When Martin Luther King described the task of the civil rights movement as the challenge to hew a stone of hope out of a mountain of despair, his rhetorical genius spoke not only to the magnitude of the undertaking but also to the spiritual dimension in which hope would appear in the midst of (indeed, be made out of the same stuff as) despair. The most effective movements for social justice require not only organizational skills and techniques, but a solid grounding in a religious understanding of the source of power for change. There?s more to social action than clipboards, banners and mailing lists.