Notes From Under the House

She was impressed with the evangelist’s voice, her naturalness, and the quiet drama of her Bible reading. When Aimee read the Twenty-third Psalm, “The Lord Is My Shepard,” you saw the Shepard, as if He were hovering in the air over Aimee’s shoulder. You felt His affection, which was not something cloyingly sweet; it was big, hearty, and full of comfort. You would walk along with Him in good humor, through green pastures as vivid as any memory of your youth. You would drink deeply from the still waters as she read those lines from the psalm. In the quiet that followed her reading, the audience would arise, and go forth refreshed, as from a good dream. ~ From The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson

 I’m currently reading a biography on Aimee Semple McPherson, the controversial Pentecostal minister and leader of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. I’m getting through it pretty quickly because it’s such a fascinating read. She was not only the first woman licensed by the FCC for radio broadcasts, but was the first to do sermons over the airwaves. She also made history by being the first woman to lead a religious service in London’s Royal Albert Hall.

The biographer is Daniel Mark Epstein, a poet and essayist. One of the things I appreciate about Mr. Epstein is that he takes the time to explain the basis of fundamentalism, speaking in tongues, healing prayers, etc, and allows you to form your own opinion. He himself plays seeker and skeptic like the reader; he gives many, many in depth examples of Aimee’s healing sermons that had me shaking my head. There are accounts of invalids cured of heart trouble, cataracts, and consumption; how the deaf recovered their hearing and how the blind regained their sight. He talks about how several newspapers of the day would send their journalists – undercover – to her sermons to watch the afflicted be transformed and document their testimonials. Even some members of the American Medical Association were curious and attended a few services.

Mr. Epstein retells the time Aimee had a sermon planned one evening but ended up abandoning it when the KKK (who she had received clandestine donations from and who had abducted her at one point for a few hours) came in and sat in the first rows at the Angelus Temple. She sent her two children home and started narrating a story of an old black man who had found a church where he wanted to worship. He was told by the congregation that his kind wasn’t allowed there. The old man stood outside the church hurt that he wasn’t allowed in when a man approached him and told him not to be discouraged as he also wasn’t welcomed in the church. The man turned out to be Jesus. When the Klan members heard the story, one by one they got up from the pews and walked out. They returned a few minutes later without their robes on. People later said they found white robes in bushes and on the road. The woman really was charismatic, although she had her debunkers. One of whom was Robert Shuler, head of the Church of Federation of Los Angeles. He “put a curse on California” because he was not elected governor. Supposedly one of our earthquakes was a result of his evil-doing and some of the state’s political mishaps. O-kay…..

Now her mother was a piece of work; she was a tough cookie who controlled every inch of finance, personnel and church politics. She made a lot of enemies in the process, and even had a seven year falling out with Aimee. But it was Aimee’s mother who would meet with the people before they met the evangelist: she would prep them beforehand (I don’t know that ‘prep’ is the right word to use); praying with them, making sure they had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Only then would she give them their “healing card.”

The most wretched, downtrodden individuals, regardless of their religious doctrines, would come to see Aimee and leave restored. And investigators would do follow-up on those people and find that days, weeks, even months later, they were still in good health. There would be times when they wouldn’t recover right then and there, but would gradually regain their health. Aimee stressed that it wasn’t her intention for the sermons to focus on her faith healing (at first she was very reluctant to broadcasting it). She made it a point to wait until the end of the sermons; first hear the stories of Jesus (and her own stories, as well), perform  theatrical numbers or “morality plays” based on popular secular fairy tales and then she would spend nearly all night ministering. I’m at the part of the book now where she’s returned from the “kidnapping” that caused a scandal.