At the cottage on the weekend, without the Internet (ah, how times have changed) I took a look at the bookshelf. Last year I threw out or donated many books that needed a new home. Somewhere, though, I acquired a few "new" ones. Because we have been discussing Neil's Prince Edward Island grandfather lately, and we know he went to California to join Aimee Semple McPherson's movement*, this one practically chose itself.
I had heard her name; I knew she was an evangelist and celebrity in the 1920s and 30s, but I didn't know much about her.The book gives lots of details about her growing up on a farm near Salford, which is near Ingersoll, which is near London, Ontario, where I come from. Some of the details are a little "off", but mostly they ring true.
Her mother belonged to the Salvation Army, which seems to have shaped her beliefs and personality. She went on to great success in saving souls and in generating the publicity required to carry out her work.
Her whole public life is described. The book is a "popular history", but still a bit long-winded and academic.
And while I learned some interesting things about religious and popular culture in the 1920s and 30s, there is one thing I still haven't fully grasped: what is "the doxology"? (Author mentions it at least three times, without capitalization.) According to Wikipedia, it is a chorus to a hymn, or possibly the hymn known as Old 100th. So far, You Tube gives me examples, "Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow" and "All people that on earth do dwell" and to my untutored ear they sound rather similar.
*And yes, the grandfather did return to PEI, to his wife and 6 children, and lived happily ever after, with a bible reading every evening.
The primary acceptable and responsible biographers of Aimee Semple McPherson are at this time primarily considered Daniel Mark Epstein, Anthony Sutton and Edith Blumhofer (the book you possess). Epstein writes extensively about her faith healing, (ASTOUNDING) and Sutton about her overall influence on the United States and American Christianity.
ReplyDeleteHowever they work to preserve the mystery of the 1926 kidnapping rather than uncover it; and then throw in their own unfounded speculations if anyone should seriously suppose McPherson was actually snatched.
I recommend reading Raymond L Cox, The Verdict is In, on details about the 1926 kidnapping. It can be a tedious read as fact prone books are, but he lays it on with a trowel with references, testimonies and court documents where the other authors fall far short short. For example Blumhofer writes about the "sheriff of Cochise County," who says the trek in the desert McPherson made escaping her captors, did not produce enough damage to the clothing she was wearing to be convincing. She does not balance his account with many more others from the region, including law enforcement, who contradicted him.
Raymond Cox goes into far more detail with the various witnesses from the area. He writes of the people who initially met McPherson after her immediate reappearance return, and testified how she showed much signs of stress and was emancipated to the point of being unrecognizable by many who saw her. Of her tracks 18 miles out, of a suspicious shack the LA police refused to investigate.....Her shoes were white with desert dust and her hands were covered with grime. A nurse picked some cactus spines from her legs and rubbed some preparation on the toe where a blister had broken. The incumbent sheriff of Cochise County lost his re-election bid election in part because of the adversarial stance he took against McPherson. Nine witnesses from the region testified for the defense while the prosecution could only come up with two including the sheriff.
If handled in a modern court with the FBI scrutiny, (which did not investigate alleged kidnappings in 1926) it would have been much harder for news papers and the prosecution to pull off their shenanigans. If one reads between the lines of the aforementioned books even without Cox, and ignores their speculative commentary, there is enough there to deduct McPherson was set upon by powerful forces for selfish reasons who had no interest whatsoever in investigating a possible kidnapping..
The article on Wikipedia is useful for a summary and includes details especially about the kidnapping that other online articles about her tend to ignore.
The Doxology? A short hymn of praises to God in various Christian worship services, often added to the end of canticles, psalms, and hymns (Wikipedia ).