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Aimee Semple McPherson
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Sister Aimee (early 1920s)
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| Born |
Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy
October 9, 1890 Salford, Ontario, Canada
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| Died | September 27, 1944 (aged 53) |
| Cause of death | Accidental overdose |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery (Glendale) |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Known for | Founding the Foursquare Church |
| Spouse(s) | Robert Semple (1908–10; his death) Harold McPherson (1912–21; divorced) David Hutton (1931–34; divorced) |
| Children | Roberta Semple (b. 1910) Rolf McPherson (b. 1913) |
| Part of a series on |
| Pentecostalism |
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Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson (née Kennedy; October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee or simply Sister, was a Canadian-American Pentecostal evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s,[1]famous for founding the Foursquare Church. McPherson has been noted as a pioneer in the use of modern media, because she used radio to draw on the growing appeal of popular entertainment in North America and incorporated other forms into her weekly sermons at Angelus Temple, one of the first megachurches.[2]
In her time she was the most publicized Protestant evangelist, surpassing Billy Sunday and her other predecessors.[3][4]She conducted public faith healing demonstrations before large crowds; testimonies conveyed tens of thousands of people healed.[5][6] McPherson’s articulation of the United States as a nation founded and sustained by divine inspirationcontinues to be echoed by many pastors in churches today.
News coverage sensationalized her misfortunes with family and church members; particularly inflaming accusations she had fabricated her reported kidnapping, turning it into a national spectacle.[7] McPherson’s preaching style, extensive charity work and ecumenical contributions were a major influence on Charismatic Christianity in the 20th century.[8][9]
Biography
Early life
McPherson was born Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy in the upstairs room of the family farmhouse outside the village of Salford, southeast of Ingersoll in Oxford CountyOntario, Canada, to James Morgan and Mildred Ona (Pearce) Kennedy (1871–1947).[10][11][12] She had early exposure to religion through her mother, Mildred (known as “Minnie”) who worked with the poor in Salvation Army soup kitchens.
As a child she would play “Salvation Army” with her classmates, and at home she would gather a congregation with her dolls, giving them a sermon.[13] As a teenager, McPherson strayed from her mother’s teachings by reading novels and going to movies and dances, activities which were strongly disapproved of by both the Salvation Army and the religion of her father, James Kennedy, a Methodist. Novels, though, made their way into the Methodist church library and with guilty delight, McPherson would read them. At the movies, she recognized some of her fellow Methodist church members. She learned too, at a local dance she attended, that her dancing partner was a Presbyterian minister. In high school, she was taught Charles Darwin‘s Theory of Evolution.[14][15] She began to quiz visiting preachers and local pastors about faith and science, but was unhappy with the answers she received.[16] She wrote to the Canadian newspaper, Family Herald and Weekly Star, questioning why taxpayer-funded public schools had courses, such as evolution, which undermined Christianity.[16] This was her first exposure to fame, as people nationwide responded to her letter.[16] While still in high school, after her Pentecostal conversion, McPherson began a crusade against the concept of evolution, beginning a lifelong passion.
Conversion
While attending a revival meeting in December 1907, Aimee met Robert James Semple, a Pentecostal missionary from Ireland. There, her faith crisis ended as she decided to dedicate her life to God and made the conversion to Pentecostalism as she witnessed the Holy Spirit moving powerfully.[16]
Marriage and family
At that same revival meeting, Aimee became enraptured not only by the message that Robert Semple gave, but also with Robert. She decided to dedicate her life to both God and Robert, and after a short courtship, they were married on August 12, 1908, in a Salvation Army ceremony, pledging never to allow their marriage to lessen their devotion to God, affection for comrades, or faithfulness in the Army. The pair’s notion of “Army” was very broad, encompassing much more than just the Salvation Army. Robert supported them as a foundry worker and preached at the local Pentecostal mission. Together, they studied the Bible, Aimee claiming Robert taught her all she knew; though other observers state she was far more knowledgeable than she let on. After a few months they moved to Chicago and became part of William Durham‘s Full Gospel Assembly. Durham earlier had visited the mission where the Azusa Street Revival was taking place, returned and applied its teachings. Under Durham’s tutelage, Aimee was discovered to have a unique ability in the interpretation of speaking in tongues, translating with stylistic eloquence.[17]
Aimee Semple and her second husband Harold McPherson. For a time Harold traveled with his wife Aimee in the “Gospel Car” as an itinerant preacher, helping her to set up tents for revival meetings.
