UC Santa Barbara

In 1975, a journalist named Stephen Strang founded Charisma, a Florida magazine that would serve and cover what scholars call the neo-Pentecostal or charismatic movement. Charisma was both responding to a growing commercial and religious market and helping to create that market through its editorial circulation. The magazine would develop into a multimedia company over the decades, today offering a daily news website, podcasts and a book-publishing house. Over the years, Charisma sought to turn its readers into media-makers in their own right, instructing and encouraging their audiences to participate commercially in media creation, in large and small ways. Many scholars have looked at Pentecostal media-makers as a way to argue for a particular type of religious vitality in the modern moment, either as a way of rethinking the religious nature of media itself or as a counterargument against the concept of secularization. The literature raises productive questions, and we do well to elect charismatic and Pentecostal creators for serious consideration. Drawing on archival sources and elements of ethnography, this paper approaches the media-saturated world of Charisma with an appreciation for this creative and commercial work and takes into account how it is through these editorial labors that charisma, religious or otherwise, takes shape.