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Papers of Joseph Mattsson-Boze, 1932-1988 Fuller Theological Seminary Digital Commons @ Fuller List of Archival Collections Archives and Special Collections 2018 COLLECTION 0004: Papers of Joseph Mattsson- Boze, 1932-1988 Fuller Seminary Archives and Special Collections Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/findingaids Part of the Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, Missions and World Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Fuller Seminary Archives and Special Collections, "COLLECTION 0004: Papers of Joseph Mattsson-Boze, 1932-1988" (2018). List of Archival Collections. 66. https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/findingaids/66 This Finding Aid is brought to you for free and open access by the Archives and Special Collections at Digital Commons @ Fuller. It has been accepted for inclusion in List of Archival Collections by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Fuller. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Archives, Rare Books and Special Collections David Allan Hubbard Library Fuller Theological Seminary COLLECTION 4: Papers of Joseph Mattsson-Bozé, 1932-1988 Table of Contents Administrative Information .............................................................................................................2 Biogarphy and Historical Background.............................................................................................3 Scope and Content ...........................................................................................................................4 Arrangement and Series Description ...............................................................................................5 Box Inventory ..................................................................................................................................8 Box 1: Sermons, Tracts & Clippings ...........................................................................................8 Box 2: Sermons, Tracts, Clippings, Periodicals ........................................................................10 Boxes 3-24: Correspondence .....................................................................................................12 Box 25: Correspondence, articles, Africa Project, & miscellaneous .........................................13 Box 26: Posters ..........................................................................................................................13 Box 27: Photos ...........................................................................................................................14 Administrative Information Title: Papers of Joseph Mattsson-Bozé, 1932-1988 Collection Identifier: CFT00004 Creators: Mattsson-Boze, Joseph D. (1905-1989) Size: 27 Boxes Repository: David Allan Hubbard Library Fuller Theological Seminary 135 N Oakland Ave Pasadena, CA 91182 [email protected] Provenance: Donated to the Archive in 1987 by his son Winston. That the Mattsson-Bozé papers would come to the David du Plessis Archive was the wish of Du Plessis, an old friend of Mattsson- Bozé's. Mattsson-Bozé's papers were moved to Hubbard Library from the Philadelphia Church in Chicago. Conditions Governing Access/Restrictions: Scholarly use with parameters of copyright law Language: English, Swedish Processing: Unknown Finding Aid Revisions: Andrew Wong, June 2018 2 Biographical and Historical Background In 1933, at the behest of the Philadelphia Church in Gothenburg, Sweden, Joseph Mattsson-Bozé (1905-1989) immigrated to Chicago, Illinois, to serve as pastor to a growing congregation of Swedish immigrants. Two years later he traveled back to Sweden, married, and returned to Chicago with his bride. For 18 of the next 22 years, with a hiatus from 1939-1943 during which he pastored the Rock Church in New York, Mattsson-Bozé served as pastor to Chicago's Philadelphia Church. When he resigned as pastor in 1958, Mattsson-Bozé launched the Herald of Faith (Independent Pentecostal) mission to East Africa and, later, Argentina. During his years as a pastor and for 13 years as a missionary, Mattsson-Bozé also edited the Herald of Faith journal. He figured prominently in the Independent Pentecostal Fellowship and had strong ties to William Branham's ministry. His papers, housed in the David du Plessis Archive, chronicle his life. Letters written during his tenure as pastor range in topic from the everyday problems faced by the pastor of a strongly immigrant congregation to detailed opinions on church organization and doctrine. They also include letters to and from the mission fields written in the early 1940s. While pastor of Rock Church, Mattsson-Bozé helped carry the burden of financing independent missionaries during the