Johannes Büchler

TAB 1298/44

survived by 5 daughters and 4 sons

Johannesburg may possibly be named after him after he started his work in the Rand!!

Johannes Büchler's background was Swiss. He was born in 1864 at Herisau, near Appenzell, Switzerland. He died in Johannesburg in 1944. His Swiss parents had been strongly influenced by a revival in the Herisau district, Switzerland in the 1860s. They formed a group of friends who felt that "they had received the Holy Spirit according to the promise of Christ". Ordinary good Swiss burghers therefore regarded them as madmen-and the Büchlers and their friends took the consequences. They gave away their belongings and decided to leave their country. Sorne thirty of them emigrated, via Holland, to South Africa, the majority settling in the Cape Province.

It was here that P. L. Le Roux, as a young man, was influenced by these Pietistic foreigners. 16 The young Johannes Büchler accompanied his parents to Kimberley, the diamond city, in 1870, but when gold was discovered further north he travelled alone to Johannesburg in 1889. There, with the help of a grant from the Government, he started a school, reputed to be the first English-medium school in Transvaal. He liked to preach, bath to the Europeans and the Coloureds. * He was accepted as Pastor to the Coloureds in 1892, and the following year saw his ordination in the Congregational Church, for the purpose of serving the Coloured congregation. However, he had a problem that the Congregationalists could not solve for him. He had grave doubts about Infant Baptism and this led him in 1895 to resign from the Ebenezer Chape!; from this time he encouraged his Coloured congregation to build a chape! of their own. On March 21, 1895, they formed a new congregation, which they called "the Zion Church", most probably for the same reason as the Zulus at Wakkerstroom. They had the same Moravian hymn book, in Dutch, Zions Liedere. Büchler concentrated on the Coloured community but he was equally anxious to teach himself more theology. The books of Georg Müller appealed greatly to his temperament. Working in the city of Johannesburg, he had access to new publications which of course people in the country, in places such as Wakkerstroom, lacked. In this way he came across a new publication from America, Leaves of Healing, published by Dr. John Alexander Dowie, Zion City, Chicago, Illinois. This struck a deep co rd in Büchler's heart and he became a regular reader of the paper. In 1897 he recommended it to his friend at Wakkerstroom, Le Roux. He was drawn to Dowie's theocratie message with its fourfold Gospel of Jesus as Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. But it was the message of healing that influenced him most as he was unwell himself and was looking for help. In 1898 he began to correspond with Dr. Dowie and was soon prepared to start divine healing at a home for Europeans at Jepperstown in Johannesburg. This home attracted a number of patients. Büchler's influence in South Africa grew. He had a large circle of correspondents and he travelled widely in order to baptize and to pray for the sick. He felt that he had a "sixth sense", a capacity for "seeing" when people far away needed him. It was thus that he saw, with the eyes of the Spirit, that a Salvation Army Captain by the name of Edgar Mahon, in Southern Natal, had fallen ill and needed him. He went there, prayed for him and Mahon was healed. They became close friends and Mahon married a step-sister of Büchler's. However, his healing activity was also to arouse opposition in certain quarters. He was ali the more encouraged by powerful letters from Dr. Dowie. The American was thrilled by the new possibilities that this contact with Büchler seemed to open up, on Zion's behalf, in Johannesburg and in Africa as a whole. He told Büchler that he wanted him as his "Overseer" in South Africa. But first Büchler must come to the very Fountain, to Zion in Chicago.

Büchler went to Chicago, met the famous man-and was repelled. He was sickened by the sycophantic personality cult encouraged by 'John Alexander, First Apostle" himself and he made his feelings on the matter quite clear. Büchler was a solid and balanced person, and w hen Dowie's admirers sang the First Apostle's praises, the young man from South Africa challenged both the First Apostle and the twenty-four other "apostles" around him, at which the latter threw up their bands in horror and exclaimed, "This Balaam's ass from South Africa has dared to criticize this man of God." Dowie never forgave him. In his own particular way he told Büchler that he would never be well again, and demanded that he return home, but this time without offering to pay for his return ticket. Büchler returned to South Africa, where he now co-operated mainly with Plymouth Brethren and Baptists. As we shaH see, when the Apostolic Faith arrived on the scene in 1908, he accepted their teaching but "disliked their manifestations". Thus Büchler, who had played a certain role in introducing Dowie to South Africa, eventually became one of his many critics. As far as his own enterprise in Johannesburg was concerned, he was now determined not to have it confused with Dowie's movement, and even changed the name of his congregation in order to forestail any mistake. Unwittingly, he anticipated later developments when, in 1903, he exchanged the name "Zion Church" for "Apostolic Faith Mission".18 His aversion to Dowie did not deter him from inviting one of Dowie's men, Daniel Bryant, to South Africa a little later. And a firm believer in Divine Healing he remained throughout. His work was largely confined to Europeans and Coloureds but his contacts with Le Roux and Mahon were to be of importance to Black Zion. 19

18 In a letter of 18.2.1903, Büchler applied to the Secretary, Native Affairs, to be appointed as Marriage Officer for his church, now, "to avoid trouble and confusion," to be called Apostolic Faith Mission. He informed the Government that the office-bearers of the Church were to be "under the direct control of the Holy Spirit". The Secretary, Native Affairs, 23.2.1903, rejected the application. SNA 24,444 (1903). Nat. Archives, Pretoria. 19 Constitution and Deed of Trust of the Zion Church, Johannesburg, 1926. Cf. J. Büchler, Gods Onuitputlike Branne, 1931; Geschiednies van die Christelike Doop, n.d. Uitverkiezing, n.d. Interview with Mr. John Büchler, (Johannes Büchler's son), Johannesburg, Dec. 1972. See also John Büchler, 'The Full History of the Free Baptist

The name amaZioni is a Zulu word meaning, “people of Zion.” The Zion movement in South Africa began in 1897 when a protestant evangelical church in Chicago, IL called the Christian Catholic Church in Zion commissioned a South African Pastor named Johannes Buchler to start at church branch there. Soon after, two more South African missionary families (the Le Rouxs and the Mahons) joined the work. In 1904, Daniel and Emma Bryant, where sent over from the home church to serve the new church in South Arica as well. Within a decade the number of people being reached through this combined effort consisted of over 5,00o Africans in different parts of the country. Though this church was expanding quickly it was unfortunately disrupted within a decade. The Bryant’s returned to the States and the Le Roux’s joined a different church work leaving the Mahon’s as the only original missionaries to serve in the work. As a result, a fraction of the amaZioni were properly discipled. Those churches today are called the Mahon Churches.