171 the Material Dream of Aimee Semple Mcpherson

171

The Material Dream of Aimee Semple McPherson: A Lesson in Pentecostal Spirituality

Gregg D. Townsend*

In his recent book, Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920's, Kevin Starr pays special attention to Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), the founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. She is portrayed by him as the leading popular religious leader of 1920's Los Angeles. Starr's contention is that McPherson's life fits within the pattern which he sees as evident throughout the history of early Los Angeles: the search for material prosperity. It is his belief that she became a sym- bol to the lower economic strata of Los Angeles as a poor Canadian farm girl who achieved the dreams of the good life of wealth and fame in moving to the City of Dreams. Following previous McPherson biographers, Starr writes that her material dreams, prosperity, and popularity withered rapidly after her supposed kidnapping in 1926 and financial and personal troubles.2 He summarizes the results of these scandals by noting that it "rendered her a laughingstock" and that though she contin- ued preaching and her followers remained faithful to her until her death in 1944, "any larger influence which she might have possessed disappeared."3 It is the purpose of this article to show that this understanding of McPherson's career is largely incorrect. The influence and effect of her work during and after the scandals of the late 1920's is actually much more extensive and far within the Los reaching Angeles community (and for that matter around the globe) than has been depicted by Starr and the other biographers of her life. It will be shown that McPherson estab- lished and organized a massive social welfare program out of her

*Gregg D. Townsend is Director of Student Ministries and a member of the faculty of L.I.F.E. ihle College in San Dimas, CA 91773. 1 Kevin Starr, Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920's (New York, Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 139-144. ZStarr follows closely the account of Lately Thomas [pseud.] [Robert V. P. Steele] Storming ficaven: The Lives and Turmoils of Minnie Kennedy and Aimee Semple McPherson (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.), 1970. Also included in his bibliography are two other accounts of the McPherson kidnapping case and financial troubles of Angelus Temple: Nancy Barr Mavity, Sister Aimee (Garden City, NY, Country Life Press), 1931, and a previous work by Steele (again under the pseudonym Lately Thomas) The Vanishing Evangelist: The Aimee Semple McPherson Kidnapping Affair (New York, The Viking Press, 1959). 3Starr, Material Dreams, 143. 172 headquarters church at Angelus Temple in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles. This work came about as a direct result of her theological and spiritual roots in the early Salvation Army movement. There can be no denying that Aimee Semple McPherson led a dramatic if not tumultuous life. At times she was a "laughing stock." But the per- spective from which we view her work should not be confined to the scandalous. In order to understand her life properly she must also be considered for her social work which led to growth in the Foursquare movement and gave her acclaim from civic leaders.4

1. The Salvationist Background and Formative Influences Aimee Semple McPherson's concern for societal welfare began long before the Angelus Temple commissary opened its doors. It began, as she said, with her mother, Mildred "Minnie" Kennedy (1862-1947) who was a devout member of the Salvation Army since her childhood.5 The "Army" and its way of practicing Christianity had a major impact on McPherson. She records that her mother so wished to inculcate her with the Salvationist message that at three weeks of age Minnie was willing to carry the child five miles in a snow storm to the closest meeting place, and that at six weeks of age she was dedicated by her mother to Chris- tian service.6 The commitment of Minnie Kennedy to the Salvation Army and her work with a large number of children as the "Junior Sergeant-Major" (Sunday School Superintendent) of the local army corps left a lasting impact upon her daughter. Mrs. Kennedy was also involved in the Women's Christian Temperance Union, where Aimee took part in their children's work. As would later be true of McPherson herself, Minnie Kennedy's was a life not so much of "talk" but of evan- gelism thorough "Christian work."7 For the early Salvationists and other holiness movement workers, the Bible was understood as a manual for and command to "practical reli- gin."8 Evangelizing the non-Christian world was believed to be the occupation of the church. It is this focus which gave rise to their social concem.9 Evangelistic work led them into urban slums where they came

41n Storming Heaven, Thomas [pseud.] [Steele) does mention the work of the commissary and other organizational efforts (see pp. 219-221) as they relate to the financial troubles of Angelus Temple and to McPherson's personal and marital troubles with David L. Hutton. 5Aimee Semple McPherson, This is That (Los Angeles, Echo Park Evangelistic Association, 1923) 13. 6Aimee Semple McPherson, Aimee: The Life Story of Aimee Semple McPher- son (Los Angeles, Foursquare Publications, 1979) 9-10. 7McPherson, This is That, 26, 27. 8Norris Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums: Evangelical Social Work, 1865- 1920 (Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1990) 44. 9Magnuson, Salvation in the Slums, 19, 32, and 44, where Magnuson describes the theology behind the social concern of A. B. Simpson and William Booth.