Lara Rusch ~ 10
churches, religious authority can be either an asset or a limiting factor for lay political
empowerment. The next section shows how influence moves both up and down religious
hierarchies, in these cases to the benefit of community organizing. Paying particular
attention to lay people’s experiences moving into political involvement, I then analyze
ways that marginalized communities depend on their religious communities and authority
for secular purposes.
DIFFERENCES BY DENOMINATION
In my fieldwork and in interviews, organizers explained their challenges of
working with clergy in terms of denominational differences. They do not view any
religious structure as better or worse for organizing but as requiring different strategies.
The next two sections describe how community organizers perceive and work with
congregations’ internal power relations to encourage collective action that benefits the
congregation as a whole and the larger community. Congregations’ internal political
dynamics affect both the kinds of resources available for collective action and patterns of
internal lay involvement. In turn, those pressures affect professional organizers’
opportunities to develop relationships within the congregation and the avenues they can
take to go about organizing. Because pastors face different pressures based on the
structure of congregational governance, denomination matters for organizing outcomes.
In the following sections I highlight distinguishing characteristics of Catholic and
Baptist clergy and congregations for several reasons. Broadly construed, these two
groups comprise the two largest subgroups within MOSES member congregations and
within my interview sample, and, according to organizers, comprise the majority of
Convention