Article by Benton Johnson which is an edited, published version of the 1987 Presidential Address which he delivered at the 1987 annual meeting of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (Chicago).
pg. 377 William Irvine's charismatic stature was also great, but he was successfully ousted by his staff. Irvine, who founded an anti-institutional sect of Christians in Ireland in 1897, claimed that it had been revealed to him that verses 8 through 10 of the tenth chapter of Matthew were still binding on Christians today. These verses command them to go witness without "gold, silver, or copper to fill your purse" and with "no pack for the road, no second coat, no shoes, no stick" (New English Bible, 1971). Irvine was a powerful and inflammatory preacher who within the short space of ten years had sent his staff, called "workers" all over the British Isles, Europe, South Africa, North America, and Australia, and was building a growing and controversial movement. Irvine enhanced his charismatic stature in 1903 by proclaiming the "Living Witness Doctrine," which held that he "was the Adam of our time," and that "only those who responded to Irvine and his workers were saved" (Parker and Parker, 1982:18). In other words, no one could be saved without hearing the truth from Irvine himself or from one of his workers. Some of the workers had trouble accepting the new teaching, but the great majority did accept it, perhaps because it reinforced their own authority as well as Irvine's.
But a few years later Irvine had yet another revelation, and this time he went too far for most of his lieutenants. He proclaimed that the commands in the Gospel of Matthew were no longer valid. He declared that the age of grace would end in August of 1914, that Christ would shortly come in judgment, and that he, Irvine, had been chosen to be one of the two witnesses named in the Book of Revelation, with the power to cause drought and plagues (Parker and Parker, 1982:62). In short, Irvine undercut the entire mission of his workers in a dramatic shift of doctrine and policy that rivaled the twists and turns of David Berg. But charismatic as he was, Irvine did not succeed in altering the mission of his movement. His workers had a unity that Berg's never had. Their problem—an awesome one—was to destroy Irvine's charisma while preserving the revelations that had provided the movement with its reason for being.
pg. 378 The workers declared that Irvine "had lost the Lord's anointing" and banned him from all assemblies. But they also had to devise a new source of authority for the movement's very special brand of Christianity. They did this by an ingenious falsification of their own history, in which Irvine's role was obliterated. And armed with this new history and the unity to enforce a ban on Irvine, the workers declared that the founder's name was not to be mentioned within the movement. He was excised from the shared memory of the organization he had founded. Having expelled Irvine, the staff completed the process of routinization already under way. They banned inflammatory preaching, encourage a dull style of worship, and avoided publicity by refashioning themselves as a secret society. Irvine's routinized movement exists to this day as an "invisible church" with an American membership larger than that of several religions that are much better known (Crow, 1964:15).
Founders and the Future of Their Movements
I conclude with a few remarks about the founder's role in determining whether the movement lasts for more than a generation. In this matter, too, the founder's own perspective carries much weight. Some founders may not care whether their movement survives or may not think the matter very important. Founders like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, whose models are elaborated forms of the tradition of the private guru, may be content to leave a legacy of influence—and in both cases and enormous collection of books, videotapes, and photographs—rather than an ongoing organization of devotees or worshippers. Christians such as David Berg, John Higgins, and William Irvine really believed the "end times" were at hand and that truly long-term planning was pointless. In movements led by founders like these, planning for the far future, if it occurs at all, is likely to be spearheaded by the staff.
Founders with leadership styles like that of a David Berg or a Chuck Dederich are usually unable to build large movements because of their antipathy to routinization and their insistence on knowing everyone and everything in the organization. In addition to fomenting insecurity and division among their lieutenants, leaders like these are often reluctant to name or train a successor, with the result that the movement splinters into several pieces when the founder dies or is incapacitated. It turns out to be just a flash in the pan of history.
It seems likely that the new religious movements with the best prospects for longevity are those whose founders want them to last and who, in addition to whatever charismatic qualities they may have, either possess some of the qualities of a good chief executive officer, or are willing to allow their staffs a great deal of initiative in forming policy. Such founders facilitate the process of routinization.
But such founders do not have "genuine" charisma in Weber's sense (Weber, 1968:241-45, 1111-20). The pure charismatic, Weber tells us, is emotionally volatile, is hostile to economic rationality and to all routine, and relates to disciples in unpredictable and intensely personal ways. Pure charisma, if it is to have
pg. 379 any impact at all, can assert itself only for a moment before being modified. Pure charismatics do not collaborate with the process of routinization. If their movements are to survive and achieve stability, they must have a change of temper that permits their retinue to take over, or they must be displaced in some way. They must die early, as Jesus and Joseph Smith did, or be neutralized. Both William Irvine and the movement he founded were lucky. His church, having expelled him, is a viable movement today. As for Irvine, he moved to Palestine to await the coming of the Lord, and died there at a ripe old age.
Book Title: Across the Boundaries of Belief: Contemporary Issues in the Anthropology of Religion
Editors: Morton Klass, and Maxine K. Weisgrau
Article Title: "On Founders and Followers: Some Factors in the Development of New Religious Movements"
Article By: Benton Johnson
Book Date: 1999
Publisher: Boulder, Colorado and Oxford, United Kingdom: Westview Press
ISBN: 978-0-8133-2695-5
