Standing outside Israel Baptist Church of Baltimore City, the Rev. Harlie Walden Wilson II surveyed the East Baltimore street he wants to help people cross.
On one side sits the century-old stone church building, adjacent to two blocks of vacant land, where ground will soon be broken for a new 1,600-seat sanctuary. The other side of Chester Street is for the faith-based nonprofits spawned from Israel Baptist that offer the Collington Square neighborhood drug treatment, transitional housing and job training.
"This is the spiritual side, that's the nonprofit side," said Wilson, a slim man with the visage of an old-fashioned, no-nonsense Baptist preacher. "The street separates the spiritual from the nonspiritual."
But with the faith-based initiative proposed last week by President George W. Bush, which would enable religious charities to receive federal funds, the buffer offered by Chester Street would no longer be necessary. Wilson said he welcomes the resources but will maintain the separation.
"I think the church needs to be protected," he said. "There are those who feel this is a way for government to get inside the churches."
Still, Walden encourages both sides to cross the street. After all, the power of spirituality is why Israel Baptist got into social services. "Every person who enters these facilities ends up joining the church," Wilson said. "We don't have to put a gun to their heads."
"Some people take a long time to cross the street," said James Gardner, a church deacon who is a city fire inspector. "From here to the church door, for some of them, it's the longest walk in their lives."
Wilson is the maverick who has spent a decade helping transform the blocks surrounding his church, battling the drug traffic and violence that frightened away parishioners.
He is willing and sometimes eager to buck the trends and ideas of other African-American ministers. In 1995, he led a group of seven East Baltimore pastors who denounced the Million Man March. Two years later, his invitation to conservative Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson to speak from the Israel Baptist pulpit about racial reconciliation brought a chorus of criticism.
"I'd do it again," he said. "Scripture says beware when all men speak well of you. I like that. I don't want all men speaking well of me."
