influence from Lutheran sola scriptura motivated him to build his evangelistic work along New Testament lines. This inclination towards the New Testament differentiated him from the AFM’s black Pentecostals whose orientation was towards the Old Testament and steeped in African traditionalist culture (Clark 2001:89–90; Maxwell 2006:52).
Contrasting the traditionalism of black Pentecostals of the AFM, Rev. Bhengu’s religious exposure to historic Christian tradition and its schooling rendered him a modern man. He had completed his matric and received his theological qualification from Union Bible College. Although his attempt to complete a bachelor’s degree in the United States failed because of a family emergency (Lephoko 2010:55, 2018:48), his educational pedigree afforded him visiting lectureship in the United States (Lephoko 2018:262; Motshetshane 2015:151).
On the other hand, his New Testament orientation made him attractive to a new breed of AFM converts who had improved education and as a consequence, had more exposure to modern culture. To these ones, Rev. Bhengu became an incomparable black Pentecostal revivalist and church planter. It is still common among AFM members and pastors of a certain age to invoke Rev. Bhengu’s name simultaneously with that of Rev. Ngidi, his protégé. Just as Rev. Ngidi modelled a ministry of spiritual power encounters last associated with Rev. Elias Letwaba and John G. Lake in the AFM’s history (Burger & Nel 2008:56; Kgatle 2017:6–7; Khathide 2010a:68–78), Rev. Bhengu’s message and ministry provided black Pentecostals of the AFM a model of the evangelical Pentecostal paradigm, which the AFM missionaries and their students had been working towards several decades prior (Mofokeng 2021a:75–76). The model was clear enough for those who resisted the efforts of the missionaries to label the latter with the former. ‘We do not want the gospel according to Bhengu here’, Malete (M.L. Malete pers. comm., 10 March 2009) reported his Bethlehem parishioners who were steeped in Zionist expression as saying. He further reported that they had said, ‘We are Apostolics [and] we preach the second birth’. They equated ‘second birth’ with being baptised, wearing special church garments and observing taboos regarding smoking, alcohol consumption, medicine and pork consumption – all which rendered them similar to Zionist and related churches in the independence movement (Mofokeng 2021a:84, 2021b:11).
Conclusion
A concluding observation is that discounting Rev. Nicholas Bhengu’s influence on some of the key indigenous agents associated with the AFM, this denomination would be a different church. His evangelical focus grounded in the ethos of the New Testament, his revivalist Pentecostal ministry, his restrained and learned demeanour contrasted the Old Testament and legalistic ethos, including the emotionalism then characterising the AFM’s black Pentecostals until the 1970s. Had the few ministers discussed here not converted through Rev. Bhengu, the almost 200 new congregations in KwaZulu-Natal founded on a clear evangelical understanding of the gospel resulting from the gospel campaigns and leadership of Rev. Richard Ngidi would not have existed. Similarly, countless other such congregations resulting from nation-wide campaigns of Rev. Reinhard Bonnke, whose inspiration for itinerant gospel and healing campaigns came from Rev. Ngidi, would not have existed. The northern Free State district of the AFM, which was the geographic focus of this article, would not have shed its Zionist praxis in favour of evangelicalism.
The possibility of uncovering further evidence of Rev. Nicholas Bhengu’s relations with other ministers of the AFM across the country exists. The few here sampled, mostly associated with the Free State province of South Africa, lend credibility to the observation. Even then, the data were not primarily gathered for the purpose of this article. Thus, making me wonder at what an intentional study on the subject of Rev. Bhengu’s legacy in the AFM and other churches besides his own would further uncover.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Unit for Reformational Theology at the NWU Faculty of Theology for the support provided in conducting this research.
Competing interests
The author declares that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
CRediT authorship contribution
Thabang R. Mofokeng: Conceptualisation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration. The author confirms that this work is entirely their own, has reviewed the article, approved the final version for submission and publication and takes full responsibility for the integrity of its findings.
Ethical considerations
Ethical clearance to conduct this research was obtained from the Faculty of Theology, North-West University research ethics committee (No. NWU-01367-25-A6).
Data availability
Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Thabang R. Mofokeng, on reasonable request.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are the product of professional research. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency or that of the publisher. The author is responsible for this article’s results, findings, and content.
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How to cite this article: Mofokeng, T.R., 2026, ‘Desyncretising the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa: A consideration of Rev. Nicholas Bhengu’s contribution in the northern Free State district’, African Journal of Pentecostal Studies 3(1), a120. https://doi.org/10.4102/ajops.v3i1.120
The interview material referred to here was generated ethically, with participants’ consent to contribute information and have it utilised academically. Participants gave permission to use their names.
