 In rare transition, church considers becoming Pentecostal congregation By John H. Adams The Layman Online Thursday, April 21, 2005 The story of the Foursquare Church, with which a California Presbyterian congregation will vote on June 5 whether to affiliate, is a mixture of flamboyance and revivalism – an offshoot of a young woman's falling in love with an Irish Pentecostalist. From the outset, it had all the ingredients of a "here-today, gone-tomorrow" sect, but the Foursquare Church – often called a movement – has thrived and grown. Today, the group's international following is estimated at 2.1 million members, 27,943 ministers, 20,404 churches and 14,373 home meetings, including (as of 1996) 1,773 congregations with 229 members and adherents, 4,146 ministers and two Bible colleges in the United States. Mark Slomka, the pastor of Mount Soledad Presbyterian Church in La Jolla, Calif., has already said he is leaving the Presbyterian Church to become a Foursquare minister. The Mount Soledad session voted to recommend that the congregation join him – setting the stage for the May 1 congregational meeting. While no arrangements, property or otherwise, have been made with the Presbytery of San Diego about what it will do if the congregation votes to join the Foursquare movement, the normal transition for a congregation leaving the PCUSA is to join another branch of Presbyterianism and remain in the Reformed family. Reformed churches and denominations generally follow the pattern of the Reformation in Europe – "reformed and being reformed according to the Word of God" – and emphasize some distinctives that are not priorities in other denominations. The Book of Order of the PCUSA's constitution outlines some of those distinctives: the sovereignty of God; providence; election; the covenant life; and the obligation to work for the transformation of society. Foursquare is not considered a Reformed movement. The founder of the movement was Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), who was a 17-year-old Methodist when she and her father attended a "Holy Ghost Revival" led by Robert Semple, the Irish evangelist. She was converted both to his view of the Christian faith and him personally. They were married in 1908 when she was 18, but he died two years later. Four years later, she married Harold McPherson, but that didn't last. McPherson wanted a stay-at-home wife; she wanted to follow in the footsteps of her first husband. The couple were divorced, and McPherson began laying the groundwork for the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. She said she adopted the name "Foursquare" because of a vision with four symbols: the cross, the crown, the dove and the cup, which she interpreted to be the regeneration of the church, the second coming, the baptism in the Spirit and divine healing. At a time when few women preached, McPherson became a national sensation. In 1923, she founded her own Angelus Temple in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles. With seating for 5,300, McPherson preached to capacity crowds three times a day, seven days a week. McPherson was ahead of her time. She used illustrations for her sermons and developed elaborate stage productions that attracted many from the entertainment industry in Hollywood. Angelus Temple is still a large congregation, and the original sanctuary was completely renovated in 2002 to maintain its historical character with a modern twist – including cushioned theater seats. She was a born promoter and the first woman to use radio to broadcast her sermons. After Herbert Hoover, then secretary of Commerce, closed her radio station in 1925, she sent him a telegram: "Please order your minions of Satan to leave my station alone. You cannot expect the Almighty to abide by your wavelength nonsense. When I offer my prayers to Him, I must fit into His wave reception. Open this station at once." Intending to run for president, Hoover complied. Although successful, McPherson was highly controversial, partly because she was a female preacher. Critics accused her of being a Pentecostalist – a theological genre that most Protestants then debunked – and making unsubstantiated claims about miraculous healings. The most serious charge against her was that she arranged her own "kidnapping" to get attention. In May of 1926, she disappeared, but was found a month later in Mexico. She claimed she was kidnapped. The press, which kept a close eye on her work, suggested otherwise, including a tale that she had taken off with a lover. In 1930, McPherson suffered a nervous breakdown, and, in 1931, she married David Hutton, an actor. This time, she ran afoul of her own church's position that prohibited remarriage as long as a former spouse was alive. The marriage with Hutton lasted two months. Even so, McPherson continued to lead Angelus Temple until she died in 1944. Her son took over and was the pastor of the congregation for 44 years. And what was her legacy? Today, the Foursquare Church publishes an abbreviated Declaration of Faith that includes the following:
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