Bleached-blond hair carefully wreathes her face. A pure-white cape, pinned with a corsage, drapes her shoulders. A cross adorns the front of her white dress. She is flanked by her congregants: women uniformly attired in white dresses with dark capes, men wearing suits and stiff white shirts. Though looking a bit wan, she manages to smile as movie cameras record the scene. The woman assures her followers: “Angelus Temple will carry on and we shall win many thousands of souls if we all pull together.” Then, with some of her faithful playing stringed and brass instruments, she leads everyone in a children’s song: “If we all pull together how happy we’ll be!” The crowd joins her in pulling on imaginary ropes and clapping hands to punctuate each syllable of “how happy we’ll be.” This was evangelist Sister Aimee Semple McPherson after being cleared of charges in a 1926 case that had threatened to destroy her and her ministry.
Recently, characters inspired by McPherson appeared on two TV series: (Showtime) and (HBO). Perhaps this coincidence—each including a female evangelist—is evidence of the current zeitgeist. In both programs, the McPherson-like character is variously depicted as a ditzy, conflicted bleached blonde and an alluring radio preacher and healer not above tricking her followers with headline-grabbing stunts. In , Kerry Bishé portrays Sister Molly Finnister, who finds respite from the responsibilities of her ministry in an affair with the Los Angeles Police Department’s first Chicano detective (Daniel Zovatto). Meanwhile, the city struggles with corrupt police, the Zoot Suit Riots, illegitimate land grabs, and Nazi plots. In , an origin story for the legal drama that aired from 1957 to 1966, Tatiana Maslany plays Sister Alice McKeegan, who fakes the faith healing of a worshipper in a wheelchair and attempts