After embarking on an evangelistic tour to China, both contracted malaria. Robert also contracted dysentery, of which he died in Hong Kong. Aimee recovered and gave birth to their daughter, Roberta Star Semple, as a 19-year-old widow. On board a ship returning to the United States, Aimee Semple started a Sunday school class, then held other services, as well, oftentimes mentioning her late husband in her sermons; almost all passengers attended.
Shortly after her recuperation in the United States, Semple joined her mother Minnie working with the Salvation Army. While in New York City, she met Harold Stewart McPherson, an accountant. They were married on May 5, 1912, moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and had a son, Rolf Potter Kennedy McPherson, in March 1913.
During this time, McPherson felt as though she denied her “calling” to go preach. After struggling with emotional distress and obsessive–compulsive disorder, she would fall to weep and pray.[18][19] She felt the call to preach tug at her even more strongly after the birth of Rolf. Then, in 1914, she fell seriously ill, and McPherson stated she again heard the persistent voice, asking her to go preach while in the holding room after a failed operation. McPherson accepted the voice’s challenge, and she suddenly opened her eyes and was able to turn over in bed without pain. One spring morning in 1915, her husband returned home from the night shift to discover McPherson had left him and taken the children. A few weeks later, a note was received inviting him to join her in evangelistic work.[20]
Aimee Semple McPherson and her third husband, David L. Hutton, enjoying their honeymoon breakfast. To avoid news publicity, they chartered a plane to Yuma, Arizona; and were married in a small ceremony. Hutton assisted in some of McPherson’s charity work before their divorce in 1934.
Her husband later followed McPherson to take her back home, though he changed his mind after he saw her preaching to a crowd. Describing his wife as “radiant, more lovely than he had ever seen her,” he joined her in evangelism. Their house in Providence was sold and he joined her in setting up tents for revival meetings and even did some preaching.[21]Throughout their journey, food and accommodations were uncertain, as they lived out of the “Gospel Car”. McPherson’s husband, in spite of his initial enthusiasm, wanted a life that was more stable and predictable. Eventually, he returned to Rhode Island and around 1918 filed for separation. He petitioned for divorce, citing abandonment; the divorce was granted in 1921.
McPherson married again on September 13, 1931, to actor and musician David Hutton, followed by much drama, after which she fainted and fractured her skull.[22] While McPherson was away in Europe to recover, she was angered to learn Hutton was billing himself as “Aimee’s man” in his cabaret singing act and was frequently photographed with scantily clad women. Hutton’s much-publicized personal scandals were damaging the Foursquare Gospel Church and their leader’s credibility with other churches.[23] McPherson and Hutton separated in 1933 and divorced on March 1, 1934. McPherson later publicly repented of the marriage, as wrong from the beginning, for both theological[24] and personal reasons[25] and therefore rejected nationally known gospel singer Homer Rodeheaver, a more appropriate suitor, when he eventually asked for her hand in 1935.[26][27]
Early career
While married to Robert Semple, the two moved to Chicago and became part of William Durham‘s Full Gospel Assembly. There, Aimee was discovered to have a unique ability in the interpretation of glossolalia, translating with stylistic eloquence the otherwise indecipherable utterances of speaking in tongues. Unable to find fulfillment as a housewife, in 1913, McPherson began evangelizing and holding tent revivals across the Sawdust Trail in the United States and Canada.
After her first successful visits, she had little difficulty with acceptance or attendance. Eager converts filled the pews of local churches which turned many recalcitrant ministers into her enthusiastic supporters. Frequently, she would start a revival meeting in a hall or church and then have to move to a larger building to accommodate the growing crowds. When no buildings were suitable, she set up a tent, which was often filled past capacity.
She wanted to create the enthusiasm a Pentecostal meeting could provide, with its “Amen Corner” and “Halleluiah Chorus”, but also to avoid its unbridled chaos as participants started shouting, trembling on the floor, and speaking in tongues, all at once. McPherson organized her meetings with the general public in mind and yet did not wish to quench any who suddenly came into “the Spirit”. To this, she set up a “tarry tent or room” away from the general area for any who suddenly started speaking in tongues or display any other Holy Ghost behavior by which the larger audience might be put off.[28]
In 1916, McPherson embarked on a tour of the Southern United States in her “Gospel Car”, and again later, in 1918, with her mother, Mildred Kennedy. Mildred was an important addition to McPherson’s ministry and managed everything, including the money, which gave them an unprecedented degree of financial security. Their vehicle was a 1912 Packard touring car emblazoned with religious slogans. Standing on the back seat of the convertible, McPherson preached sermons over a megaphone. On the road between sermons, she would sit in the back seat typing sermons and other religious materials. She first traveled up and down the eastern United States, then went to other parts of the country.
