In Search of Spiritual Authority: The Agile Spiritual Leadership Challenge

As nonhierarchical, egalitarian characteristics of the digital realm provide practitioners with novel avenues to express and enact their beliefs, religious authority becomes a significant subject of academic inquiry. This paper investigates the construction and perception of spiritual authority within the Wisdom School, a minority Christian community committed to Christian mystical and contemplative traditions as a path to spiritual transformation that increasingly engages followers through virtual spaces. Building on the theoretical frameworks of New Media Studies and Digital Religion Studies and utilizing qualitative methodology, including in-depth semi-structured interviews with participants, the research explores how spiritual authority is constituted, maintained, and challenged within a community at the ecclesial periphery, and which leadership style conforms best with the role of the spiritual authority and the expectations of the followers. The findings further reveal a resonance between the expected behavioral patterns and roles of spiritual authorities in such environments and the agile leadership approaches.