Fordthought
  • Blog
  • Word of the Week
  • Dig Deeper

Word of the week: W/c 29/06/15 - Charisma

28/6/2015

 


From the Greek; charisma is any good gift that flows from God's love (charis) to humans; any Divine grace or favour, ranging from prophecy and teaching to serving and healing.  

Picture
Picture
Tony Blair: An example of a charismatic politician Source: commons.wikimedia.org


The word Charisma, when used today, means someone who is compelling, inspirational and has a great deal of charm; leaders, speakers, politicians or even comedians are all said to be charismatic. But this is a corruption of the original term as used by St Paul in his letters to the early Churches. When he wrote to the Romans and the Corinthians, Paul used the term to denote any gift that might built up the life of the Church and these are many and various:
“Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness”. 
Romans 12:6-8
PictureSource: en.wikipedia.org
Last week we took our Year 7 pupils to St Albans Abbey and the United Synagogue in St Albans. Both visits shared in common that they they were highly educational, experiential and gave pupils a chance to be immersed in the history and practices of Christianity and Judaism. At the same time they were vastly different in the size and grandeur of the buildings; The Abbey is an ornate Norman Cathedral, one of the largest buildings in the country and amongst the most beautiful. By contrast, the Synagogue is a small, unassuming building that lacks the splendour of the Abbey yet is no less loved by the community it serves.

PictureSource: www.flickr.com
The other striking similarity was the enthusiasm and devotion of the volunteers who looked after us during our visits. All had given of their time and talent to serve their community and their faith; in short, they used their charisma. Whether they were telling the story of Alban, teaching about Baptism or the History of the Abbey; or if they were showing us how Tefillin are put on, showing us the Sefer Torah or retelling the story of the Passover; they used their own gifts of teaching to enrich our pupils’ learning.

When thinking about this post I was worried that by using the term Charisma to describe the work of both the Abbey and the Synagogue volunteers I might cause offence by using such an overtly Christian term. But actually the term seems rather fitting; Paul was writing to mixed communities of Jews and Gentiles and he himself was a Jew by birth. He would have developed his understanding of the importance of community and the various roles that need to be played from his own Jewish community and transferred this structure onto the fledgling Church. There is a great deal of shared heritage to be celebrated here.

The challenge to my students is this: Where, in your own life and over the summer holiday, can you make the most of your own particular gifts? How can you use your charisma to enrich the lives of others, just like those who served us at the Synagogue and Abbey did?







Comments are closed.

    Archives

    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    Categories

    All
    Abortion
    Absolutism
    Agnostic
    Analogy
    Animal
    Apophatic
    A Priori
    Aquinas
    Article
    Assisted Dying
    Banking
    Bertrand Russell
    Book Review
    Buddhism
    Christianity
    Cosmological
    Covenant
    Dawkins
    Debate
    Design
    Diaspora
    Dig Deeper
    Dukkha
    Epiphany
    Equality
    Euthanasia
    Existentialism
    Fallacies
    False Dichotomy
    Family
    Fertility
    Genesis
    Hajj
    Higher Education
    Hindu
    Hinduism
    Holocaust
    Hospice
    Human Rights
    Human-rights
    Hume
    Islam
    ISRSA
    Judaism
    Justice
    JWT
    Lent
    Life After Death
    Love
    Martyr
    Messiah
    MOOC
    Narnia
    NDE
    News
    Nirvana
    Ontological
    Plato
    PPE
    Pro Choice
    Pro-Choice
    Pro Life
    Pro-Life
    Prophet
    Reformation
    Relativism
    Religion
    Rights
    Sabbath
    Science Vs Religion
    Secularisation
    Soul
    Sport
    Stewardship
    Surrogacy
    Teleological
    Temple
    Ten Commandments
    Theology
    Viability
    Via Negativa
    Vision
    Warfare
    Wittgenstein
    Word
    Word Of The Week
    Word-of-the-week

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos from sneakerdog, Steve Slater (Wildlife Encounters), Art4TheGlryOfGod, johndillon77, dustinj, Charlie Davidson, ineffable_pulchritude, LisaW123, jamee.khairul, Abode of Chaos, Dunleavy Family