Los Angeles has always been a city that prefers reinvention to tradition, making it the ideal incubator for new religious movements. From the beginning, its distance from the centers of institutional ...

Aimee Semple McPherson became a star evangelist while living in L.A. Despite a mysterious disappearance that tarnished her reputation in 1926, her legacy lives on in the city. (Bettmann Archive via ...

In Claire Hoffman’s first book, “Greetings From Utopia Park,” she describes growing up as a follower of Transcendental Meditation. Her second book, “Sister, Sinner” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is a ...

Journalist Hoffman (Greetings from Utopia Park) offers a vivid biography of Aimee Semple McPherson (1890–1944), an evangelical leader and radio pioneer whose ascendance to near-sainthood was shattered ...

There are two kinds of Angelenos: Those who’ve heard of Aimee Semple McPherson and those who should. She was a showperson, a radio star, a publisher and writer, a beloved figure and a celebrity — hard ...