one could master the same beliefs, have the appropriate motives, and even
have the corresponding belief experiences at both churches, by taking part
in the general service,^5 but one would not be able to publicly (i.e., individu-
ally) perform essential parts of the service in an expected and recognizable
way unless the practices were the same. Narratives are treated by some
researchers as if they were practices in their own right. But, narratives and
accounts can only be invoked after a problem develops – and thus are of no
use in ordering practices prospectively. And, in the cases in our study, even
having the appropriate account for one’s actions would not help if the place-
ment of the tongues and their tone do not fit expectations. Being disorderly
is a sign that one is not truly spirit filled – and no “account” will alter this
judgment. Thus, acceptance as a member and confirmation of both faith and
moral status depend on a recognizable display of practice and not on a dis-
play of belief or narrative. A believer would have to participate for some time
in order to master the differences between practices in detail in different
congregations.
The ethnographic observations analyzed in this paper, are offered as a
clarification of the distinction between belief and practice, which we argue
is essential to sociology in general, but particularly germane to studies of reli-
gion, as religion would appear to offer the paramount case of a social form
based on belief. The argument is intended to be analogous to that of Durkheim’s
Suicide(1897), which took an act that had been treated as essentially psy-
chological and argued that it was, in fact, inherently social. In this case, reli-
gion is, of all social institutions, the one that, among western thinkers, is
generally assumed to be the most purely based on belief and on the indi-
vidual faith experience.
We hope to provide a demonstration that belief, without mastery of the
details of practice, is not sufficient to enable persons to perform acceptably,
in a public and individual way, in a religious service, any more than it is
sufficient in a game of chess or football. The beliefs about religion in west-
ern life, like our beliefs about social order, run counter to actual practice –
producing profound contradictions. The practices are constitutive of the beliefs.
Speaking in Tongues: A Dialectic of Faith and Practice • 255(^5) This important distinction between worshiping from the pew as a member of the
larger “corporate” group (the term used by the church) and getting up as an indi-
vidual to make a “public” expression of tongues, praising, or prophecy, will be elab-
orated in the body of this paper. Because public expressions of the spirit are taken as
evidence of higher stages of conversion they are essential to the religious experience.