Charisma () is a personal quality of presence or charm that compels its subjects. Scholars in

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...

psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

, and

management Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activitie ...

reserve the term for a type of

leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets v ...

seen as extraordinary; in these fields, the term "charisma" is used to describe a particular type of

leader Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets v ...

who uses "values-based, symbolic, and emotion-laden leader signaling". In

Christian theology Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exeg ...

, the term appears as ''

charism A spiritual gift or charism (plural: charisms or charismata; in Greek singular: χάρισμα ''charisma'', plural: χαρίσματα ''charismata'') is an extraordinary power given by the Holy Spirit."Spiritual gifts". ''A Dictionary of th ...

'', an endowment or extraordinary power given by the

Holy Spirit In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as ...

."Spiritual gifts". ''A Dictionary of the Bible'' by W. R. F. Browning. Oxford University Press Inc. ''Oxford Reference Online''. Oxford University Press. Accessed 22 June 2011.

Etymology

The English term ''charisma'' is from the Greek (''khárisma''), which means "favor freely given" or "gift of grace". The term and its plural (''charismata'') derive from (''charis''), which means "grace" or indeed "charm" with which it shares the root. Some derivatives from that root (including "grace") have similar meanings to the modern sense of ''personality charisma'', such as "filled with attractiveness or charm", "kindness", "to bestow a favor or service", or "to be favored or blessed"."charisma" in ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' second edition. 1989. Moreover, the ancient Greek dialect widely used in Roman times employed these terms without the connotations found in modern religious usage.Ebertz, Michael N. "Charisma" in ''Religion Past & Present.'' edited by Hans Dieter Betz, et al., Brill, 2007, p. 493.

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

s applied personality charisma to their gods; for example, attributing charm, beauty, nature, human creativity or fertility to goddesses they called '' Charites'' (). Theologians and social scientists have expanded and modified the original Greek meaning into two distinct senses: ''personality charisma'' and ''divinely conferred charisma''. The meaning of ''charisma'' has become greatly diffused from its original ''divinely conferred'' meaning, and even from the ''personality charisma'' meaning in modern English dictionaries, which reduces to a mixture of charm and status. John Potts, who has extensively analyzed the term's history, sums up meanings beneath this diffused common usage:

Contemporary charisma maintains, however, the irreducible character ascribed to it by Weber: it retains a mysterious, elusive quality. Media commentators regularly describe charisma as the "X-factor". …The enigmatic character of charisma also suggests a connection – at least to some degree – to the earliest manifestations of charisma as a spiritual gift.

History

Divinely conferred charisma

The

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Christian Bible record the development of ''divinely conferred charisma''. In the Hebrew text the idea of charismatic leadership is generally signaled by the use of the noun ''hen'' (favor) or the verb ''hanan'' (to show favor). The Greek term for ''charisma'' (grace or favor), and its root ''charis'' (grace) replaced the Hebrew terms in the Greek translation of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

). Throughout, "the paradigmatic image of the charismatic hero is the figure who has received God's favor".Scheper, George L. "Charisma" in ''Encyclopedia of Religion'' edited by Lindsay Jones. Macmillan Reference US, 2005, v 3, p. 1545. In other words, ''divinely conferred charisma'' applied to highly revered figures. Thus, Eastern Mediterranean Jews in the had notions of ''charis'' and ''charisma'' that embraced the range of meanings found in Greek culture and the spiritual meanings from the Hebrew Bible. From this linguistic legacy of fused cultures, in

1 Corinthians The First Epistle to the Corinthians ( grc, Α΄ ᾽Επιστολὴ πρὸς Κορινθίους) is one of the Pauline epistles, part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and a co-au ...

Paul the Apostle Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

introduced the meaning that the Holy Spirit bestowed ''charism'' and ''charismata'', "the gift of God's grace," upon individuals or groups. For Paul, " ere is a clear distinction between charisma and ''charis''; charisma is the direct result of divine ''charis'' or grace." In the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

Epistle An epistle (; el, ἐπιστολή, ''epistolē,'' "letter") is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as par ...

s, Paul refers to ''charisma'' or its plural ''charismata'' seven times in

, written in

Koine Koine Greek (; Koine el, ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, hē koinè diálektos, the common dialect; ), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-reg ...

(or common) Greek around . He elaborates on his concepts with six references in Romans (c. 56). He makes 3 individual references in 2 Corinthians (c. 56),

1 Timothy The First Epistle to Timothy is one of three letters in the New Testament of the Bible often grouped together as the pastoral epistles, along with Second Timothy and Titus. The letter, traditionally attributed to the Apostle Paul, consists ...

, and

2 Timothy The Second Epistle to Timothy is one of the three pastoral epistles traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle.. Addressed to Timothy, a fellow missionary, it is traditionally considered to be the last epistle he wrote before his death. Alth ...

