Our research challenges this general emphasis on concepts, taking a detailed
study of religious practice as a demonstration of the independence of prac-
tices in their details from beliefs: and the independence of religious solidar-
ities themselves from beliefs. Although we conducted some interviews with
pastors, in general we do not expect that participants are aware of the details
of the practices that they engage in. These details are what Garfinkel (1967)
has called “taken for granted.” Nor do they need to understand the account-
able relationship between beliefs and practices. This is a matter for pastors.
Although we are constrained to use language, we resist the tendency toward
conceptual reduction, and attempt instead to see what about the practices
that we observe is treated as orderly (and disorderly) in-situ by participants.
The aim is not to describe things in endless detail so that variations in mean-
ing and tone might be conveyed. Rather, we focus on what about the pro-
duction of practices made them recognizable to participants in that setting
as practices of a particular sort. The analysis then focuses on the significance
of the details we found in the production of those orders. We assume that if
we asked practitioners about what they were doing they would give us belief
based answers that do not explain the details of the local orders that they
actually produce.
Our analysis of the local order of services in the two Pentecostal churches
studied revealed enacted spiritual expressions that were treated as inappro-
priate by participants in the situation. If a person claims that the Holy Spirit
is speaking through them – how are others to judge the validity of this claim?
We found that validity in this regard was largely a matter of how the prac-
tices were produced. The details of what was expected were tied to particu-
lar local contexts of practice and could not be explained in terms of beliefs
alone. We observed that legitimated expressions of the spirit at these two
churches were delivered in particular ritual moments and spatial locations,
and had a specifiable tone and content. When these aspects of the local order
of practices were missing they were not treated as legitimate. Illegitimate
expressions were not only treated as violations of the local order, but as evi-
dence of moral flaws in the person producing them – a finding consistent
with Garfinkel’s argument that Trust is implicated in the production of orderly
and expected practice and with Goffman’s treatment of spoiled identities.
Public expressions of the Spirit were subjected to more scrutiny in this regard
than corporate expressions in both churches.
There were some significant differences in the way practices were expected
to be performed in the two churches. Congregational variation in the production
Speaking in Tongues: A Dialectic of Faith and Practice • 279