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77
The Use of Biography in Pentecostal
Historiography
More than once in recent
years
it has been noted that there is an acute need for
critical, analytical biographical
treatments of influential
figures
in Pentecostal
historiography (cf.
Russell P. Spittler, “Suggested
Areas for Further Research in Pentecostal Studies,”
Pneuma
5:2 ( 1983), 49.
For the most
part
that observation has
gone
unheeded. There are now
signs
that the
increasing
interest in the
history
of Pentecostalism
may provide
us with more such treatments.
To be sure, Pentecostals have not been
totally
bereft of interesting biographical
and
autobiographical
works. Pentecostal leaders are often
willing
to share their
personal
“testimonies.” Some have been short;
others
long.
Frank
Bartleman, Agnes
Ozman
LaBerge, Thomas Ball
Barratt,
Elizabeth V.
Baker,
Andrew
Urshan,
Maria Woodworth-Etter,
and Carrie Judd
Montgomery
were
among
the early
luminaries who left
autobiographical
accounts.
Still other Pentecostal leaders have been the
subject
of a series of “devotional”
biographies.
Such
people
as
“Joybringer”
Fred F. Bosworth, Lillian Trasher,
“The Nile
Mother,”
and William Branham,
“A Man Sent from God” are
stereotypical
of the Pentecostal
biography.
Some have been
privately published
and offered for sale to those who would
support
the
ministry
of the biographical subject.
Others have been
duly
“white-washed” or “sanitized” for
publication
in accordance with denominational specifications,
sometimes to the
point
of masking the truth.
Often, then,
these treatments take on an
“apologetic”
cast.
A few of the more colorful
figures
on the Pentecostal
landscape have been the
subjects
of numerous treatments. Aimee
Semple McPherson
published
her
autobiography,
This is That in
1919, 1921,
and
1923, revising
it each time. In The Service
of The King (New
York: Boni &
Liveright, 1927) brought
her
story up
to date through 1926, including
her version of her kidnapping and
subsequent court
hearings.
Nine
years later, following
a trip around the
world, Aimee told the
story
of that
trip
in Give Me
My
Own God
(New York: H.C.
Kinsey
& Company,
Inc., 1936).
Its intent was
clearly apologetic.
Other more or less “official” treatments of Aimee
Semple McPherson have
appeared
since that time. The
Story of My Life (Los Angeles:
Echo Park
Evangelistic Association, 1951),
was issued under the
editorship
of
Raymond
W. Becker who worked from
previous publications
in which “Sister” had referred to her life story.
Still
later, Raymond
L. Cox worked from a
manuscript
1
78
which had been
begun by
Aimee but never
completed,
to
produce Aimee
Semple
McPherson: The
Story of My Life (Waco:
Word Books, Publisher, 1973).
In addition to the official
autobiographical
and
biographical sketches of her
life, other
less reverent, sometimes vitriolic treatments of her life have
appeared.
The
first,
Charles H.
Magee’s,
Antics
of Aimee: The Poetical Tale
of a Kidnapped
Female
(Los Angeles: Charles H.
Magee, 1926) set the stage
for the
many
to follow. Antics was a
very
irreverent 64
page poem, complete
with sarcastic cartoons, designed
to deride Aimee’s
explanation
of the 1926 “kidnapping”
incident. This was followed
by
R.P.
Shuler’s, “McPhersonism”, (Los Angeles:
Bob
Shuler,
no
date), Nancy
Barr Mavity’s,
Sister Aimee
(Garden City,
NY:
Doubleday,
Doran & Company, Inc., 1931),
and John D. Goben’s
expose,
`Aimee’ The Gospel
Gold
Digger! (Los Angeles: Peoples Publishing Company, 1932). Lately
Thomas wrote
(The Vanishing Evangelist (New
York: The
Viking Press, 1959),
and later
Storming
Heaven
(New
York: William Morrow and
Company, Inc., 1970). Finally,
Robert Bahr wrote in
1979,
Least
of All
Saints: The
Story of
Aimee
Semple McPherson
(Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1979).
In spite of all this, Aimee
Semple
McPherson and her contribution to Pentecostalism overall has not been
adequately
assessed in these many
treatments. Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home
Companion, and author of Lake
Wobegon Days
remarked in a recent interview that Aimee
Semple
McPherson was the last of the
great
women evangelists,
and she has been condemned on the basis of “one little incident.”
“Someone,”
he
noted,
“should rescue her
reputation.” Radix 17:4 (Spring,
1986),
11. The obvious
implication
is that her story
is
yet
to be told well. The little I know of what she accomplished
in Los
Angeles
alone is worthy of an
objective
critical treatment,
in spite of what one
might
think about her
“kidnapping.”
