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ABSTRACT
This article investigates the construction and transmission of charisma through online channels and its role in the formation of religious identities. Mindful of Max Weber’s observation that charisma inhabits the relationship between a leader and his/her followers, I argue for a critical reappraisal of the theoretical model in the light of the ubiquity in the twenty-first century of new, virtual forms of social encounter. I focus my analysis on the Christian creationist movement in the United States and particularly on an influential leader called Ken Ham. Using digital ethnographic methods, I show how Ham constructs charisma online and how a virtual community forms itself around his charismatic claims. I illustrate how this virtual community intersects with offline worlds and suggest that the theme park attractions that Ham’s organisation runs (Creation Museum, Ark Encounter) are imbued with deflected charisma by virtue of their association with his online avatar.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation under Grant 0103. I am grateful to Sarah Winkler-Reid and Hilary Marlow for their comments on an earlier version of the manuscript and to the two anonymous referees of the Journal of Contemporary Religion for their insightful critique.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. A notable exception is the scholarship on New Religious Movements (Palmer Citation2004; Singler Citation2017).
2. For the psychological dimensions of charisma, see Schjoedt et al. (Citation2011) or Freund (Citation2009).
3. All figures in this paragraph are correct as of 23 October 2017.
4. During the so-called Arab Spring of 2010–2012, dissenting online communities fed directly into real-life street protests (see Howard and Hussain Citation2013).
5. Some scholars have argued that this kind of observational approach, stripped of its participatory aspect, does not constitute ‘true’ ethnography (Varis Citation2015, 57). I have deliberately forsaken it here in order to exploit the potential of invisibility.
6. Ken Ham official Facebook feed, 23 January 2017. Original post made at 15:08 (all times of postings given in this article are given in local time).
7. Individual comments from followers are not given or analysed here for reasons of preserving their anonymity.
8. Ken Ham official Twitter feed, 8 January 2017 at 05:56.
9. Ken Ham official Facebook feed, 4 January 2017 at 22:02.
10. There is a certain dynastic element to Ham’s leadership, as various members of his immediate family are actively involved in the work at AIG.
11. They also sometimes garner criticism. One follower responded negatively to two posts by Ham on 1 and 2 February 2017, in which he (Ham) mocked a call to substitute the term ‘expectant mothers’ with ‘pregnant people’ in order to accommodate transgender people. Ham’s comment was framed by two photographs, of a grandson and a granddaughter, and the statement that “there’s a difference between boys and girls!”. This otherwise faithful follower accused Ham of homophobic dogmatism and of “using [your] family to promote an agenda”. This person was quickly reprimanded by Ham himself as well as by 15 other followers.
12. Ken Ham official Facebook feed, 29 December 2016 at 22:00.
13. A post with photographs announcing the birth of a new grandchild on 23 January 2017 attracted even more ‘likes’: 6,500.
14. This is the theological belief that men and women have different, but complementary, roles in family life and religious leadership.
15. Ham teaches that only science that can be empirically tested in the present day is valid and he therefore rejects paleo archeology and other sciences that study deep time.
16. “Ken Ham’s Personal Testimony: A Fire in My Bones.” Accessed 27 February 2018. https://answersingenesis.org/bios/ken-ham.
17. Introduction to “Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham (Official).” Accessed 27 February 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Caroline Tee
Caroline Tee holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Bristol. She is the author of The Gülen Movement in Turkey: The Politics of Islam and Modernity (2016). She was, until June 2018, a Research Associate at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion in Cambridge. Since September 2018, she is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Chester, Chester, UK CORRESPONDENCE: Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester CH1 4BJ, UK.