Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister (Library of Religious Biography (LRB)) PDF
Preview Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister (Library of Religious Biography (LRB))
_ll\\ LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY AIMEE SEMPLE MCPHERSON Everybody’s Sister EDITH L. BLUMHOFER LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY Edited by Mark A. Noll and Nathan O. Hatch The LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY is a series of orig inal biographies on important religious figures throughout American and British history. The authors are well-known historians, each a recog nized authority in the period of religious history in which his or her subject lived and worked. Grounded in solid research of both published and archival sources, these volumes link the lives of their subjects — not always thought of as "religious" persons — to the broader cultural contexts and religious issues that surrounded them. Each volume includes a bibliographical essay and an index to serve the needs of students, teachers, and researchers. Marked by careful scholarship yet free of footnotes and academic jargon, the books in this series are well-written nar ratives meant to be read and enjoyed as well as studied. LIBRARY OF RELIGIOUS BIOGRAPHY available Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America by Lyle W. Dorsett Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America by Edwin S. Gaustad The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modem Evangelicalism by Harry S. Stout William Ewart Gladstone: Faith and Politics in Victorian Britain by David Bebbington Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister Edith L. Blumhofer forthcoming Thomas Jefferson Edwin S. Gaustad Charles G. Finney and the Spirit of American Evangelicalism Charles Hambrick-Stowe Emily Dickinson: The Fate of Theology in American Culture Roger Lundin Aimee Semple McPherson Everybody's Sister Edith L. Blumhofer W illiam B. Eerdmans Publishing Company G rand Rapids, Michigan Copyright © 1993 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49503 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Reprinted 1998 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Blumhofer, Edith Waldvogel. Aimee Semple McPherson : everybody's sister / Edith L. Blumhofer. p. cm. — (Library of religious biography) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8028-0155-2 (paper) ISBN 0-8028-3752-2 (cloth) 1. McPherson, Aimee Semple, 1890-1944. 2. Evangelists — United States — Biography. 3. International Church of the Foursquare Gospel — Clergy — Biography. 4. Pentecostal churches — United States — Clergy — Biography. I. Title. II. Series. BX7990.I68M32 1993 289.9 —dc20 [B] 93-39149 CIP The author and publisher wish to thank the following for help in obtaining and permission to use the photos in this volume: • The Chatauqua Institution Archives for the photo on page 197. • The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel for the photos on pages 53, 78, 93, 114, 116, 118, 119, 123, 124, 125, 128, 130, 171, 179, 204, 233, 239, 241, 254, 260, 261, 263, 268, 279, 292, 306, 310, 321, 345, 348, 351, 356, 360, 377, 407, and 419. • Roberta Semple Salter for the photos on pages 40 and 273. Contents Foreword, by Nathan O. Hatch ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. Beginnings 23 2. The Pivot 60 3. Full Time 95 4. Itinerating 135 5. The Foursquare Gospel 181 6. Content 201 7. Angelus Temple 232 8. Angry Surges Roll 281 9. Regrouping 324 AIMEE SEMPLE McPHERSON 10. Finishing the Course 359 Epilogue 383 A Note on the Sources 394 Appendix: Excerpts from The Bridal Call “Motion Picture Actor Converted" 406 “Delivered from a Living Death" 418 Index 427 viii Foreword Aimee Semple McPherson was an American phenomenon. During the 1920s, a decade of larger-than-life celebrities and of mass excitement, she rocketed to public attention as a religious celebrity not unlike such other cultural icons as Babe Ruth and Knute Rockne, Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindberg, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. A barnstorming evangelist — often called the female Billy Sunday — Sister Aimee developed a mass audience from Canada to Florida, from the eastern seaboard to California. By the early 1920s, the allure of the Golden State attracted her to Los Angeles, where her flair for publicity and blend of piety and pageantry drew crowds by the tens of thousands. Calling for a return to simply biblical Christianity, McPherson strongly identified with ordinary folk, and they in turn remained passionately loyal to her. At the same time, she intuitively under stood the advertising and media revolution that was transform ing California and the nation. The first American woman to hold a radio broadcast license, Sister Aimee used everything from
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