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Aimee
Reflections on the
McPherson’s
Semple
Edith L. Blumhofer
21
Source
of Voice
On New Year’s
Day
in
1925,
the Grand Prize in the Tournament of Roses went to Aimee
Semple
McPherson and
Angelus Temple
for a float
reported
to be the costliest ever entered in the
pageant.
fifteen mounted
outriders,
the
$4,000
floral
replica
of
McPherson’s Los
Angeles ministry hub,
was viewed
more than
500,000 people lining
the
parade
route.
Meanwhile,
a few miles
away,
McPherson and
nearly
ten thousand
Accompanied by Angelus Temple, by
celebrated the
Temple’s
second
Seventy years ago,
loyal
followers anniversary
with
energy-packed and an enormous cake
replica
of
was at the
height
of
day-long
services at
Angelus Temple
the
Temple made,
McPherson
proudly pointed 1 out, entirely
of Bible ingredients (wheat, figs, raisins, milk, etc.).’
Aimee
Semple
McPherson
her
career, just
as much a
celebrity
in the world of
popular Protestantism as
sports
and
Hollywood
stars were in theirs.
My
recent biography
of Aimee
Semple
McPherson
institutions that
gave
it form.
My
work on McPherson led me to
categories
for
explaining
popular religion.
less Pentecostal
time,
McPherson remained outside from the dim
past
of camp meetings
own because
of
gender.
explores
her
appeal
and the
be taken
seriously.
For a
long
female
conclude that
gender
is not a particularly
helpful category
in accounting for McPherson’s
public appeal.
Put more
broadly,
I
propose
that McPherson’s life
questions assumptions
about the
adequacy
of
gender
the
meaning
of women’s
experience
of American
Christianity.
Since the
1970s,
Aimee
Semple
McPherson has
gradually
been noticed in the
academy-an
arena that has often disdained the heroes of
In the
past,
the condescension of scholars has often made it difficult to entertain the
thought
that Pentecostalism-much
evangelists-should
the
pale
of
respectability,
an artifact
and sawdust trail revivalism whose memory
carried a hint of
notoriety.
But McPherson has come into her
She seems made to order for scholars interested in the roles of women in American
Christianity-a preacher
with enormous
popular appeal;
the founder of a denomination; an
editor,
social
worker, pioneer
broadcaster and
author;
a
woman who
(in
a Protestant context that frowned on divorce)
rose to
leadership,
raised her children on her own and turned her life into an American success
story.
In general, scholars assume that McPherson was a trailblazer for women in
ministry. McPherson, then,
twice-divorced
Semple
Publishing Company, 1993).
‘ The references to McPherson’s
story are all drawn from my biography, Aimee
}VlcPherson: E’verybody’s Sister
(Grand Rapids,
MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans
1
22
proto-feminist
McPherson’s voice
has come to be seen as a
pioneer
woman in
ministry,
a sort of
intent on
forging
ahead to find fulfillment
despite cultural obstacles.
has been
women-especially Pentecostals-seeking
well as
by
feminist historians
rereading
valued, then, by modem
to locate their own voices as
the
past.
McPherson is
sometimes
proposed
as model and
mentor,
at least for some
aspects
of the task. A closer
look, however, suggests
that while
gender
is one
certainly
component
to the
meaning
of McPherson’s
story, gender
alone is not the best lens
through
which to
explore
McPherson’s voice. It seems to me that other
categories may yield
richer
insights
into McPherson’s s
contributions to American life.
female, gender
experience
While I agree that women’s lives often differ
profoundly
from
men’s, I do not think that it
necessarily
follows that “when the
subject
is
moves to the center of the
analysis.”‘
It is certainly vital to
acknowledge
the
ways
in which
gender
influences a woman’s
of life. At the same
time,
it is
important
to note that McPherson did not intend to
pave
the
way
for women in
ministry
or
and whether or not she did
(even
in her own
is
open
to
question.
Nor did she
intentionally speak
as a
religious leadership, organization)
woman on behalf of women.
way exploring
Another voice from the
1920s,
F. Scott
Fitzgerald, suggests
another
to render the
story
that
may
be a
helpful adjunct
to
gender
for
McPherson’s
appeal
in the American
religious
culture. It
may be that the most basic differentiation between
people
is not between male and female or between rich and
poor
but between the ill and the well. I
propose
that McPherson
spoke primarily
for the ill-the physically, mentally, spiritually
broken. Gender
categories
alone do not
illumine the
spiritual
dimensions of her career. What are the
of
suggesting
that for McPherson the most
profound differences were rooted in brokenness and wholeness rather than in
sufficiently implications
gender?
shaped by
three streams: the Ontario;
the Salvation
Army; Pentecostal
setting,
It is important to remember that McPherson’s
religious
outlook was
“cultural Protestantism” of southern
and
early
Pentecostalism. In the
Christ,
the same
yesterday
she moved with
people
who were
particularly intent on
achieving pure,
intense
religious experience-full possession by God. Early
Pentecostalism offered wholeness
through
the infusion of divine life: it
proffered
answers to
every
human
problem,
often
using
a reassuring
text from Hebrews 13:8″Jesus
and
today
and forever.” McPherson
adopted
these words as her
lifelong theme. What Jesus had once
done,
he could be
expected
Wholeness
again-anytime, anywhere.
was available
to do through
2 Sarah Alpern, ed., The Challenge of Feminist Biography (Urbana, IL: of Illinois
University
Press, 1992), 7.
