McPherson, Aimee Semple (1890-1944)

A charismatic and gifted Pentecostal preacher, Aimee Semple McPherson gained fame as a barnstorming evangelist in the era of Billy Sunday (depicted so tellingly by Sinclair Lewis in Elmer Gantry). In every respect, she was a pioneer and an original—her flamboyant style and colorful personal life guaranteed that she was good press, and her radio broadcasts from the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles drew her flock from coast to coast to hear "Sister Aimee." Her Church of the Foursquare Gospel was a hybrid of show business and Bible-based simplicity. As a minister, her message was "to bring sinners to Jesus." Renowned for her stirring sermons and for healing by a laying on of hands, her following was such that her personal appearances resembled those of movie stars. Charlie Chaplin, an admirer, remarked that "… You give your drama-starved people who absent themselves through fear, a theater which they can reconcile with their narrow beliefs…. Whether you like it or not, you're an actress."

The first woman to hold a broadcast license, McPherson was shrewd and farsighted in seeing the potential in a media ministry, and as a healer and media personality she laid the groundwork for preachers such as Oral Roberts, Katherine Kuhlman, and Jim and Tammy Baker. Always well and expensively dressed, she created a persona that withstood controversy and sustained her ministry; the Church of the Foursquare Gospel and the L.I.F.E. Bible College she founded remain active in 83 countries and claim two million members.

Born Aimee Kennedy in 1890 in Salford, Ontario; at the age of six weeks she was "consecrated to God and the Salvation Army" by her mother Minnie, a fervent convert to "the Army" which was making considerable inroads in conservative Canadian towns with "Jubilee services"—music and prayer. With this beginning, Aimee, the child her mother believed marked by destiny to be a religious leader, found the inspiration for her services. A first marriage to Robert Semple led her to accompany the missionary to China, and his death became the impetus for her to pursue her own calling as an evangelist. She married Harold McPherson and unsuccessfully tried to be a conventional wife and mother. By the time her second marriage disintegrated, Aimee had found her calling and was touring the country in her "Full Gospel Car"—first with McPherson and their son Rolf and then with her irrepressible mother Minnie.

Wherever "Sister" went she was an immediate success. The novelty of a woman preacher brought out the crowds, but McPherson's power as a speaker and her reputation as a formidable "soul-saver" and healer built her reputation. Her early campaigns were conducted in tents, but finally in 1919 McPherson found her home base in the rapidly expanding city of Los Angeles, where the movie business boomed. She frequently recalled that she arrived there with "ten dollars and a tambourine" and her ministry quickly grew from a simple storefront to large auditoriums. "Sister" did not promote herself as a healer, but the crowds came in hope of miracles. She herself said, "Jesus is the healer. I am only the office girl who opens the door and says,'Come In."'

McPherson loved music, and she is credited with bringing popular music into the church—jazz in particular. She later composed operas, a natural outgrowth of her performances in the pulpit which were elaborate spectacles featuring "Sister" in costume, props (which included animals) and a supporting cast of followers. In just four years she opened the 5,300 seat Angelus Temple, built by the contributions of her faithful, "entirely debt-free" as she proudly asserted.

McPherson continued to travel the world, always grabbing headlines. A 1927 New York appearance requested by the notorious Texas Guinan, ("Queen of the Nightclubs") was reported as "Evangelist Preaches at Speakeasy." Her appearance became increasingly glamorous as her fame swelled the congregation. Now blonde-haired as any movie queen, "Sister" preached the Gospel while controversy swirled about her personal life. The most notorious incident, which significantly affected her reputation, was the sensational 1926 "kidnapping" from a California beach. McPherson always insisted she had been snatched, drugged, and held captive in Mexico, and later escaped. Upon her triumphant "return from the dead" (after being believed drowned), "Sister" greeted a cheering crowd of 50,000 people and led a procession to the Angelus Temple. Subsequent attempts to prove she was actually holed up in a "love nest" with Kenneth Ormiston, her radio operator and a married man, were not enough to destroy her popularity. The press, previously friendly, were now her inquisitors. Squabbles (primarily financial) with her mother, her daughter Roberta, and other Temple officials made news and landed her in court on a regular basis, yet McPherson continued to insist that she wanted nothing more than to preach "that old-time religion." A poor judge of character, she married a third husband, David Hutton, despite her own doctrine that a divorced person should not remarry during the life of the former partner. This marriage ended disastrously, and her health, always fragile, began to give way. Her death at the age of 53 in 1944 gave rise to speculation that she had committed suicide, and the evidence remains inconclusive, like so much in Aimee Semple McPherson's life.

What is evident is that her celebrity allowed her a considerable platform to both preach and to administer her extensive social welfare programs during the Great Depression. She remained popular until the end: 60,000 mourners passed by her funeral bier to say a last goodbye to "Sister." Her legacy is the Church of the Foursquare Gospel, now headed by her son Rolf, and by her example helped women gain a place as ministers in a patriarchal religion. While there has been relatively little scholarly attention given to McPherson, journalists and filmmakers have retold her story with relish. Faye Dunaway played her in a well-received 1976 television film, The Disappearance of Aimee.

—Mary Hess

Further Reading:

Blumhofer, Edith L. Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister. Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1993.

Epstein, Daniel Mark. Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson. New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.

McPherson, Aimee Semple. Aimee: Life Story. Los Angeles, Foursquare, 1979.

Thomas, Lately. Storming Heaven: The Lives and Turmoils of Minnie Kennedy and Aimee Semple McPherson. New York, William Morrow, 1970.