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DAVID DU PLESSIS ARCHIVE |
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The Joseph Mattsson-Boze Collection Scope and Content In 1933, at the behest of the Philadelphia Church in Gothenburg, Sweden, Joseph Mattsson-Boze (1905-1988) emigrated 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-Boze served as pastor to Chicago's Philadelphia Church. When he resigned as pastor in 1958, Mattsson-Boze 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-Boze 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-Boze 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 with their complete conviction in their call to evangelize. Furthermore, it reveals how remote the war could be for those who felt called to ministry instead of to arms. 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 Harold. 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-Boze 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-Boze'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-Boze'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-Boze's hopes and concerns for the Pentecostal fellowship worldwide at mid-century. One highlight of the conference for Mattsson-Boze 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-Boze lasted the rest of their lives, and upon the establishment of the David Du Plessis Archive, Du Plessis requested Mattsson-Boze's papers be housed with his. The Mattsson-Boze papers stand as a rich resource, too, for studies of William Branham, another close friend of Mattsson-Boze's, about whom Mattsson-Boze published monthly articles from 1955 until Branham's death in 1965. The collection was donated to the archive by Joseph Mattsson-Boze's son, Winston, who now directs the Herald of Faith Mission. Mattsson-Boze's papers were moved to McAlister Library in 1987 from the Philadelphia Church in Chicago. The current arrangement of the materials is the work of Martha Nelson, Joseph Mattsson-Boze's longtime secretary. Additional material on Mattsson-Boze can be found in the Lewi Pethrus Archives in Sweden and the Dagen newspaper. Among Mattsson-Boze's Swedish publications are three books entitled Aventyr pa trons Vag, Gyllene Tempel och Gyllene Tillfalle, Tro som Forflyttar Berg. 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
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