Aimee Semple MacPherson

"What is my task? To get the gospel around the world in the shortest possible time to every man and woman and boy and girl."
-- Aimee Semple McPherson


Why am I including Mrs. MacPherson in this revival series?
Throughout the 1930s, she launched a series of relief efforts including soup kitchens, donations, and free clinics. She fed tens of thousands of people during the Great Depression. Thousands also came to Christ through her ministry. But one of the most important things she did was to actively fight the corruption in Los Angeles City Hall and the police department at that time. Her influence helped to throw out these corrupt city officials. It can be truly said that she helped change Los Angeles spiritually, politically and materially. On the other hand, I really cannot find how the Azusa Street revival changed Los Angeles, although it did begin the Pentecostal movement.

Aimee was born in Canada and after hearing Darwin's evolutionary theory became convinced of it. She studied philosophers as a teen to present an airtight case on behalf of Darwinism. It was reported that no pastor in the area could withstand her excellent debating.

After hearing the gospel in 1907, she accepted Christ and later married a gentleman, Robert Semple, she met at that meeting. She began her ministry as a missionary in China after marrying Semple. He died in China and left her with a month-old baby, so after returing to the United States, Aimee decided to travel throughout the country as an evangelist, accompanied by her mother. In 1921, her fame spread aftr healing a woman in a wheelchair. She eventually settled in Los Angeles and opened her church, Angeles Temple in an area known as Echo Park. The services were very dramatic with props and even live animals. Once, when she was preaching to some policemen, she rode a police motorcycle onto the stage. All of Los Angeles was fascinated by her including Hollywood stars.

He downfall came as she disappeared in 1923 while swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Authorities concluded she had drowned, but 32 days later MacPherson surfaced in Mexico. She said she had been kidnapped but her critics felt she had run off with her radio engineer. When she returned to Los Angeles, 50,000 people were present to greet her.
Because Mrs. MacPherson took on the corruption in city government, some of her supporters believed she was "set up" and kidnapped. On September 27, 1944, she was found unconscious in her hotel room after speaking the night before to a crowd in Oakland, California. The coroner's verdict was an "overdose of barbital compound," or sleeping pills, which was ruled to be "accidental."

Aimee was very dramatic in her gospel presentations and wrote many songs, even Christian operas. This was part of her appeal to her followers which included city officials and Hollywood actors and actressess. She built her message on a vision she had of the heavenly city with its four corners. In one corner she saw Jesus as Saviour. In another, Jesus as Baptizer in water and in the Holy Spirit. In another corner, Jesus as Healer, and in the fourth corner, Jesus as Soon Coming King. Her message was more reconciliation with God through Christ than the terrors of hell. Today her denomination, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, named after her vision, is a thriving Pentecostal denomination whose current president is the well-known Dr. Jack Hayford.

On a personal note
I've been a member of two Foursquare churches and attended a third one for a short time. In total, I attended foursquare chruches for 11 years. One of these was Dr. Hayford's Church on the Way (the First Foursquare Chruch of Van Nuys, CA). I can truly say that these churches changed me radically. I found a very balanced gospel, perhaps because the three churches I attended were what I would term neo-Pentecostal as contrasted to old-time Pentecostal. I especially like their Christ- and cross-centeredness as well as their approach to the spiritual gifts. Unlike so many of the Charismatic churches today, in most Foursquare churches, the gifts are an outcropping of the centrality of Christ and His atoning work. In other words, the gifts surround Christ who is the center. The church revolves around Christ, not the gifts. In almost every Foursquare church, at the front is a plaque with Aimee's favorite verse, Hebrews 13:8,
Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.

And that really sums up what they believe and what they teach.