The term charisma will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a "leader." (Weber, 1978:1112) [Paul, argued against basing religious authority on "charisma", see Corinthians]
this is becoming the central question of my studies, given that there was a breakdown in the perceived and evident structure of authority in the Baha'i religion, the denial of the continuance of the Guardianship (wilayat, imamate) each sect has had to come up with a different argument to legitimate it's authority. While one sect is dominant the question of legitimate authority and what different members of the religion will accept as legitimate is the dividing line, that goes back through religious history to it's predecessors in Islam, Christianity, Judaism and probably all the way back to Shaman hunter-gatherer groups. At each succession of authority from one person to the next or to a new institution, as with the dominant sect, there has been a issue of legitimacy of authority. This may prove to be an interesting study in a universal social problem with religions.
Articles:
Crisis in church? Religious authority and religious experience (Panel at the European Association of Social Anthropologists 2010 conference) http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=172843
Abstract
Despite recurrent critiques of dichotomising categorisations, anthropologists and other social scientists time and again return to the idea that religion encompasses two very different sets of dynamics: from Max Weber's differentiation between routinisation and charisma; through Jack Goody's difference between literate and non-literate religions; Ioan Lewis's central and peripheral cults; Frederik Barth's guru regimes versus conjurer regimes; to the most recent doctrinal versus imagistic modes of religiosity proposed by Harvey Whitehouse.
One of the central features that lead researchers to create such categorisations is the relationship between the nature of religious experience and the role of religious authority in maintaining the unity and cohesion of the religious group. Certain forms of religious experience are often viewed as highly individualised. How do hierarchies or other religious structures maintain orthodoxy in the face of such these experiences? What is the relationship, for example, between the experience of mystics and the doctrinal teaching of the church? What threats and opportunities might such experiences pose for the hierarchy of a religion? It is also well known that even the most centralised religious traditions, such as Catholicism, do encompass plenty of emotionally arousing religious practices and experiences - among the most obvious here are exorcisms and visions. Our question is: how are such practices received within institutionalised or centralised religions? What is their position? Can we say that some types of religious experiences, ritual practices and religious imageries are more readily accepted by institutionalised religious traditions than others?
Like communities of any sort, religious communities are bound together by types of social forces which help provide stability and continuity. One of the most important, but often overlooked, is that of authority. What is authority? How is authority different from related concepts like power and legitimacy? And does the nature or structure of authority really matter all that much when it comes to understanding social groups?
Religion has traditionally not been very friendly towards skepticism, critical thinking, and individualism. Religion in America, however, has had to incorporate a significant amount of individualism because this is an important aspect of American culture. Individualism affects just about every religion in the nation - but not quite every one. Amish Christianity is a notable hold out.
The term 'authority' refers to an abstract concept with both sociological and psychological components. As a child born of a myriad of different social situations which have some rough similarities, no easy definition exists. Of particular concern throughout the literature on the topic is the entanglement of the concepts of authority, power, and legitimacy.
Every religious community, just as is the case in any human community, has a some conception and system of authority. Even the loosest association of believers shares an idea and ideal of what qualifies an authority, what the standards are for some decision to be authoritative, and what circumstances might allow for one to disobey an authority.
Structures of authority may be a necessary precondition for the functioning of human groups, but that doesn't mean that authority is always used for the good purposes, whether from the perspective of insiders or outsiders. On the contrary, positions and structures of authority are readily given to abuse and easily result in oppression, repression, and even violence.
No study of religious authority would be adequate without some discussion of the process by which that authority is questioned and ultimately rejected. Within faith communities, especially those derived from Western religious traditions, three of the terms most commonly used to label those who challenge or deny accepted religious authority are heretics, apostates, and blasphemers.
Whenever the nature and structure of authority becomes a subject of discussion, Max Weber's tripartite division of types of authority figures inevitably plays a role. That is especially true here because religious authority is especially well suited for being explained in terms of charismatic, traditional, and rationalized systems.
One issue which faces all systems of religious authority is how to structure their relationship with the rest of civil society. Even when the form of government is theocratic and therefore controlled by religious interests, there remain aspects of society which are ostensibly distinct from traditional spheres of direct religious control, and thus some form of working relationship is required.
There certainly exist religious belief systems and religious communities with no clear role for religious specialists - figures of religious authority whose position depends upon religious learning or revelation as opposed to mere administrative acumen. Such communities are, however, very much in the minority. It is much more common to find a number of clearly delineated roles for religious specialization in the average religious community.