Angelus Temple

I live in Los Angeles.

And it's adjacent to the large auditorium that seats 5,000 people, which she built in the 1920s because- Angelus Temple.

She built a big church.

It's right there by the edge of Echo Park, astride the 101 freeway.

So then anyway, we announced that church.

There was a lot of supernatural confirmation on that, like my uncle calling me and telling me, "If what the Lord's showing me is right, the people from Angelus Temple are gonna reach out to you and ask you to use their building," which the only interaction I'd ever had with Angelus Temple was laying into him on Twitter in 2020 for taking up for the government, uh, lockdowns and saying that it's a shame that preachers are suing the government and stuff.

So that was who...

They reached out to me the next day.

She was not well-known.

Uh, within five years h- had built Angelus Temple, that seated about 5,500 people, and, uh, filled it three times every Sunday.

And what was, uh, phenomenal, what, in addition to her energy, was her ability as a communicator, and that's part of what drew me to her.

What, what makes for a really effective mass communicator? That's been a question-

Yeah

Of course.

As was the design of Angelus Temple.

[laughs]

But when it came to mass media and popular culture and Christianity, you know there is no bigger name in the early 20th century than Sister Aimee Semple McPherson.

Listeners to this show know my fascination with this woman, the founder of the Foursquare Church, her Angelus Temple in Echo Park there in Los Angeles.

If you've ever seen Chinatown, you know the scene with Jack Nicholson on the, on the lake, on those swans taking pictures.

That's right next to Angelus Temple.

Also right next to it, The Bright Spot, my favorite diner in all of Los Angeles.

By 1926, Sister Aimee is already a national name.

Her crowds were big, or those auditoriums not big enough.

And, uh, she built a church in California called Angelus Temple that was, seats 5,400 people, and she would fill it five times on a Sunday.

Now, LA was 250,000 people at that time.

Wow.

So if you wanna be a part of ambulance day, please be here by 1:00." And they would book up ambulances all over Southern California for the sick that could not come to the meetings, and they were dying.

Hmm.

And they would drive them to Angelus Temple, 'cause her house was next door at that time, and you could drive in between the church and the house and go to her back door.

And they'd have one of the Bible school students or a couple of them would open the, the ambulance door, and she would get in and pray for them.