2
23
immediate, unmediated, pristine
encounter with the divine. The
startling simplicity
of it all made her
message
seem
practical,
accessible and relevant. Hers was the well-known either/or
message
of sawdust trail evangelism,
with God and Satan
facing
each other and
people sides,
and it coincided
neatly
with the
taking
ebullient cultural mood of the post
World-War I years.
This
appeal
to the broken set McPherson
apart
from other evangelists
and
gave
her a potentially vast forum. McPherson
spoke
to and for
people
with different kinds of
physical
needs. First and most obvious were those who were
physically
ill. Americans
expected
their evangelists
to call sinners to
repentance,
but in the 1920s
they
had relatively
little
experience
with those who invited the sick to come for healing.
Stretcher
days
became features of McPherson’s
city-wide campaigns everywhere.
She
always
insisted that she had no
healing power,
that God did the
healing,
but the
people
flocked to her in astonishing numbers, desperate people,
sometimes
traveling
for
days
to sit in her
meetings
and
hope
for her
prayers.
She
responded
with all of the
physical strength
she
had, anointing
each one with oil on the forehead in the
sign
of the
cross,
and
praying.
Ministers of
every denomination
joined
her on the
platform
with their own bottles of
oil,
and still they could not handle the thousands who came.
In the
years
of her tent
campaigns,
in
every city
McPherson’s
huge meeting
tent functioned as the center of a small tent
community.
There were tents for those on
stretchers,
access areas for the
ill, special services for those on crutches or on
stretchers, provisions
for
feeding and
housing
those who came. Those most ravished
by
disease were kept apart
if
they
wished: McPherson and her associates
prayed
for them in a
special
tent
where,
she
said, they
would not be
objects
of curiosity
or
subject
to embarrassment. When she used auditoriums-as in Denver or in San
Diego-the press
of the multitudes of sick
people drove her to outdoor mass
rallies,
where she could better handle the long healing
lines. In
1921,
for
example, police
estimated that
fully
half the
population
of San
Diego jammed
Balboa Park for two
days
of healing meetings
that involved the
cooperation
of most of the
city’s Protestant ministers. Whether or not
healings
occurred was not
always the
point:
the
press
noted that McPherson
brightened
the
days
of the desperately
ill and that
they
seemed to be
benefit,
even if
temporary, from her
prayers.
In
economically expanding
and
westward-moving post
World-War I America,
the sick were often
overlooked,
even
by
the churches. McPherson not
only
welcomed
them,
she invited
them,
and she offered them
hope. They responded
to her
personality-what they
identified as her warmth and
caring-as
well as to her
personal
testimonies of healing.
It had
happened
to
her;
it could
happen
to them.
They
3
24
mattered,
at least to her and to
God,
and in that affirmation of their dignity, they
found
hope.
McPherson
spoke secondly
for those who were broken
by
life’s experiences.
Her visits to the “dives” and dance halls in Winnipeg, her foray
into San
Diego’s boxing arena,
the
late-night
hours she
spent
in the red
light
districts of Denver all became
part
of the McPherson legend.
These visits were much more than
publicity gimmicks: they expressed part
of McPherson’s
personality.
When she made a midnight visit to Denver’s vice district in
1921,
for
example,
The Denver Post
noted with
approval
that she did not condemn
people,
or even
speak about sin.
Rather,
“to this
congregation
of the
abandoned,
Aimee McPherson
sang songs
of
hope
in which
they joined,
and
gave
to them the
promise
of new life if they would but be true to themselves.”‘ In such
settings,
she often
appealed through
music and
story
to cultural memories that revived
hope.
Broken women
sought
McPherson out for solace and advice. Her early experience
in the Salvation
Army provided
her with useful models for tireless and unreserved efforts
among
the destitute. McPherson sheltered abused women and
pregnant
teens in her home and her institutions, attempting
to heal
relationships
or to
help
women
gain
a new start in life. She went about that
part
of her work
quietly:
few knew the extent of her
availability
and involvement.
People
broken
by disasters like the Santa Barbara
earthquake and, later,
those made destitute
by
the
depression,
found in McPherson a
person
sensitive to human brokenness who
responded
with
hope
for wholeness. One could argue, then,
that her own
experience
of brokenness and her
message addressed to the broken sustained McPherson’s voice.
McPherson’s life
suggests insights
that
expand
our view of the landscape
and the context of American life. She
gave
voice to the hurts and
hopes
of her
contemporaries,
male and female. If one starts with brokenness and wholeness rather than with male and
female,
one has a considerably
broader context in which to work. Brokenness cuts across the
race,
class and
gender
and offers some
suggestive insights
into larger questions
of why and how
religious
movements flourish.
‘ Frances Wayne, “Healer Visits Denver Underworld to Seek Saving of Souls.” The Denver Post, 2 July 1921, 5.
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