By 1917, she had started her own magazine, Bridal Call, for which she wrote many articles about women’s roles in religion; she portrayed the link between Christians and Jesus as a marriage bond. Along with taking seriously the religious role of women, the magazine contributed to transforming Pentecostalism from a movement into an ongoing American religious presence.[29]
While McPherson was traveling for her evangelical work, she arrived in Baltimore, where she was first “discovered” by the newspapers in 1919, after a day of conducting evangelistic services at the Lyric Opera House.[30] Baltimore became one of the pivotal points for her early career.[31] The crowds, in their religious ecstasy, were barely kept under control as they gave way to manifestations of “the Spirit”. Moreover, her alleged faith healings now became part of the public record, and attendees began to focus on that part of her ministry over all else. McPherson also considered the Baltimore Revival an important turning point, not only for her ministry, “but in the history of the outpouring of the Pentecostal power”.[32]
Career in Los Angeles
In late 1918, McPherson came to Los Angeles, a move many at the time were making for better opportunities. Minnie Kennedy, her mother, rented the largest hall they could find, the 3,500-seat Philharmonic Auditorium (known then as Temple Auditorium). People waited for hours to get in, and McPherson could hardly reach the pulpit without stepping on someone.[33] Afterwards, grateful attendees of her Los Angeles meetings built a home for her family and her, which included everything from the cellar to a canary bird.[34] At this time, Los Angeles had become a popular vacation spot. Rather than touring the United States to preach her sermons, McPherson stayed in Los Angeles, drawing audiences from a population which had soared from 100,000 in 1900 to 575,000 people in 1920, and often included many visitors.[35]
Wearied by constant traveling and having nowhere to raise a family, McPherson had settled in Los Angeles, where she maintained both a home and a church. McPherson believed that by creating a church in Los Angeles, her audience would come to her from all over the country. This, she felt, would allow her to plant seeds of the Gospel and tourists would take it home to their communities, still reaching the masses. For several years, she continued to travel and raise money for the construction of a large, domed church building at 1100 Glendale Blvd. in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. The church would be named Angelus Temple, reflecting the Roman Catholic tradition of the Angelus bell, calling the faithful to prayer, as well as its reference to the angels.[36] Not wanting to take on debt, McPherson located a construction firm which would work with her as funds were raised “by faith”.[37] She started with $5,000.[38] The firm indicated it would be enough to carve out a hole for the foundation.
McPherson began a campaign in earnest and was able to mobilize diverse groups of people to help fund and build the new church. Various fundraising methods were used, such as selling chairs for Temple seating at US $25[39] apiece. In exchange, “chair-holders” got a miniature chair and encouragement to pray daily for the person who would eventually sit in that chair. Her approach worked to generate enthusiastic giving and to create a sense of ownership and family among the contributors.[40]
McPherson dedicating Angelus Temple in 1923.
Raising more money than she had hoped, McPherson altered the original plans, and built a “megachurch” that would draw many followers throughout the years. The endeavor cost contributors around $250,000[41] in actual money spent. However, this price was low for a structure of its size. Costs were kept down by donations of building materials and volunteer labor.[36] McPherson sometimes quipped when she first got to California, all she had was a car, ten dollars[42]and a tambourine.[36] Enrollment grew exceeding 10,000, and was advertised to be the largest single Christian congregation in the world.[43] According to church records, Angelus Temple received 40 million visitors within the first seven years.[44]
McPherson intended the Angelus Temple as both a place of worship and an ecumenical center for persons of all Christian faiths to meet and build alliances. A wide range of clergy and laypeople consisted of Methodists, Baptists, the Salvation Army, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Adventists, Quakers, Roman Catholics, Mormons, and even secular civic leaders, who came to the Angelus Temple. They were welcomed and many made their way to her podium as guest speakers.[9] Eventually, even Rev. Robert P. Shuler, a once-robust McPherson critic, was featured as a guest preacher.[45]
Because Pentecostalism was not popular in the United States during the 1920s, McPherson avoided the label. She practiced speaking-in-tongues and faith healing within her services, but kept the former to a minimum in sermons to appease mainstream audiences. Discarded medical fittings from persons faith-healed during her services, which included crutches, wheelchairs, and other paraphernalia, were gathered for display in a museum area. As evidence of her early influence by the Salvation Army, McPherson adopted a theme of “lighthouses” for the satellite churches, referring to the parent church as the “Salvation Navy”. This was the beginning of McPherson working to plant Foursquare Gospel churches around the country.
More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimee_Semple_McPherson