Who knew the Puritans and Donald Trump were so connected?
Molly Worthen, journalist, author and associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, brought some of her own charisma to Taylor University on Monday, March 10.
During a well-attended lecture in Butz-Carruth Recital Hall, followed by a Q&A, Worthen discussed her upcoming book, “Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump.”
A deep dive into her upcoming book was not the only reason Worthen came to Taylor — she’s also a new Christian.
Worthen explained how a life of studying American religious history prepared her and led her to her own conversion.
During an interview with a megachurch pastor, J.D. Greear, Worthen said he evangelized and challenged her to look into what she was studying, not just from an academic's perspective.
After a deep dive into the proof of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, she said she had an epiphany of the obvious.
“Every conversion story are stories of the epiphanies of the obvious,” Worthen said.
She realized that she could read, study and learn all about the religion she had been so invested in, but that’s only half of Christianity. The other half is faith in the supernatural, mystical and emotional. Ultimately, Worthen realized academia could only get her so close to a real faith.
Put another way, it also takes faith in the charismatic guru of Jesus Christ.
This charismatic guruship was the topic of the rest of her lecture.
Her lecture began with a brief etymology of the word charisma and moved to a more modern definition. Worthen explained how charisma has shaped the history of America. Since her talk only lasted an hour, she chose to focus on what she calls the “gurus” of the late 1960s and early 1970s and their version of counter-cultural charisma.
“You could characterize this as the age of cults, or, to use a less pejorative term, new religious movements,” Worthen said. “These movements varied enormously in their ideas and their practices, but they all orbited around a guru — a charismatic leader who could look you in the eye and make you feel seen.”
This ability to make a person feel seen or the seeming mystical ability to know the solution to all of a person’s problems defined these gurus.
However, Worthen carefully noted that guru—in her usage—does not connote only a left, counter-cultural response. It includes Christian gurus like James Dobson (founder of Focus on the Family), Bill Gothard (founder of the Institute of Basic Life Principles) and Francis Schaeffer.
Worthen said the reason for a corresponding uptick in cults and rise of Christian gurus was a failing of governmental institutions. The Vietnam War, Watergate and the Pentagon Papers all transpired during this time. The government, however, was not the only thing failing.
“By the time we are in the 1970s, the decline of mainline church membership and attendance is really undeniable,” she said.
This is attributed to “secularization.” Worthen said secularization is simply the erosion of trust in institutions in general.
This lack of trust is what leads to the rise of charismatic gurus, she said. Because these gurus are independent of any institution.
As an example, she led her audience through the decades and explained how gurus became a prevalent and mainstream form of leadership in the making of Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump.
