Lecture Date: January 22, 2026
The UMW Museums Lecture
On a spring day in 1926, Aimee Semple McPherson wandered into the Pacific Ocean and vanished. Weeks later she reappeared in the desert, claiming to have been kidnapped. A national media frenzy and months of investigation ensued. Who was this woman?
America’s most famous evangelist, McPherson was a sophisticated marketer who used spectacle, storytelling, and the newest technology―including her own radio station―to bring God’s message to the masses. Her innovations brought Pentecostalism into the mainstream, paved the way for televangelists, and shaped the future of American Christianity. Her Angelus Temple in Echo Park, Los Angeles, can be called the first megachurch. Her Foursquare Church continues, with more than eight million faithful around the world.
But after her disappearance, as crowds gathered at the water’s edge, people asked: Was McPherson everybody’s saintly sister, or a con-artist sinner? The story of what happened next―sex scandals, religious persecution, legal shenanigans, the seemingly unshakable faith of thousands of followers, and the race to cover it all―runs through the center of Claire Hoffman’s thrilling Sister, Sinner.
Speaker: Claire Hoffman
Claire Hoffman is the author of the memoir Greetings from Utopia Park and a journalist reporting for national magazines on culture, religion, celebrity, business, and more. Formerly a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone, she is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz and has an MA in religion from the University of Chicago and an MA in journalism from Columbia University. She serves on the boards of the Columbia School of Journalism, ProPublica, and the Brooklyn Public Library.