Sister Aimee: Saint or Sinner?

“Sister” Aimee Semple McPherson was an anomaly in early 20th-century religion: a Canadian citizen who was neither male nor seminary-educated, McPherson was a Pentecostal who spoke “in tongues” and appealed to working-class people, an evangelist who drove coast-to-coast across America, even holding integrated tent revivals in the segregated South. As her International Church of the Foursquare Gospel grew, McPherson established the 5,300-seat Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, launched a religious radio station, and had applied for a license for a prototype TV station and was set to become the first televangelist in America when she died in 1944. McPherson had her detractors: when she disappeared for six weeks in 1926, rumors about an affair with her former chief engineer Kenneth C. Ormiston spread, although McPherson later claimed to be the victim of a kidnapping (she was charged with conspiracy to commit a hoax, but acquitted; unfortunately, we don't learn here what happened to Ormiston or whether he ever reappeared). Narrated by Blair Brown, Linda Garmon's Sister Aimee—from the acclaimed PBS-aired American Experience series—combines remarkable archival footage and audio material together with insightful scholarly interviews to paint a fascinating portrait of a charismatic figure. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Reagan)