Prophetic Charisma by Oakes Len

Author:Oakes, Len [Oakes, Len]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: 2015-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

You're all forgetting one thing…. None of you would be here if it wasn't for me. If any of you leave, the rest of us can still carry on. But without me this place will collapse. So I'm going to have the final say.

Another gave a slightly less bald account.

I was determined that I was going to lead … I was determined that I was going to handle the finance … I was determined that I was going to have authority…. I said to the brethren, "I'm going to confront this. I'm gonna handle it, and if you can't trust me with that, you can't trust me with your souls. That's the way it's going to be."

Although some followers abandoned their leaders after these claims were made, others became even more devoted and inspired. The fascinating effect of these total claims—implicitly claims to be the sole source of ultimate good for others—while based in part on successful past leadership, also seemed to be related to enduring themes of faith, hope, and love in the followers' hearts.

Faith was aroused when the followers began to wonder "Can this be true?" "Just how far can this person carry this?" "Can he really produce the goods?" "What will happen if he fails?" There were two aspects to this: the sheer, audience appeal of watching someone on the knife edge (Will he? Won't he?) and the inner confusion experienced when encountering a charismatic claim, especially the concern that "If I accept this claim, what are the implications for the rest of my life?"

Hope was aroused in wishes and thoughts such as "Please God, let this be true" and "Dare I believe?" Hope has been mentioned by some philosophers and theologians as the underpinning of the utopian impulse, and perhaps also of religion itself (Bloch 1986; Kung 1974). Hope constitutes the core of our restlessness, a yearning for the better life. As Augustine put it, "The heart will never rest until it rests in thee." Anyone may sense this latent hopefulness among his own responses when encountering a charismatic prophet with values akin to his own.

Love arose with reflective wonder and awe in the face of the charismatic claim, and it led to what Kurt Wolff has called "cognitive love," the suspension of all prior beliefs in a moment of surrender (Wolff 1976). This is a complicated state of light and dark. There is pain and a sense of loss, of "This nearly was mine" and "Such was I before the world got to me," of sadness and perhaps even envy and resentment. But there is joy also, for in the extreme narcissism of the leader we find we can reconnect with our own long-abandoned narcissism. We meet one who defines his self in his own terms, who lives by his own rules, as we ourselves once did, at least to a far greater degree than we do now. Childlike wonder is rekindled, wonder at what might have been. In that instant the golden gate of

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