Before Modern Televangelists, There Was Aimee Semple McPherson
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, before modern televangelists, Aimee Semple McPherson used radio, stage productions, and Hollywood-style spectacle to bring Christianity to mass audiences across America. After arriving in Los Angeles during the 1920s, McPherson built Angelus Temple into one of the country’s first megachurches, drawing thousands each week with illustrated sermons, live orchestras, and elaborate productions designed to compete with the entertainment industry itself.
But her fame came with scandal. In 1926, McPherson vanished from a California beach and reappeared weeks later near the Arizona border with a sensational kidnapping story that captivated the nation and sparked one of the biggest media frenzies of the era. Historian Matthew Sutton, author of Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America, shares the story of the woman who helped pioneer religious broadcasting, celebrity ministry, and the modern megachurch movement.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.3 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.1 | And we return to our American stories. |
| 0:17.4 | Up next, the story of the first televangelist and the originator of the megachurch, |
| 0:23.7 | the Pentecostal preacher Amy Semple-McPherson. |
| 0:27.2 | She rose to prominence in the 1920s using innovative techniques to spread the gospel |
| 0:33.1 | and became a household name. |
| 0:36.0 | Here to tell the story is Dr. Matthew Sutton, |
| 0:38.8 | chair of the history department at Washington State University, |
| 0:42.4 | and author of the book Amy Semple MacPherson, |
| 0:45.4 | and the resurrection of Christian America. |
| 0:48.3 | Let's get into the story. |
| 0:50.9 | And friends, I know as God is my judge that I don't amount to anything in myself. |
| 0:56.8 | I know I'm just a girl from the farm. |
| 0:59.2 | But I know as sure as God ever called anyone, God called me and God put it on my soul |
| 1:04.2 | to see this first prayer gospel around the world. |
| 1:10.6 | If you were living in the 1920s or 1930s, you would certainly know who Amy Semple-McPherson |
| 1:16.2 | was. She was one of the most famous Americans at the time in the sense that she had created |
| 1:22.8 | a Christian ministry that seemed very relevant to the needs and desires and interests of Americans in this period. |
| 1:30.9 | And so she became a celebrity on par with Mary Pickford or Charlie Chaplin. |
| 1:34.9 | When I would give talks in the early 2000s, when there were more people still alive from the 1930s and 1940s, |
| 1:41.3 | I almost never gave a talk in which some old person didn't come up to me and |
... |
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