Sim Swedish Institute of Mission Research Publisher of the Series Studia Missionalia Svecana & Missio Publisher of the Periodical Swedish Missiological Themes (Smt)
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SIM SWEDISH INSTITUTE OF MISSION RESEARCH PUBLISHER OF THE SERIES STUDIA MISSIONALIA SVECANA & MISSIO PUBLISHER OF THE PERIODICAL SWEDISH MISSIOLOGICAL THEMES (SMT) This publication is made available online by Swedish Institute of Mission Research at Uppsala University. Uppsala University Library produces hundreds of publications yearly. They are all published online and many books are also in stock. Please, visit the web site at www.ub.uu.se/actashop BEYOND THE FORESTLINE THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF BENGT SUNDKLER BEYOND THE FORESTLINE THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF BENGT SUNDKLER Marja Liisa Swantz GRACEWING Studia Missionalia SVECANA LXXXIV First published in 2002 by Gracewing 2 Southem Avenue Leominster Herefordshire HR6 OQF AH rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other wise, without the written permission of the publisher. © Marja Liisa Swantz 2002 The right of Marja Liisa Swantz to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN 0 85244 560 1 ISSN 1404 9503 Typeset by Action Publishing Technology Ltd, Gloucester, GL1 5SR Printed in England by Antony Rowe Ltd, Eastboume BN23 6QT CONTENTS page Acknowledgements vii Introduction ix Brief biography of Bengt Sundkler xxiv Part One Beyond the Forestline: Autobiographical notes of a northerner turning south 1 1 In the Forest 3 2 School Years 7 3 University Years 10 4 The Church and Segregation 15 5 To the Equator 25 6 Metropolis and Africa 31 7 An Internationale of Missions 35 8 Professor Among Students 3 7 9 Bishop on the Equator 3 7 10 A Continent Through Nineteen-Hundred Years 38 Part Two Africa In His Heart: The life and work of Bengt Sundkler 41 1 Beyond the Roots 43 2 'Great Times in Uppsala' 51 3 Ingeborg 66 4 Church and Mission in the Segregated South 83 5 To another Africa 106 6 'Difficult Times in Uppsala' - The 1950s 122 7 Metropolis and Africa 160 8 Bishop on the Equator 176 9 'Good Times in Uppsala' 201 10 Internationale of Missions 250 11 A Continent Through Nineteen-Hundred Years 265 12 To Write is to Live and Create 302 vi Life and Letters of Bengt Sundkler List of Dissertations Supervised by Professor Bengt Sundkler 323 List of Bengt Sundkler's Main Publications 325 Bibliography 326 Index of Subjects 331 Index of Names 334 List of Studia Missionalia Svecana series 336 ------------- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Producing this book has been a long process. Living in Finland while much of the material was in Uppsala has necessitated the kind assis tance of many friends of Bengt Sundkler's. 1 wish to thank especially the director of the University of Uppsala Archives, Viveca Halldin Norberg, for the way she and her staff have made available the Bengt Sundkler collection for the writing of this work and 1 thank Âsa Henningsson for assisting with the pictures. Christopher Steed has provided steady support throughout the whole process, and 1 doubt whether this book would ever have appeared without his capacity to make things happen. 1 think warmly of Professor Carl-Fredrik Hallencreutz, who sadly is no longer here to see the publication of this volume. He, more than anyone else, responded to my requests for a Swedish, in particular, Uppsala, opinion on the writing of Bengt Sundkler's life story. He acknowledged and read each section promptly, making most helpful corrections and offering suggestions. 1 address my thanks to his wife, Katharina Hallencreutz, who also read the chapters 1 was constantly sending to their common e-mail address; 1 know that her opinion also influenced Carl-Fredrik's reactions. 1 am grateful to Axel-Ivar and Kerstin Berglund for their hospital ity during my frequent visits to Uppsala and for providing valuable background information as well as reading the manuscript and suggesting changes. 1 would also like to thank Sigbert Axelsson and Torle Furberg for meeting me several times, along with Carl-Fredrik and Christopher, to make comments and above all to ad vise me on how the book should be conceived. However, it is no fault of any of theirs if 1 have not followed their ideas at every stage. 1 am solely responsible for the result. 1 owe special thanks to Tiina Ahonen who let me use her collection of articles and speeches of Bengt Sundkler. She also read the manu script and made useful suggestions and corrections. 1 am also grateful to Gustaf Bjôrck for his help in searching for information at the Swedish Institute of Mission. 1 would like to thank Jenny Oates for viii Life and Letters of Bengt Sundkler the laborious copy-editing of the book and for preparing the Indexes. 