Americans have long sought to integrate faith with politics, but few have been as successful as Hollywood evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. In the 1920s and 1930s, she was the most flamboyant and controversial minister in the United States. She built an enormously successful and innovative megachurch, established a mass media empire, and produced theatrical sermons that rivaled Tinseltown's spectacular shows. As McPherson's power grew, she moved into the realm of politics, launching a national crusade to fight the teaching of evolution, defend Prohibition, and resurrect what she believed was the United States' Christian heritage. Historian Sutton reveals the woman as a pioneer. Her life marked the beginning of Pentecostalism's advance from the margins to the mainstream of American culture. Indeed, from her location in Hollywood, McPherson's integration of politics with faith set precedents for the Religious Right, while her celebrity status, use of spectacle, and mass media savvy came to define modern evangelicalism.--From publisher description.… (more)
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While there have been books detailing McPherson’s life before (both Edith Blumhofer and Daniel Epstein produced solid works about McPherson) Matthew Avery Sutton’s Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America is the first book that places her firmly within the cultural, political, and religious milieu of her era.
The book, which came out in 2007, avoids some the traps of previous treatments of McPherson’s life—the stereotypes and caricature so often attendant with this early 20th century religious icon.
Avery does an excellent job of highlighting the context of the period when McPherson’s star began to rise. From simple beginnings on a farm in Ontario, McPherson would utilize the new media of her day, particularly radio, to draw upon the burgeoning appeal of popular entertainment, and the development of modern day Hollywood.