war, the correspondence from these years, which was conducted in English, Swedish, and an English/Swedish patois, contrasts the dire economic and physical struggles faced by missionaries. The archive contains nearly complete runs of the Swedish and English versions of the Herald of Faith magazine, which succeeded the Swedish publications Sanningens Vittnen and Trons Härold. The Herald of Faith served as a fellowship magazine for the Independent Assemblies of God until about 1958. Through its articles, letters, and stories the publication offered support for independent local churches. It promoted a model of church government patterned on the one developed by Lewi Pethrus for the Swedish Filadelfia Church, which stressed group leadership through elders. When Mattsson-Bozé left the Philadelphia Church in 1958 he took with him the Herald of Faith magazine. He continued to publish the magazine until 1971, at which time he turned the journal over to Dan Malachuk of Logos International, who changed its name to the Logos Journal. Papers related to the publication of the Herald of Faith include materials from Mattsson-Bozé's missionary campaigns, primarily photographs, newsletters, and memorabilia. These papers, along with his correspondence from that time, loosely trace the development of the East African Revival mission. Mattsson-Bozé's letters written as an Executive Committee member at the First World Pentecostal Conference address the organization's composition and doctrinal differences as well as reflect Mattsson-Bozé's hopes and concerns for the Pentecostal fellowship worldwide at mid- century. One highlight of the conference for Mattsson-Bozé was the agreement he authored with David du Plessis that allowed "independents," including Lewi Pethrus and the Swedish churches, to cooperate with the Pentecostal movement. The friendship initiated between Du Plessis and Mattsson-Bozé lasted the rest of their lives, and upon the establishment of the David Du Plessis Archive, Du Plessis requested Mattsson-Bozé's papers be housed with his. The Mattsson-Bozé papers stand as a rich resource, too, for studies of William Branham, another close friend of Mattsson-Bozé's, about whom Mattsson-Bozé published monthly articles from 1955 until Branham's death in 1965. 3 Scope and Content Joseph Mattsson-Bozé became a leader in the "Latter Rain," a splinter movement within Pentecostalism in the 1940s and 1950s. His papers range in date from 1933 to the early 1970s and include correspondence with significant figures in classical independent Pentecostal circles. A full run of the Swedish journal Trons Härold, which became the English journal Herald of Faith, can be found in the collection. Other short-lived Swedish and English journals help comprise the Mattsson-Bozé Collection. These papers, along with the DeGregorio Papers, constitute a rich resource for independent or nondenominational Pentecostalism. The collection includes material on: Immigrant Churches; Latter Rain; Independent Pentecostal Churches; East African Revival; Revival in Argentina; Rock Church (New York, NY); Philadelphia Church (Chicago, IL); First World Pentecostal Conference (1949); William Branham; Henry Carlson; and Clair Hutchens. The current arrangement of the materials is the work of Martha Nelson, Joseph Mattsson-Bozé's longtime secretary. Additional material on Mattsson-Bozé can be found in the Lewi Pethrus Archives in Sweden and the Dagen newspaper. Among Mattsson-Bozé's Swedish publications are three books entitled Äventyr på trons Väg, Gyllene Tempel och Gyllene Tillfällen, Tro som Förflyttar Berg. Hubbard Library Archived Periodicals at http://fulleripac.fuller.edu/#focus houses many fascicles of Dagen from 1968 through 1986. Subjects: David du Plessis Archives Herald of faith Pentecostalism 4 Arrangement and Series Description Correspondence The correspondence is arranged chronologically. Letters are classified further alphabetically. All of the letters for 1947, for example, sent to Mattsson-Bozé by persons whose last names begin with an A are arranged alphabetically in the same folder with all of the letters from Mattsson- Bozé to people whose last names begin with an A. The majority of the correspondence covers the period from 1938-1958, with occasional correspondence from earlier and later years. Approximately three-fourths of the letters are in English with the remainder in Swedish. The correspondence is extensive, filling 23 boxes. Themes found among the letters include independent Pentecostal church organization, the Latter Rain Movement, mission fields, independent ministers and their problems with more organized Pentecostal brethren, and the daily running of a church. As pastor of a large, predominantly Swedish, and strongly missiological church,
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