(c. 62 – c. 67). The seventeenth and only other mention of ''charisma'' is in 1 Peter. The

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

s, written in the late first century, apply ''divinely conferred charisma'' to revered figures. Examples are accounts of Jesus'

baptism Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...

and of his transfiguration, in which disciples see him as radiant with light, appearing together with Moses and Elijah. Another example is Gabriel's greeting to Mary as "full of grace". In these and other instances

early Christians Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewis ...

designated certain individuals as possessing "spiritual gifts", and these gifts included "the ability to penetrate the neighbour to the bottom of his heart and spirit and to recognize whether he is dominated by a good or by an evil spirit and the gift to help him to freedom from his demon".Benz, Ernst Wilhelm. "The Roles of Christianity" in ''The new Encyclopædia Britannica'', v. 16, 1986, p. 306. Believers characterized their revered religious figures as having "a higher perfection… a special ''Charisma''". Then, with the establishment of the

Christian Church In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym fo ...

, "the old charismatic gifts and free offerings were transformed into a hierarchical sacerdotal system". The focus on the institution rather than divinely inspired individuals increasingly dominated religious thought and life, and that focus went unchanged for centuries. Additional changes began in the 17th century when church leaders, notably in the Latin tradition, accented "individual gifts ndparticular talents imparted by God or the

." The 19th century brought an increasing shift in emphasis toward individual and spiritual aspects of charisma;

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

and some

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

theologians Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...

narrowed the concept to superlative, out-of-the-ordinary, and virtuoso gifts. Simultaneously, the term became alienated from the much wider meaning that

had attached to it. Still, the narrowed term projected back to the earlier period "A systematically reflected and highly differentiated understanding of charisma was often unconsciously infused into the Scriptures and writings of the church fathers, so that these texts were no longer read through the eyes of the authors". These dialectic meanings influenced notable changes in

Pentecostalism Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestant Charismatic Christian movement

in the late 19th century, and

charismatic movements The charismatic movement in Christianity is a movement within established or mainstream Christian denominations to adopt beliefs and practices of Charismatic Christianity with an emphasis on baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the use of spiri ...

in some mainline churches in the mid-20th century. The discussion in the 21st Century Religion section explores what ''charisma'' means in these and other religious groups.

Personality charisma

The basis for modern secular usage comes from

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

sociologist

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...

. He discovered the term in the work of Rudolph Sohm, a

church historian whose 1892 ''Kirchenrecht'' was immediately recognized in Germany as an epoch-making work. It also stimulated a debate between Sohm and leading theologians and religion scholars, which lasted more than twenty years and stimulated a rich polemical literature. The debate and literature had made ''charisma'' a popular term when Weber used it in '' The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'' and in his ''Sociology of Religion''. Perhaps because he assumed that readers already understood the idea, Weber's early writings lacked definition or explanation of the concept. In the collection of his works, ''Economy and Society'' edited by his wife, he identified the term as a prime example of action he labeled "value-rational," in distinction from and opposition to action he labeled "Instrumentally rational." Because he applied meanings for ''charisma'' similar to Sohm, who had affirmed the purely charismatic nature of early Christianity, Weber's ''charisma'' would have coincided with the ''divinely conferred charisma'' sense defined above in Sohm's work. Weber introduced the ''personality charisma'' sense when he applied ''charisma'' to designate a form of authority. To explain charismatic authority he developed his classic definition:

Charisma is a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These as such are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.

Here Weber extends the concept of charisma beyond supernatural to superhuman and even to exceptional powers and qualities. Sociologist Paul Joosse examined Weber's famous definition, and found that:

through simple yet profoundly consequential phrases such as “are considered” and “is treated,” charisma becomes a relational, attributable, and at last a properly sociological concept.... For Weber, the locus of power is in the led, who actively (if perhaps unconsciously) invest their leaders with social authority.

In other words, Weber indicates that it is followers who attribute powers to the individual, emphasizing that "the recognition on the part of those subject to authority" is decisive for the validity of charisma. Weber died in 1920, leaving "disordered, fragmentary manuscripts without even the guidance of a plan or table of the proposed contents". One unfinished manuscript contained his above quoted definition of ''charisma''.MacRae, Donald G. ''Max Weber''. Viking, 1974, p. 101. It took over a quarter century for his work to be translated into English. With regard to charisma, Weber's formulations are generally regarded as having revived the concept from its deep theological obscurity. However, even with the admirable translations and prefaces of his entire works, many scholars have found Weber's formulations ambiguous. For the past half-century they have debated the meaning of many Weberian concepts, including the meaning of ''charisma,'' the role of followers, and the degree of a supernatural component.

References

External links

Let's face it: Charisma matters
from

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sa ...

The X-Factors of Success
from ''

Psychology Today ''Psychology Today'' is an American media organization with a focus on psychology and human behavior. It began as a bimonthly magazine, which first appeared in 1967. The ''Psychology Today'' website features therapy and health professionals direc ...

''
Max Weber and Charisma
by Thomas Robbin in the ''Encyclopedia of Religion and Society'', edited by William H. Swatos:

* ttp://www.apa.org/monitor/jan05/savoir.html The Science of Savoir Fairebr>Charismatic Cults
on

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