Free Screening of "Sister Aimee" at Coolidge Corner

Sister Aimee will screen for free at the Coolidge Corner Theatre tomorrow night, Thursday, March 29, at 7:00 pm. Afterward, author Matthew Avery Sutton will sign copies of Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America at the Coolidge Corner Barnes & Noble.

America has a longstanding evangelical tradition. America also has a longstanding tradition of evangelicals falling off their high perches, a la Jim Bakker and, more recently, Ted Haggard.

Aimee Semple McPherson was one of the first evangelicals to rivet the public's imagination with her very public, very Hollywood expressions of faith. In fact, she set up her church in Southern California. She also had a few weaknesses according to Sister Aimee, a one-hour documentary of McPherson's life that will be screening for free tomorrow night at Coolidge Corner.

Her theatricality set the bar high for evangelicals. She disappeared in 1926 and turned up about a month later. She said she had been kidnapped, but later investigations suggested that she staged the whole incident, although no one really knows what happened.

If you can't make the free show at Coolidge Corner, PBS' American Experience series will air a one-hour documentary on her life on April 2.