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Founder: Aimee Semple McPherson - Date of Birth: October 9, 1890; Died:September 27, 1944
- Birth Place: Salford, Ontario
- Year Founded: January 1, 1923
- History: Aimee Semple McPherson's religious experience began when she was seventeen years old. At this young age, Aimee proclaimed herself an atheist and questioned her parents' Methodist beliefs. The girl continuously engaged in arguments with preachers and other congregation members concerning the validity of sermons and the Bible itself until the day she and her father attended a Holy Ghost Revival. The visit was actually Aimee's own idea. She wanted to attend to see how crazy the people actually were. Robert Semple, an Irish evangelist preached his Pentecostal words and Aimee at once fell in love.
Partly from falling in love, and partly from religion, Aimee's conversion began close to Christmas. After hearing Robert Semple's mimistry for a third time, Aimee experienced a darkness, which passed and then an entrance of a light. This occurred on her way home from school one day. She first felt the coldness of the elements of nature and then everything became bright and welcoming. She decided Robert Semple and his ministry had more worth than the beliefs under which she had been raised (Epstein 48). Aimee discounted her parents' beliefs even more and was driven away from the traditional churches in her area. Semple's preachings were attractive to the determined young woman. The two were married on August 12,1908, but Robert died two years later.
Four years later, Aimee Semple would remarry to Harold McPherson. He wanted the traditional wife and home life, but Aimee cound not devote herself completely because of her commitment to her religious beliefs. During these years, she went through periods of depression, as well as surgeries for various ailments, some thought to be psychosymatic. Finally, when she could remain confined no longer, Aimee left her husband (Epstein 75).
In the years following her divorce from Harold McPherson, Aimee Semple McPherson achieved great success. She opened her own Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, started a radio station, opened a Bible college, and laid the foundation for what would become the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.
Preaching in Oakland, California in 1922, McPherson had a vision based upon the prophet Ezekiel's vision of Man, Lion, Ox and Eagle. She saw four symbols: the cross, the crown, the dove and the cup. These, she believed, represented Regeneration of the Church, the Second Coming, Baptism in the Spirit and Divine Healing, respectively. The four symbols created a name for to call her religion, the Foursquare Gospel. (Epstein 264). At the same time, McPherson affirmed the beliefs of an evangelistic association called the Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance, founded by George Jeffrys in Ireland in 1915. She had worked with Jeffrys previously. The Elim Foursquare Gospel was headed by Jeffreys and his brother, two of England's greatest evangelists. The Gospel Alliance embraced the same central beliefs that Aimee upheld in her own Foursquare Church.
In 1923, McPherson founded her own Angelus Temple in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles, California. It was a magnificant structure which she saw as a learning center for evangelism. Her chief objective was the conversion experience. Beyond conversion, McPherson wanted visitors to become evangelists themselves and return to their parishes with the renewed power of the Holy Spirit. The only problem was that people became attached to Angelus Temple and did not want to leave.
Later that year, McPherson opened the L.I.F.E. Bible College. By 1926, the College had nearly one-thousand enrolled and dozens of teachers. In February of 1924, she established KFSG (Kall Four Square Gospel), a radio station, with the help of Kenneth Gladstone Ormiston. Before she founded KFSG, radio producers were reportedly eager to broadcast her "canned sermonettes." Her commercial license was the first license the FCC granted to any woman (Epstein 264).
The Foursquare Gospel today is international in focus, Like many other Pentecostal sects, its goal is to spread the Bible's message of salvation, reaching as many people as possible in an effort to spread its evangelism to the world. When Aimee Semple McPherson died there were 410 churches in North America, 200 mission stations and approximately 29,000 members. The church's assets were valued at $2,800,000. In 1993, the Church's annual budget was $357,335,562. There were 25,577 churches in 74 countries with more than one and a half million members. President John Holland leads the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and Harold and Winona Helms are the pastors of the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles.
