•
Feature
Story
/ Rolf
McPherson. (b: 1913 d: May, 21,
2009
•••
Rolf McPherson was one of two
children of the famous
evangelist. He was born in
Providence, R.I., on March 23,
1913, two years after his
half-sister, Roberta Semple
Salter. His father was Harold S.
McPherson, a businessman who
wanted his wife to stay home and
take care of their son and
Roberta, but she chafed at the
constraints the role placed on
her. They were divorced after a
few years, freeing her to hit the
revival circuit in a stylish
sedan she called the "Gospel
Car." •
The
Right Fix - Christian Religion
-
the Four Square
Chuch
May-2009 - Rolf McPherson
outside the Angelus Temple,
founded by his mother and where
he served as pastor, in Echo Park
in 1969. Though brought up in the
church, he had been studying
engineering when his mother
became seriously ill in 1930 and
he shifted focus. He retired in
1988.
•••
The son of evangelist
Aimee Semple McPherson lacked her
charisma but led the church she
founded through a period of
explosive
growth.
•••
Rolf K. McPherson, a major figure
in the Pentecostal movement who
for 44 years guided the
International Church of the
Foursquare Gospel founded by his
mother, charismatic evangelist
Aimee Semple McPherson, died of
natural causes May 21 at his Los
Feliz home, according to a church
spokesman. He was 96.
•••
After his mother's death in 1944,
McPherson became the leader of
the church and the pastor of
Angelus Temple, the domed
landmark in Echo Park where his
mother delivered
fire-and-brimstone sermons with
Hollywood pageantry during the
1920s and '30s.
•••
McPherson lacked his mother's
flamboyance but brought a steady
hand to the management of the
finances and day-to-day
operations of the church, which
now claims 8.4 million members in
144 countries.
•••
"His most important legacy was
laying the foundation for the
explosive growth of the church in
the second half of the 20th
century," said Washington State
University historian Matthew
Avery Sutton, who wrote a 2007
biography of McPherson's mother.
"He never had his mom's charisma,
energy or excitement, but he was
very sharp, a savvy and brilliant
administrator" who guided the
denomination into "the mainstream
of American evangelicalism.
•••
In 1918 the itinerant evangelist
settled in Los Angeles, where she
eventually built a grand,
5,000-seat temple across from the
lake in Echo Park north of
downtown. For many followers, the
highlight of her worship services
was the altar call, when the sick
and infirm surged forward to ask
for healing. Young Rolf witnessed
many of the sessions. •
Part
02h
TIMELINE- •••
•••
"They used to bring ambulances
and stretchers, and they left
empty," McPherson recalled in a
1996 interview with Charisma
magazine. "Often Mother would . .
. go down and pray for someone on
a stretcher. They would get up
off the stretcher and the
stretcher would be carried off
empty.
•••
By the time he was 13, he and his
half-sister were leading
children's services at the
temple. According to Sutton's
book "Aimee Semple McPherson and
the Resurrection of Christian
America," the services regularly
attracted "about a thousand of
the smallest worshipers" in the
Foursquare movement.
•••
As president of the church,
McPherson oversaw its LIFE Bible
College (now called Life Pacific
College) in San Dimas and radio
station KFSG-FM, which his mother
founded in 1924. KFSG was one of
the first radio stations in Los
Angeles and was among the oldest
continuously operating Christian
radio stations until it went off
the air in 2003.
CLICK
FOR MORE STORY - THE RADIO Church
ministry - Influenced many
ministers such as: SISTER
EARLENE,
D.D.
•••
Although his mother and
half-sister displayed more talent
in the pulpit, McPherson "was a
good preacher," said author
Daniel Mark Epstein, who spoke to
McPherson numerous times while
writing "Sister Aimee," a
biography published in 1994. "He
didn't have that sort of star
power, but in his own quiet way
he was very articulate," Epstein
said Wednesday. "His faith was
very deep and authentic and he
spoke from the heart.
•••
Because his mother was often
traveling, McPherson lived with
other church families during much
of his childhood, Sutton said. He
had been staying in Yolo County
when his mother mysteriously
disappeared in 1926 after going
swimming near Venice Beach. The
incident turned scandalous after
she resurfaced a month later in
Mexico, claiming she had been the
victim of a kidnapping.
Authorities suggested she had
made up the kidnapping to cover
up an affair with a church
employee, but she stuck to her
story and was embraced by her
flock upon her return. •
1976
-
TheRightFix -
•••
McPherson had studied engineering
but shifted his focus to the
church after his mother became
seriously ill in 1930. In 1936 he
took her side in a management
dispute with his half-sister.
Salter lost the dispute and was
removed from the church's
leadership in 1937. She died in
2007 at 96.
•••
He became church president in
1944 when Aimee McPherson died of
an accidental overdose of
barbiturates.
•••
Under McPherson's stewardship,
the Foursquare movement grew from
29,000 members in 410 churches
and meeting places in 1944 to 1.2
million members in 19,000
churches and meeting places
worldwide in 1988, when he
retired. "He laid a foundation
that made it possible for the
Foursquare Church to move forward
around the world," Pastor Jack
Hayford, the current church
president, said in a statement
after McPherson's death.
•••
McPherson is survived by his
second wife, Evangeline
Carmichael McPherson; a daughter,
Alicia McPherson Santacroce, from
his marriage to Lorna De Smith
that ended with her death; a
stepdaughter, Carol Parks; three
grandchildren; two
step-grandchildren; and a
niece.
•04headlineTVI
Bylines In Memory / Portrait of
Barbara Rigner
•
•
"People do
what they want," said Widipedia's
founder at the recent Digital
Hollywood Spring keynote address.
"There is no master plan what
people are interested in." The
question is, how can we partner
with people to have a symbiotic
realationship. Information SOURCES: (Pacific
& Atlantic
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