Religion: The Black Billy Graham

One of the strongest Christian influences in Africa is a 50-year-old Zulu with a pencil-line mustache and horn-rimmed spectacles who has a knack of persuading criminals to turn in their weapons—and often themselves. Wearing a dark business suit, the Rev. Nicholas Bhengu stands on a packing-case platform and says quietly in Zulu: “Ubugekengu abukhokheli lutho [Crime does not pay].”* There is a movement in the crowd, especially among the young toughs in ducktail haircuts, dungarees and safari jackets. “Nike-lani izikhali zenu nani ku Nkulunkulu [Surrender your arms and yourself to God],” he continues, and a pile begins to grow at his feet—knives, blackjacks, brass knuckles (natives are forbidden to own firearms), and quantities of stolen goods. At one meeting police carted away three vanloads, and it is not unusual for Evangelist Bhengu to end up by walking down to the police station hand in hand with someone on the wanted list.

Communism & Islam. Inevitably, the Rev. Nicholas Bhengu is known throughout Africa as “the black Billy Graham.” In fact, Bhengu’s manner and technique are unlike Graham’s; he uses no publicity or promotion to advertise his campaigns, and his only assistance is a ten-member choir of amateurs supplied by the churches of his mission. His platform presence is almost subdued. But whether he is talking to black audiences or white, Bhengu weaves a spell no less effective than Billy’s.

Last week Bhengu was busy in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. Whites jam-packed Salisbury’s Methodist Hall to hear him tell them, in precise English, what was wrong with white Christianity: “The greatest dangers in Africa today are Communism and Islam. Both offer the African equality. The churches are divided. There are too many, and their different dogmas and doctrines are too confusing for Africans. Christianity has failed in India and China because Christians have failed to live up to Christ’s teaching, and in Africa it’s proving an empty shell for the same reason. If Christians practiced what they preached, there would be no frustration and no fear.”

Gin & the Spirit of God. Evangelist Bhengu is the grandson of a Zulu chief. His father became an evangelist at the Lutheran Mission station at Eshowe, Zululand, and young Nicholas went to school there, then to the Roman Catholic Institute at Eshowe for his secondary education, finally to a missionary school near Kimberley, where he also took an evening course that proved to be inspired by Communism. For a while Bhengu was attracted to Marxism, but by the time he was 20 he had returned to Christianity, was ordained in 1936 and became a missionary of the Assemblies of God, a pentecostal group. He went to the U.S. in 1949 to study at Indiana’s Taylor University, and made evangelistic forays to America in 1954 and 1958, plans to go again next year. Bhengu has also preached in England, Canada, Scotland, Norway, Sweden and Finland. He finances his African campaigns entirely from donations collected on his trips overseas; his African audiences are never asked to contribute.

White Africans are most impressed by Bhengu’s effect on the crime rate. In some areas it has dropped as much as a third, and last year Bhengu set himself to reduce crime in Johannesburg by 25%. He is still far short of his goal, but the attempt itself is remarkable in a frightened city (pop. 1,000,000) where 100,000 firearms are privately owned and virtually every house has a watchdog. In his preaching, Evangelist Bhengu is careful not to set up a kind of reverse color line. White preachers, he tells his native listeners, have the word too. “When you get hold of a bottle of gin. it comes in a white bottle. It tastes good. Sometimes you pour some into a black bottle for your friends. It still tastes good. I give you the spirit of God out of a black bottle, but if it comes out of a white bottle, it is just as good.”

* He also speaks Afrikaans, Sesuto, Xosa, Sechuana, Shangaan and English.