Evangelicalisation was a missionary driven process within the AFM, intended to phase out what they considered errors of ‘Sionisms’ (sic) and transform black Pentecostalism in this denomination into a recognisably evangelical religion adhering to David Bebbinton’s definition (AFM Bantu 1968:35; Mofokeng & Madise 2019:1–2, 4–5).
The terms ‘Pentecostal and Pentecostalism’ are used in their original sense of referring to churches which emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, which were influenced by the Wesleyan Holiness and Keswickian Higher Life movements and held a continuist belief in the charismatic ministry of the Holy Spirit (Roy 2017:117–118).
Rev. J.O. Lehman (PHC) appears in the masthead of AFM newsletter, Rev. Henry Turney (AOG) was an AFM treasurer in 1909 and his name too appears in the masthead. Rev. Archibold Cooper (FGCG) was also briefly in the AFM (Poewe 1988:149). Rev. Lehman joined PHC in 1912 and became its founding missionary in South Africa in 1913 (Pentecostal Holiness Church in South Africa 2022). Rev. George Hitchcock, who Mahlangu (2021:3) claims to have been ‘involved in Lake’s miracle services’, joined Rev. James Brook who founded UAFC and became its secretary.
Zionist Pentecostalism finds institutional expression in Spirit-type AICs where it continues unlike in the AFM where it was replaced with evangelicalism (Mofokeng & Madise 2019:3–4). Kgatle and Anderson (2021:3) consider Spirit-type AICs to be Pentecostal Churches together with classical and new Pentecostal churches, which Mathole (2005:184) refers to as Pentecostal evangelicals. Kgatle and Anderson (2021:5–6) include Prophetic Pentecostal Churches, which major in deliverance, prosperity preaching, sacred objects and substances. The histories of the various strands of African Pentecostalism differ, including the culture they adopt or react against and their polities, although all strands endeavour to respond holistically and through the power of the Spirit (Kgatle & Anderson 2021:4).
Some of the practices of black Pentecostals and Zionists were drawn specifically from the book of Leviticus, hence, an AFM missionary to Rhodesia of the 1950s (today’s Zimbabwe), WL Wilson, used the term ‘Mosaic cultic laws and regulations’ to describe the black Pentecostal women’s practices in that country (Burger & Nel 2008:244).
The actual numbers of the congregations belonging to the AFM in Natal when Rev. Ngidi began ministering in 1965 and the total number of congregations after his church planting spree varies among scholars. Burger and Nel (2008:256) give 36 and 176 respectively. Ngcobo (2021:33), citing Khathide (2010a:84), presents nine and 212 respectively. Edgar Gschwend, former missionary superintendent of the AFM, writes in the preface to Khathide’s (2010a:11) book that Rev. Ngidi grew the AFM from ‘less than thirty’ congregations to ‘at least two hundred’.
The contents of this section derive from an interview with Rev. Shadrack Mofokeng, conducted in 2009 in Kroonstad.
While the practice in the missionary era of the AFM was to appoint white missionaries over missionary districts, sometimes a chairperson of the white district would further provide oversight over black congregations overlapping the district (Burger & Nel 2008:201–202; De Wet 1989:135).
The content of this section derives from a personal communication with Rev. Masusu Mofokeng on 15 April 2009, unless indicated otherwise.
Vernon Pettenger, an AOG missionary from Benoni, noted evangelistic activities in the black township of Thabong (Welkom) in 1959, linked to Rev. Phillip Molefe who had conducted gospel campaigns in Virginia, a neighbouring town, and across the Free State province (Cunningham 1959:6). Rev. Molefe was converted through another convert of Rev. Bhengu, who was heading the latter’s church in Benoni (Motshetshane 2015:185–186). Besides this activity of Rev. Molefe, a search through Pentecostalarchives.org registers no report of Rev. Bhengu’s activity in the Free State between 1950 and 1959. Notwithstanding this, his evangelistic ministry, Back-to-God, was active. Rev Malete credited his own conversion and church planting commission to Rev. Bhengu’s Back-to-God ministry (M.L. Malete pers. comm., 28 March 2008). Additionally, Rev. Malete reported resistance from Bethlehem’s AFM leaders to Bhengu’s ‘gospel’, indicating awareness of its content. Lastly, Rev. Phillip Molefe and Rev. Bhengu both prominent African ministers, collaborated in some outreaches. Motshetshane (2015:186–187) suggests a political intrigue involving American missionaries and Rev. Bhengu aimed at elevating (through coverage in reports) Rev. Molefe, possibly explaining the lack of documented Bhengu activity outside his East London base.
Bhengu’s father was a Lutheran evangelist and his two brothers were ministers in the same church, another in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. His sister became an evangelist in the Assemblies of God (Lephoko 2010:51).