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25 Chapter 2 The Democratic Missionary When Garfield Todd came to Africa in 1934 he found a rural and tribal society that rejected both Christianity and education because it did not trust white missionaries. A patriarchal society existed where males lived a carefree life with women bearing the “brunt of the work load, tilling the fields, maintaining the homes, and caring for children.”1 The development of mines brought the first significant social change to the old ways, forcing males into the workforce. In the 1930s, the Todds began to build bridges to suspicious Africans. He brought in an egalitarian and Christian ethos where he would help anyone in need no matter how helpless or marginalized they were. “Garfield performed burials even for Catholics, was a builder, an arbitrator in commun m nity disputes, and—most dramatically—a doctor.”2 Soon after Todd arrived at Dadaya a priest called him and asked Todd to help Jonah Mantjontjo, who had suffered severe burns from an accident and was in a hospital in Bulawayo. Todd was appalled at what he found. Mant m tjontjo “was covered in filthy bandages, smelled to high heaven and could not move.” Two of Todd’s “staff members fainted at the sight of the poor man.”3 Hearing that engine oil was a good disinfectant for burn victims, Todd put oil soaked bandages in the infected burns. The next day the infection was gone, so Todd remarked, “we always used engine oil for burns.” After Mantjontjo recovered Todd took him home, but his family and friends were shocked: “they thought he was dead and seeing him actually standing there and talking they conc m cluded that the white missionary had raised him from the dead.”4 Todd and the New Zealand Churches of Christ Garfield Todd grew up in the New Zealand Churches of Christ where he learned his democratic ethos. New Zealand became a British crown colony when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by the Maori people Casey.Rhetoric.indd 39 1/9/07 11:11:01 AM 26 CHAPTER TWO and the British in 1840. On March 2, 1844, Thomas Jackson founded the first Church of Christ in the Southern hemisphere in New Zealand at Nelson. Soon congregations followed in Auckland on the north island and in Dunedin on the south island. The Churches of Christ grew at a slow but steady rate as British immigrants came from the British Churches of Christ or similar restorationist groups. Jackson and other Kiwi leaders kept in touch with Alexander Campbell in the United States and with James Wallis, a key leader of the British Churches of Christ.5 The New Zealand Churches maintained a democratic ethos through lay leadership (mutual ministry by male congregational memb m bers) and congregational autonomy. Ackers points out the democratic nature of the British Churches of Christ: “The chapel trained the ambitious individual in the skills of reading, writing and speaking, and administration, so necessary to leadership positions, while tying this to a solidaristic ethos of brotherhood and social responsibility.”6 From Britain they brought their democratic practices to New Zealand. Starting in the 1880s with the arrival of American, Australian, and British preachers, the New Zealand Churches began to shift away from the sectarian radical democratic ethos to a more denominational and less egalitarian culture. The new preachers paved the way for accept m tance of geographically located professional ministers for congregat m tions. District conferences were set up and starting in 1901 a national conference met in Wellington. In 1920 the congregations associated in a national conference that met annually and the first national denomin m national paper, the New Zealand Christian, was published. Completi m ing the march to respectability in 1927, the Glen Leith Theological College was established in Dunedin to train ministers; Todd entered the first class.7 The New Zealand Churches remained small with fifty churches and 2,463 members in 1905. In 1938 the Churches reached their highest point with 4,962 members.8 Government statistics, which included all adherents (unimmersed children of adults), indicated there were 11,197 people attending the New Zealand Churches in 1936.9 Like their British Churches of Christ counterparts, the New Zealand Churches went into decline and published their official statistics for the final time in 1979 (forty-three churches and 2,926 members). In 1972 some congregations from the New Zealand Churches of Christ united with other declining mainline protestant churches (Congregational, Methodist, and Presbyterian) into “union...

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