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Missionaries’ gift documents church role

 
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5:00 P.M. ET Oct. 20, 2011


Fanuel Tagwira, vice chancellor of Africa University, holds one of hundreds of historical publications donated to the university by James and Carolyn Perry, retired United Methodist missionaries. UMNS photos by Stephen Drachler.
Fanuel Tagwira, vice chancellor of Africa University, holds one of hundreds of historical publications donated to the university by James and Carolyn Perry, retired United Methodist missionaries. UMNS photos by Stephen Drachler.
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Documenting the history of The United Methodist Church in Zimbabwe just became easier, thanks to a gift from James Lane Perry and Carolyn Shugart Perry, retired United Methodist missionaries.

The couple, who served in Zimbabwe from 1959 to 1964 when it was Southern Rhodesia under British colonial rule, donated hundreds of historical magazines, books and other publications from Africa to United Methodist-related Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe.

Their donation was made public last month during the annual Richard E. “Dick” Reeves Legacy Society dinner.

Elaine Jenkins, director of planned giving, and James Salley, associate vice chancellor for institutional development, presented several issues of the quarterly newsletter, The Africa Christian Advocate, to Fanuel Tagwira, university vice chancellor and chief executive officer.

The newsletter chronicled the active involvement of United Methodists in the region during the period leading to Zimbabwe’s independence. Bishop Ralph E. Dodge presided over the area during that time. His wife, Eunice, edited the quarterly publication.

“As the winds of change were blowing over the continent, Methodists were not afraid,” Jenkins said. “They were not afraid to take on the power of the day. They said it was up to Africans to decide their future.”

When Jenkins first visited the Perry home in Armuchee, Ga., the Perrys gave her copies of The Africa Christian Advocate and told her about the important role the newsletter played in Africa half a century ago.

First black African bishops in Methodist Church

On a later visit, Carolyn Perry pulled magazines and books from a box that had been in the attic for years. James Perry described each publication. In addition to the church-related material, several tracts highlighted the revolutionary movements spreading across the continent. Among the publications were several 1960s-era road maps of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which is present-day Malawi.


A copy of The Africa Christian Advocate dating to 1964 is one of the historical publications given to Africa University.
A copy of The Africa Christian Advocate dating to 1964 is one of the historical publications given to Africa University.
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The Africa Christian Advocate reported on Methodist activity in what is now Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The October-December 1964 issue focused on the first Africans elected to the episcopacy in the Methodist Church. The magazine cover shows Bishop John Wesley Shungu, who replaced Bishop Newell S. Booth during the Africa Central Conference meeting in Mulungwishi, Congo.

Shungu was the second black African elected during that conference. The first was Bishop Escrivao Zunguze of Mozambique who was not present when elected. He was consecrated later.

Every issue portrayed the profound political changes occurring throughout southern Africa at that time.

Booth focused on African self-determination in a regular feature, the “Bishop’s Corner.”

“The greatest task which the church in Africa faces today is the realization of the potential for leadership,” he wrote. “The presence of the potential within the African people is very evident. … To fail now to provide more scholarships is to fail to have leaders for the morrow.”

Emergence of Christian principles

He concluded his article by writing “a young person in the heart of Africa has as much right to the concern of the Methodist Church as a whole as one who is living in America.”

In another article, L. Harold DeWolf of Boston University wrote that the political leaders emerging during that period were nearly all graduates of mission schools because “there have been no other schools for Africans. The whole present passion for political freedom is based on education, so the political resolution is, in one sense, a product of the church.”

He described the role of churches in the emergence of Christian principles in the political changes taking place.

“Young ministers want to discuss Christian concern … about life … and attitudes towards politics,” DeWolf wrote. He noted that Joshua Nkomo was a Methodist local preacher before he emerged as president of the ZAPU (Zimbabwe African Peoples Union) party as the fever for independence grew throughout Southern Rhodesia.

Gordon F. Mawere, archivist at the university’s Kent M. Weeks History and Archives Hall, said the Perry gift significantly adds to the university’s quest to document the history of The United Methodist Church in Zimbabwe.

Mawere said the material would enhance the understanding of “relations between early missionaries and settlers and African peoples, as well as relationships between church and state during the Nationalist period.

“We extend our gratitude ... for such a timely and important donation,” he said.

*Drachler is executive director of United Methodist Advocacy in Pennsylvania and former executive director of public information at United Methodist Communications in Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Maggie Hillery, Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org 

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