Through
the
years,
Oral Roberts has fared little better. He first shared his
self-perceptions
in Oral
Roberts’Life Story (Tulsa:
Oral Roberts, 1952), again
in My Story (Tulsa: Summit Book
Company, 1961),
and a third time in The Call: Oral
Roberts’Autobiography (Old Tappan,
NJ:
Fleming
H. Revell
Company, 1971).
Like
Aimee, he has also been treated to unauthorized
scrutiny
in
Wayne
A. Robertson,
Oral: The Warm, Intimate, Unauthorized Portrait of a Man
of
God
(Los Angeles:
Acton
House, Inc., 1976)
and in
Jerry Sholes’ Give Me That Prime-Time
Religion:
An Insider’s
Report on the Oral Roberts
Evangelistic
Association
(New
York: Hawthorn
Books, 1979).
It is only recently that David Edwin Harrell, Jr. has handed the Pentecostal Movement its first critical,
objective, analytical,
and
2
79
compelling
treatment
worthy
of the name. His
study,
Oral Roberts: An American
Life (Bloomington,
IN: Indiana
University Press, 1985)
is a consummate model of how an objective assessment can be made on even a controversial
public figure’s
life and work.
This
year,
Desmond
Cartwright
has written about The Great Evangelists:
The Remarkable Lives
of George
and
Stephen Jeffreys (Basingstake,
UK: Marshall
Pickering, 1986).
These men were critical
figures
in the evolution of the Pentecostal Movement in Great
Britain,
and
worthy
of an
indepth biography.
Desmond has provided
a laudable service
by weaving together
their
story.
This volume does have its weaknesses for Pentecostal
historians, however,
in that it was written with the
popular
audience in mind, and the
sophisticated
reader
may
become frustrated
by the lack of essential documentation.
Wayne
E. Warner has
explored
The Woman
Evangelist:
The Life and Times
of
Charismatic
Evangelist
Maria B. Woodworth-Etter _ (Metuchen, NJ:
The Scarecrow
Press, Inc., 1986).
It is much closer to the norm of
solid, objectively
written Pentecostal
biography. Wayne
has done an excellent
job
of
isolating, collecting,
and weaving
diverse sources into a single, interesting, even
compelling tapestry.
His treatment of Mrs. Woodworth-Etter’s
“borrowing” from the works of others is clearly and
fairly presented.
At
points, the work is a bit
uneven, usually
in its occasional insertions representative
of the author’s own
piety.
The
appearance
of these recent
biographies,
then, gives hope that Pentecostal
historiography
is
moving
into an era in which the sources are viewed with renewed
objectivity,
that events are corroborated
through painstaking research,
and testimonial,
devotional, and
apologetic approaches
are minimized.
David Nelson
Duke, “Theology
and
Biography: Simple Suggestions for a Promising
Field,” Perspectives
in Religious Studies 3 ( 1986), 137-149,
has made some substantive
suggestions
for those who wish to write
biography.
He suggests that for it to be a valuable
product, the
biography (1)
must be
critical, (2)
must
provide
more than a mere
chronology
of
events, (3)
cannot be shallow but
(4)
must be compelling.
It needs also to
(5)
take
very seriously
the
original Sitz-im-leben of the
figure involved,
and
(6)
the author should be alert to the
significant hinge points
in the
subject’s
life. The work should
(7) probe
the
subject’s self-understanding,
and
(8) the writer should
keep
in mind the relative
importance
of the
subject.
I might add,
that it must also
recognize
the
genera
of each source which is used to write the
biography, assessing
its strengths and weaknesses and
using
it in a manner which is consistent with standard procedures
of modern
historiography.
.
.
‘
3
80
In this issue of Pneuma, we are
pleased
to have as our lead
article, an
essay
on Pentecostal
historiography by
Grant Wacker. In the Golden
Oldies,
he assesses a number of early Pentecostal
histories, and determines that
they are, indeed,
worth
playing
if we recognize them for the
recordings they
are.
Following
Professor Wacker’s
enlightening assessment
of these important sources,
we have new
biographical
sketches on three important figures of early
Pentecostalism: Carrie Judd
Montgomery, Bishop Joseph
H.
King,
and Andrew H.
Argue.
Each sketch contains
significant
information on the
subject,
and each author has
attempted
to do some assessment of the
subject’s
contribution to Pentecostalism or to Pentecostal
historiography.
Much remains to be done on these and other
figures,
but I hope that these brief biographical
sketches will whet the
appetite
of several of our readers to undertake the task that lies before us in telling more
fully the
history
of the Pentecostal
story through
the use of
biography.
Cecil M.
Robeck,
Jr. Editor
4
