How Charisma Reveals Our Idols

It’s maybe the great paradox of humanity. We want to be able to control the world, or at least our lives. But we don’t actually want to be in control. That’s too much responsibility. So we’re willing to hand off that control to someone else.

Molly Worthen explores that paradox through the lens of charisma in her new book, Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump (Forum Books). Worthen is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I’m sure many of you remember her story from this podcast a couple years ago. I’m thrilled she’s back to discuss this new book.

Worthen quips, “Some vaguely disreputable revival is always going on somewhere in America,” even if the mainstream media are slow to notice. Religion is one major way we try and resolve this paradox of control. She further explains,

If we define the religious impulse as a hunger for transcendent meaning and a reflex to worship, then it is a human instinct only slightly less basic than the need for food and shelter, and Americans are no less religious than they have ever been. They will always find a way to satisfy these desires, even if charisma carries them down strange and costly paths.

In studying charisma, we’re not looking for arguments, facts, or even personality. Here’s how Molly defines it: “The heart of charisma is the act of unveiling a hidden narrative. It invites followers to take up roles in a roster of morally stark characters and fold their lives into a plotline curving toward justice.”

Molly joined me on Gospelbound to discuss more about how our longing for control—and to surrender it—shapes the stories we believe and the idols we follow.