Female Faith Healing

As a female figure of authority, McPherson defied many of the accepted and traditional standards associated with the masculine fundamentalist world she was part of.  As a noted healer, Sister Aimee literarily and figuratively shaped the destinies of her parishioners’ lives, and accumulated a great deal of support and devotion through her healing works. Administering faith cures allowed McPherson to stretch the accepted notions of female Christian propriety without breaking them.   Situating herself along the old Victorian boundaries of a devout female healer, McPherson was careful to position her ministry and healing practices along accepted female lines of conduct. However, she consisting pushed these gendered boundaries to the limit in her quest to reorient Christian fundamentalism for the twentieth century.

McPherson’s healing practices perfectly encapsulates her gendered position.  To divinely heal the sick was to reject the authority of medical experts, and required the healer to close one’s mind to emerging empirical rationalism and open oneself (and body) to the incursion of God’s healing power.  The healing image Sister Aimee promulgated was one where her authority was bestowed upon her by a benevolent God. In presenting herself in this fashion, McPherson could contend that she did not wrench power away from the male authorities of Pentecostals; rather, God had freely deemed her to be worthy of his healing power, and chose her to carry his message through to eager parishioners. Essentially, McPherson was able to work within the confines of the dominant gender and cultural conventions of the day in order to forge for herself a remarkable postion of power and authority.