1 also owe thanks to the Church of Sweden Mission for providing a grant which facilitated the publication of the biography of Bishop and Professor Bengt Sundkler, who contributed so significantly to the work of the CSM. Las tl y, 1 thank profusely my long-suffering husband, Lloyd Swantz, for his patience in seeing this process through and my daughter, Eva Swantz-Rydberg, for the many ways in which she assisted me at different stages in the production of this book. Marja Liisa Swantz INTRODUCTION Bengt Sundkler, a Swede, was a well-known missiologist and histo rian of non-European churches, specialising in African church history. He had served as a missionary in South Africa and Tanzania, and later the northwestem diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania called him to be their first bishop. Bengt Sundkler was a multifaceted person and a true international, long before the era of mass global-isation, which he saw coming in his later years. Bengt Sundkler worked on his autobiography while he was writing his final major work on the history of the Church in Africa. He had various outlines, but reduced the text to an abbreviated version, leaving sorne chapter headings untouched or with only a few pages written. A brief autobiography forms the first part of this volume. In the second part 1 have made use of the earlier outlines which he sent to me in letters. The variety of other sources 1 explain below. Any attempt to portray the lifetime's work of Bengt Sundkler and him as a person will inevitably be one-sided, narrowed down to aspects selected from a specifie view of his personality and career. Firstly, the mate rial and sources available shape the portrait, but the selection is also biased toward my own persona! view of Bengt Sundkler, especially in his later years. As both editor and writer 1 further claim a certain commonality with his approach to scholarship and with his way of experiencing life in general, which 1 discovered first as a student and later as a colleague and friend. Here 1 attempt to describe my understanding of what that commonalty was. 1 direct the searchlight toward what 1 consider to be the keys to understanding Bengt Sundkler's life. This also influences the choice of quotations which form the core of the second part of the biography. Four things oriented Bengt Sundkler in his life decisions: Firstly, to the end of his life he remained a pastor, a shepherd of souls. He was ordained in the Church of Sweden in 1936, a church which he considered to be a bridge church within the Catholic, Universal Church: ecumenicity was the key to his being a pas tor, priest and bishop. Christ was God's Mission into the world and for x Life and Letters of Bengt Sundkler that reason, this Mission was the uniting factor for the Universal Church. This Mission entrusted to God's pilgrim people on earth was integral to the Church. Secondly, Bengt Sundkler could not consider scholarship and history in isolation from people. In the final analysis, people were the actors in history. For him, people's ways of acting, living and think ing did not provide data with which he could verify his hypotheses, but rather formed the substance of his scholarship. He not only observed but also participated in the life of the people whose life and history he then wrote about. The leading concept was 'relatedness'. He called this an 'engaged approach' .1 His methodology was grounded in a Participatory World View before anyone bad theorised about participatory research as distinct from participatory observation. Thirdly, Bengt Sundkler was an intense scholar for whom scholar ship took precedence over most other concems of life, but his scholarship was closely linked to practicallife experience. Theory and practice were inseparably intertwined. In one of his interviews Bengt simply stated, 'In this miserable life of mine, theology bas been worked out in the context of a living church. '2 This close linking of theory and practice is, to my mind, the key to understanding Bengt Sundkler's theological and scholarly position in general, as a teacher of theology, and in his churchmanship. For this reason, his daily notes are significant for the story of Bengt Sundkler's life and work. Finally, Bengt Sundkler was a creative writer who put into his writings his aesthetic experience of life. He found inspiration in litur gical services administered with reverence and devotion; in choral music; in Bach organ and piano recitals; in aesthetic, spiritual and intellectual enjoyment of listening to the radio or watching the televi sion (often French television); in walks and bicycle rides; in the beauty of nature and freely shining sun while lying on his balcon y, which he called his 'Tenerife'.