Activism in an Urban Religious District 421
To be sure, religious ideas and ideological leanings limit the pastors to certain kinds
of activism and collaboration. Religious ideas at once open up certain avenues of ac-
tion, and suggest boundaries for that action. But this does not betray a tension, contra-
diction, or opposition between otherworldly ideas and worldly practices. It indicates
simply that religious traditions contain ideas that speak to the moral and ethical limits
of activism. In this sense, “sacred” and “secular” activisms are more similar than differ-
ent. For instance, contemporary secular social movement organizations have debated
internally over the propriety of sabotage, civil disobedience, and armed struggle. All
of these debates are saturated with moral and ideological considerations. In short,all
activism is enabled and limited by ideas. The point though, is that religious agents,
like secular ones, play the pivotal role in determining the implications of ideas for
action.
I also have shown how an expressive religious practice, namely “getting the holy
ghost” can be directed toward instrumental purposes in the secular world. Rather than
using worship to escape the world, churches attempt to change the world by “orient[ing]
worship toward redeeming the worlds in which members live” (Davidson and Koch
1998: 299). In other words, otherworldly practice oftenisworldly practice. One exists
not in spite of the other, but for the sake of the other.
These illustrations are not to deny that there are churches that choose one over the
other in homiletics and/or doctrine. Numerous black religious groups reject aspects of
the world or otherworld (such as the Nation of Islam, which rejects the concept of a
personal life after death). But these beliefs should not be considered predictive or in-
dicative of any church’s impact on secular politics and society. When our analyses do
so, they implicitly accept the distinction between world and otherworld. They become
oblivious to the impact of otherworldly religious ideas and practices on worldly affairs
because they begin by assuming that world and otherworld really are opposites. As a
result, the worldly/otherworldly paradigm not only obscures dichotomy-busting reli-
gious activities, but lets social scientists avoid explaining how ostensibly “otherworldly”
churches come to view themselves as agents of “worldly” social change.
The dichotomous paradigm can also lead scholars hastily and falsely to attribute
instances of retreatism to the “otherworldly” ideologies of particular religious groups.
The temptation to do so will be particularly high as government, under the aegis of
Charitable Choice and the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, increas-
ingly funds church-spawned social service agencies. In an analysis of a nationally rep-
resentative survey of 1,236 religious congregations in the United States, Chaves (1999:
841) found that “64 percent of predominantly African American congregations ex-
pressed a willingness to apply for government funds compared with only 28 percent of
those from predominantly white congregations.”
Which churches make up that hefty minority – 36 percent – of black churches that
wouldrefuseto accept government funds? Kneejerk speculation would probably asso-
ciate these resistors with the most theologically conservative black churches, since these
are considered the most “otherworldly.” Future studies may find that Pentecostals and
other highly conservative groups do indeed refuse government funds more frequently
than black Baptists, Methodists, and other “mainliners.” If this is true, though, it need
not be because of the otherworldliness of theologically conservative bodies. Some of
the resistors, I suspect, would look something like Pastors Powell and Calvin: inter-
ested in prophetic, worldly activism, yet wary of white and state interference in black