Will’s word of the week

You apparently just “have” it.

Charisma, I mean. It’s that hard-to-define, innate charm, that smoothly winsome demeanor of the charismatic person that draws us in.

I had the chance to cover Indiana’s primary with my political reporting class this past weekend. While there, I saw several charismatic figures, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, in all their magnetic glory. So I suppose thanks are due to the fact that we’re in an election year.

Charisma actually comes from the Greek word kharisma, meaning “divine grace or favor,” from kharizesthai, meaning “to favor,” and from kharis, or simply “favor,” especially as found in the New Testament. Its original, plural Greek form was charismata, later Anglicized to charism, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

So it turns out that a word we sometimes associate with politicians has a spiritual origin.

Weird, huh?

As noted by the OED, the very first use of the older, but no less winsome, definition of charisma as a “gift of grace” can be found in about 1641 in the Bishop Richard Montagu’s The Acts and Monuments of the Church before Christ Incarnate (yes, it’s a mouthful, but read on). Montagu was an Anglican clergyman, scholar and fiery writer of theological treatises who was a little too moderate for his own good. The personal chaplain to King James I, he angered both Roman Catholics and Protestants with his controversial views. As it stands, his phrase in question is “the charismata of grace,” referring to a gift or talent given by God.

Also according to the OED, an example of a spiritual gift in this sense can be found in 1644 in John Bulwer’s Chirologia, or the Natural Language of the Hand, with the line, “[it] is used in the conveyance of that Charisme or miraculous gift of healing.” Bulwer was an Oxford-educated doctor and early proponent of attempts to communicate with the deaf.

A more modern definition, or the ability to “inspire devotion and enthusiasm,” can be found much later, in 1930, in Talcott Parsons’ translation of Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Parsons was an American scholar credited with helping introduce Weber to a North American audience. Weber was a German sociologist who was especially keen on examining the motives behind a person’s actions. That being said, the line in question is, “The Zinzendorf branch of Pietism ... glorified the loyal worker who did not seek acquisition, but lived according to the apostolic model, and was thus endowed with the charisma of the disciples.”

I won’t go into Count Nikolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf’s ideas of personal faith versus traditional Lutheran theology (trust me, we don’t need to), but suffice it to say that it was also fairly controversial.

So the next time you hear your favorite presidential candidate, remember that his or her charisma is, by definition, a gift. Please feel free to send me your word ideas, and until next time, cheerio!