Nearly 100 years ago, America’s most famous female evangelist waded out into the Pacific Ocean and vanished. Why was she there, and who really was she?

In Sister, Sinner, journalist Claire Hoffman chronicles the dramatic rise, disappearance, and near-fall of Aimee Semple McPherson. A pioneer of Pentecostalism and founder of the Foursquare Church, McPherson used spectacle, storytelling, and 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, and the Foursquare Church continues, with more than eight million followers worldwide.

In 1926, weeks after McPherson disappeared in the Pacific Ocean, she reappeared in the desert, claiming to have been kidnapped. Hoffman speaks with Columbia Journalism School Dean Jelani Cobb about what happened next—sex scandals, religious persecution, legal shenanigans, the seemingly unshakable faith of her followers, and the media’s race to cover it all. Who was this iconic woman: everybody’s saintly sister or a con-artist sinner?

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

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. She was 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. Her new book is SISTER, SINNER: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson.

Jelani Cobb joined the Columbia Journalism School faculty in 2016 and became Dean in 2022. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015. He received a Peabody Award for his 2020 PBS Frontline film Whose Vote Counts? and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2018. He has also been a political analyst for MSNBC since 2019. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Journalism Project and the Board of Trustees of The New York Public Library. He received an Honorary Doctorate for the Advancement of Science and Art from Cooper Union in 2022, and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Rutgers University in 2024.

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In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs. 

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Courtesy Claire Hoffman
Courtesy Jelani Cobb