Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944) was a Canadian-American evangelist and celebrity who founded the Foursquare Church.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Our woman of the day was a famed Pentecostal evangelist and celebrity who pioneered the use of modern media and popular entertainment to bring masses into her fold. Though not without controversy, she built one of the first megachurches in the U.S. and was a major influence on 20thcentury Charismatic Christianity. Meet “Sister” Aimee Semple McPherson.
Aimee was born on October 9, 1890 on her family’s farm in Ontario, Canada. She grew up in a religious household where her father was a Methodist and her mother was heavily involved in the Salvation Army and serving the poor.
As a teenager, Aimee rebelled against her strict Methodist upbringing by secretly reading forbidden romance novels. She also constantly questioned her pastor about the relationship between faith and science after learning Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in school.
In 1907, while attending a Pentecostal revival meeting, Aimee had a powerful religious experience that renewed her faith and convinced her to convert to Pentecostalism. She also met an Irish Pentecostal evangelist named Robert Semple at the revival. A year later the two were married in a Salvation Army ceremony.
Robert and Aimee soon left Canada to do missionary work in China. In 1910, Robert contracted dysentery and died in Hong Kong. Aimee gained passage on a ship heading to the U.S., and eventually made her way to New York City where her mother joined her. In 1912, Aimee married her second husband, Harold McPherson, and the couple moved to Providence, Rhode Island.
Aimee soon felt a call to evangelism. In 1913, she began preaching at revival meetings across the U.S. and Canada with her mother serving as her travel manager. Her sermons featured common components of Pentecostal Christianity, with a specific focus on spiritual healing and speaking in tongues.
By 1918, Aimee had made a name for herself across the country with her ecstatic preaching, but she was tired of spending so much time on the road. She decided to move to Los Angeles and headquarter her ministry in the fast-growing city.
For Aimee’s first Los Angeles service, her mother rented a 3,500 seat auditorium- the biggest she could find. Word spread around LA of this new lady evangelist, and people waited hours to get in. The auditorium was packed.
Aimee did not disappoint. What separated her from the crowd of evangelists touring the country was her consummate showmanship. Aimee didn’t just give a sermon, she put on a show- often complete with scenery, costumes, and music. Though her message was a traditional Pentecostal one, the packaging was something nobody had ever seen before and audiences were spellbound.
Aimee soon raised enough money from her many followers to build the Angelus Temple, her own megachurch facility in Los Angeles completed in 1923. Aimee christened her new movement the Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The message of the Foursquare Gospel was focused on hope and salvation for the poor and charitable work. It seemed to especially appeal to new arrivals from the South and Midwest who were bewildered by the complexities of urban life in Southern California.
For 20 years, Aimee preached a service every night, and welcomed thousands every Sunday at the Angelus Temple. The Temple employed a small army of artists, electricians, decorators, and carpenters, who built the sets for each Sunday service.
Aimee performed faith healings and adult baptisms like other Pentecostal ministers and she preached a conservative gospel message, but she did so using modern methods and with an aura of extreme optimism and spectacle that was decidedly different and very appealing. Her Church was also innovative and modern in its outreach methods. Aimee’s services were broadcast over the temple radio station, she published weekly newsletters and a magazine, and she compiled a series of popular books of her sermons.
By 1926, Aimee was a pop culture phenomenon, and one of the most popular and influential ministers of her era. But she also made plenty of headlines for other reasons.
In May of 1926, Aimee caused a media frenzy when she mysteriously disappeared and then reappeared five weeks later in Mexico. She claimed that she had been kidnapped and held for ransom in a desert shack. The LA Prosecutor’s office contended that she had run off with another man and tried to bring charges against her. Though the prosecutor’s case fell apart, media attacks did not.
This was just the start of Aimee’s legal troubles. She was accused of many financial improprieties over the years, though none were proven definitively, and she was hounded by lawsuits during the 1930s. She was regularly accused by the press of having extramarital affairs, and was constantly dealing with major disagreements within her own family. Still, none of the bad press seemed to affect her devoted followers.
In 1944, Aimee died from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. By then, her Foursquare Gospel movement had grown to over 400 branches across the U.S. and Canada, with more than 20,000 members and almost 200 missions abroad.
Tune in tomorrow for the story of another remarkable woman from throughout history. All month we’re talking about Witches and Saints.
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Talk to you tomorrow!