Apostle of the Poor – The Life and Works of Missionary and Humanitarian Charles D. Neff

By Matthew Bolton

Reviewed by Dorothy Moore
On 9/25/2008

John Whitmer Books, 2008 Paperback:
189 pages
ISBN-10: 1-934901-01-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-934901-01-4 Price: $14.95

This book is framed, by the author, as an administrative biography focusing on the worldwide mission of the RLDS church (now Community of Christ) and the effect of one person’s life on it during the years 1921-1991.

Matthew Bolton grew up in a varied multicultural community. Visitors from every populated continent had signed the family guestbook by the time he was ten. This has instilled in him a fascination with the world and its peoples. This book is an effort to share that missionary interest, using Charles Daniel Neff’s life as the focus point.

I think Bolton does a good job – using examples from Neff’s life in the time context to show how this one man’s efforts impacted the RLDS church (now Community of Christ, so named after he died) to change “from a small provincial sect centered in the Midwestern plains, to a worldwide church spanning over 50 countries." (pg.ix)

Did it make me understand Charles Neff and his goals better?

Yes, because he explained, shared and described what was happening at specific times in the church’s history. As an active long time member of the RLDS church during these specific times, this book enlarged my understanding of what was going on in the church in other countries. The goals, the projects he instigated basically applied to outside the United States but the methods could be applied to the same problems within the U.S.

Any reader interested in world missions would benefit from the detailed accounts, the successes as well as the failures. In the end, Neff’s steady radicalization alienated some of the church’s more traditional believers, he was an upstart, an outsider but a dedicated one whose main goal was to answer the question, “When I think of the mission of the church, I recall the face of the poorest person and ask: Will it restore the dignity that every man should enjoy? Will it set him free? Will it heal his broken heart?” (pg. ix)

The church’s name change didn’t come until after Neff’s death but the author itemizes the happenings, some in great detail, which resulted in the RLDS church renaming itself the Community of Christ.

Richard Howard, former RLDS historian, says in his foreword about the author: “For one who was not personally present to see those events evolve, Bolton has made considerable effort to assemble and process the data necessary for understanding this evolution, while judiciously avoiding premature judgments." (pg.vi)

I would say that the author has done this very nicely, with plenty of notes clearly labeled for anyone to do further research. Bolton covers all kinds of subjects, including many of the “touchy” subjects: race, color, location. He makes the people in his book very human, dedicated to their beliefs and interpretations of the way they needed to work their way back to their God.


Copyright 2008