1 Boring Old Man

Now, about Senator John Ensign‘s Pentecostal International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The Church was founded by Sister Aimee [Aimee Semple McPherson] in the 1920’s. In case you’ve forgotten, Sister Aimee was a pioneer of what we call televangelism – though then, I guess it was radio-vangelism. You guessed it, she was a pioneer in the fight against teaching the theories of evolution in the schools. Yes, after a time as an itinerant revivalist in her "God Car," she founded an early version of the "mega-church" in L.A. In many ways, Aimee Semple McPhereson was the template for the modern religious charlatans that still plague us today – pious, moral, using production techniques from the entertainment industry, political. But there’s another connection:

^{On May 18, 1926, McPherson went to Ocean Park Beach, north of Venice Beach, with her secretary, to go swimming. Soon after arrival, McPherson disappeared. It was generally assumed at the time that she had drowned.}

^{… McPherson was scheduled to hold a service on the very day she vanished. McPherson’s mother appeared and preached at the service in her place, and at the end announced, "Sister is with Jesus", sending parishioners into a tearful frenzy. Mourners crowded Venice Beach, and the commotion sparked days-long media coverage of the event, fueled in part by William Randolph Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner, and even including a poem by Upton Sinclair commemorating the "tragedy". Daily updates appeared in newspapers across the country, and parishioners held day-and-night seaside vigils. A futile search for the body resulted in one parishioner drowning and another diver dying from exposure.}

^{Around the same time, Kenneth G. Ormiston, engineer for KFSG, also disappeared. According to American Experience, some believed McPherson and Ormiston, a married man with whom McPherson had developed a close friendship and had been having an affair, had run off together. About a month after the disappearance, McPherson’s mother, Minnie Kennedy, received a ransom note, signed by "The Avengers", which demanded a half million dollars to ensure kidnappers would not sell McPherson into "white slavery". Mrs. Kennedy later said she tossed the letter away, believing her daughter to be dead.}

^{On June 23, 1926, just weeks after her disappearance, McPherson stumbled out of the desert in Agua Prieta, Sonora, a Mexican town just across the border from Douglas, Arizona. She claimed that she had been kidnapped, drugged, tortured, and held for ransom in a shack in Mexico, then had escaped and walked through the desert for about 13 hours to freedom.}

^{Several problems were found with McPherson’s story. Her shoes showed no evidence of a 13-hour walk; they had grass stains on them after a supposed walk through the desert. The shack could not be found. McPherson showed up fully dressed while having disappeared wearing a bathing suit, and was wearing a wrist watch given to her by her mother, which she had not taken on her swimming trip. A grand jury convened on July 8, 1926, to investigate the matter, but adjourned 12 days later citing lack of evidence to proceed. However, several witnesses then came forward stating that they had seen McPherson and Ormiston at various hotels over the 32-day period.}

^{There were five witnesses that claimed to have seen Aimee McPherson at a seaside cottage at Carmel-by-the-Sea, which was rented out by her former employee Kenneth G. Ormiston for himself and his mistress. Mr. Hersey claimed to have seen Mrs. McPherson on May 5 at this cottage, and then later went to see her preach on August 8 at Angelus Temple to confirm she was the woman he had seen at Carmel. His story was confirmed by Mrs. Parkes, a neighbor who lived next door to the Carmel cottage, by a Mrs. Bostick who rented the cottage to Mr. Ormiston under his false name "McIntyre", by Ralph Swanson, a grocery clerk, and by Ernest Renkert, a Carmel fuel dealer who delivered wood to their cottage…}

Here in North Georgia, the Pentacostal Churches predominate. Mostly they stay out of politics. They form strong communities, do their baptizing and have their services – live their lives by the morality they preach. Some carry things a bit far [handling poisonous snakes, left], but they stick pretty much to themselves. It’s the ones that get into the money and power things that seem to go careening off into space. We’ve had a pretty bad run of christian craziness this last decade. I want to thank John Ensign and Mark Sanford for doing their part to get it back in the churches where it belongs, and out of our government.