In this section, the focus falls on identifying persons who contributed to the AFM in its early years. Among them are the first three presidents of the AFM, Tom Hezmalhalch, John Lake and Pieter le Roux. These three men, all former members and leaders in Alexander Dowie’s Zion Church, led the AFM for a combined period of thirty-five years (Sundkler, 1976:17; Burger & Nel 2008:91, 96). These presidents and their contribution to the AFM are not discussed here as other sources contain this information.15 Instead, the focus is on the following persons whose contributions assist in making sense of the topic of the study: Elias Letwaba, Edward Lion, Elias Mahlangu, Daniel Nkonyane and Frank Dugmore.
2.3.1 Elias Letwaba
The name of Elias Letwaba (1870–1959) occupies a somewhat elevated position in the annals of the AFM. This is not without cause as Letwaba was John Lake’s understudy, a seasoned minister with almost two decades of pastoral ministry before he joined the AFM in 1909 (Burger & Nel, 2008:207). Letwaba was an ardent evangelist who had a large following (Morton, 2016:2), a pioneer of theological education in the AFM who founded Patmos Bible School in 192416 (Burton, 1934:93- 94), and an overseer over Waterberg, the Soutpansberg and Middleburg (Transvaal) churches for almost fifty years—a vast area (Burton, 1934:90). Unlike others discussed below, Letwaba was of Lutheran background and training, spent almost two decades in Bapedi Lutheran Church and some time in Samuel Brander’s Ethiopian Catholic Church in Zion and the Zion Apostolic Church (Lindsay, 1972; Morton, 2016:3).
15 The story of John Lake and his role in the establishment of the AFM, is found in Lindsay’s John G
Lake: An apostle to Africa (1972). It is also found in Burpeau’s an Historical study of John Graham
Lake (2002), Burger and Nel’s Fire falls in Africa (2008), Morton’s The devil who heals (2012) and
Nel’s Remembering and commemorating the theological legacy of John G Lake (2015). Burger and Nel (2008) have also written about Tom Hezmalhalch and Pieter le Roux, while Nel, (2005) and Le Roux (2007) wrote about Pieter le Roux.
16 The date of the opening of Letwaba’s school varies depending on the source. The Pentecostal
Evangel of 1928 carries a report from the pen of one CB Fockler, an Assemblies of God
missionary. According to him, Letwaba opened his school in 1926 (Anon, 1928). De Wet (1989:68) puts the opening of the school in 1930. But Hatwa (2005:105) mentions 1924. I settled on 1924 following Hatwa (2005) because Nel (2014:112) mentions that PL le Roux gave a report of attending the opening of Letwaba’s school to the Executive Committee in 1924.
2.3.2 Edward Lion
Another person who was highly regarded by John Lake but later fell afoul of the AFM leadership is Edward Lion. Different writers have variously rendered his surname. He was born Edward Motaung, but according to Sundkler (1976:65), anglicised his surname as a way to distance himself from his brothers with whom he had experienced conflict. Edgar Mahon, a white Zionist who operated from a farm near Harrismith, converted and baptised Lion, who then returned to his home country of Lesotho where he began ministering in miracles and attracting a large following (Sundkler, 1976:65). In 1910, Lion met the AFM while in Johannesburg (Sundkler, 1976:65), was wooed, won over and appointed its overseer for Lesotho in 1912 (The Comforter and Messenger of Hope = The Comforter, 1921). Mahlangu’s 1918 Zion Apostolic Church of South Africa (ZACSA) conference, held in Verulam (Natal), elected Lion to oversee its work in the Orange Free State (Silwana, 1918:3). Because of this election, Lion came to act as both the AFM’s Lesotho overseer and ZACSA’s Orange Free State overseer. Proof of his continued oversight of Lesotho AFM is found in the AFM’s newsletter, The Comforter, August 1921 (De Wet, 1989:126). It carried the nine-month-old story of Lion’s sacking by the AFM for failure to co-operate with AFM’s headquarters. The reason for his sacking was that unlike “other native leaders,” he “would not subordinate himself to white leadership.” Consequently, he was replaced with a white missionary.
2.3.3 Daniel Nkonyane, Elias Mahlangu and Ignatius Lekganyane
Daniel Nkonyane and Elias Mahlangu, former ministry workers with le Roux in the Wakkerstroom Zion Church, which had become a branch of the AFM, led the Africanisation of the Zionist-Pentecostal gospel they inherited from le Roux (Anderson, 2004:107; Molobi & Mahlobo, 2008:42). This greatly exasperated le Roux and created friction between him and the black leaders who were coming into their own (Kiernan, 1994:73; Ngada & Mofokeng, 2001:13-14). The result was Nkonyane founding his Christian Catholic Apostolic Holy Spirit Church in Zion in Charlestown in 1910 and Mahlangu the ZACSA, supposedly in 1917 (Anderson & Pillay, 1997:231; Sullivan, 2013:38). Mahlangu may not have established the ZACSA in the year 1917; instead, ZACSA may have come into existence in 1918 at a conference held in Verulam, (Natal) (Silwana, 1918:3). This conference was presided over by Pieter le Roux; its purpose was to elect an executive committee (Silwana, 1918:3).
Lekganyane was baptised by Elias Mahlangu in Boksburg in 1912 and credentialed by Pieter le Roux in 1916 (Moripe, 1996b:156; Anderson & Pillay, 1997:231-232). At the time of receiving his ministerial credentials, he had already planted a ZAC branch in his hometown, which he led until he left Mahlangu for Edward Lion’s ZAFM (Anderson & Pillay, 1997:232),17 only to leave there in 1924 to establish the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) (Moripe, 1996a:20; Anderson & Pillay, 1997:232). Contrary to Liardon’s (1996) statement that John Lake established ZCC as a black arm of the AFM, it is noticeable that Lekganyane established it many years later, after being a member and minister in other Zionist churches.
2.3.4 Frank Dugmore
Frank Dugmore, a white, former Methodist preacher, was the general secretary of the AFM from 1913 to 1920 (Burger & Nel, 2008:100). He was also appointed by the white Executive Council as a missions’ superintendent from 1916 to 1919 and again from 29 July 1920 to February 1923 (De Wet, 1989:116-117). According to Burger and Nel (2008:221), his major contribution to the black AFM was in structuring it according to Methodist orders, a structure which was only reviewed and changed in 1961. Killingray (2011:96) presents a letter quoted from Anderson (2007) in which Dugmore was proud of the AFM’s approach to native leadership which he contrasted with other white missions in the country. He wrote the letter in 1916 when the AFM missions were still led by a ‘non-racial’ structure of three whites and three blacks (De Wet, 1989:95). Unfortunately, his pride was short-lived as the AFM released a statement in 1917 that it stood for segregation of the races (Burger & Nel, 2008:199). It also replaced the seemingly non-racial structure with an all-white one from the same year until 1962, when two black ministers were elected onto the Executive Committee (Burger & Nel, 2008:222).