350 CHURCH AND STATE

volume a s a major cont¡ to the legal and ecclesiastical history of the

Middle Ages. Both the author and the publisher are to be commended for a
superior volume.

Glenn O. Hilburn

Studies in Philippine Church History. Edited by Gerald H. Anderson. Ithaca,

N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969. 421 pp. n.p.

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The Philippine Islands are a standing challenge to students of inter-cultural
contact. In the four a n d a half centuries since Magellan's "discovery" of their
archipelago, Filipinos have encountered and responded to a remarkable variety
of foreign pressures and stimuli. They have been invaded and at least partially
overrun by Muslims, Spaniards, Americans, British, and Japanese; most of the
time, large numbers of overseas Chinese have lived among them. Each of these
washes of foreign influence has had its own distinctive impact, disrupting and
dislocating one or more aspects of Philippine life. Demography, polity, religion,
methods of production, and distribution of wealth have all been affected. In the
nineteenth century, analysts were inclined to believe that what was natural (one
should say indigenous) in Philippine society and culture had been lost in the
shuffle. "Everything has been learned and is only a veneer," a German observer
complained in the 1850s. "It is this which makes both themselves and their
artistic productions wearisome, devoid of character, and, I may add, un-
natural . . . . " Now we are a good deal less sure. There is reason to entertain
another theory.
Anthropologists and sociologists have fastened upon a distinctive organiza-
tional pattern in the countryside; and recently historians such as John L eddy
Phelan, Horacio de la Costa, and Onofre D. Corpuz have emphasized that
Filipinos interpreted, selected, and subtly refashioned the content of foreign
influences to adapt them to their own needs and expectations. What once
appeared to be cultural chaos looks now like a natural and not unsuccessful
evolution of indigenous structures and patterns to accomodate the broadening
functional demands of the modern world.
In no aspect of Philippine culture is this process more evident than in religion.
The first priority and the most lasting impact of Spain was the implantation of
Catholicism. In order that the natives might be evangelized and protected, the
archipelago was closed to foreigners and its interior barred even to non-official,
lay Spaniards for roughly two centuries. As might be expected, the church that
resulted was no copy of Mediterranean Catholicism but was a highly syncretistic
folk Catholicism that was pre-eminently Philippine. When therefore commerce,
nationalism, and an articulate demand for racial equality finally did become a
part of the islands, resulting in a revolutionary movement against Spain, it was
natural that one result would be the dual demand that oppressive Spanish friars
be removed and that Filipino priests take their place. Nationalism and
Christianity had become intertwined. Today there are more Christians in the
 BOOK REVIEWS 351

Philippines than in all the rest of Asia, and 82 per cent of them are Roman
Catholic. But the search for a specifically Philippine focus goes on with
Catholicism and the still small groups affiliated with the major American and
European Protestant denominations, but especially through two indigenous
groups, the Philippine Independent Church and the Iglesia ni Christo.
In his introduction, Professor Gerald Anderson describes his book a s a
building block for the eventual creation of a comprehensive history of Philippine
Christianity and an attempt to stir interest in Philippine religious history outside
the islands. Doubtless it will succeed in both respects. Its findings are not always
new, nor the excellence and relevance of its individual essays uniform, but given

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the high level of lucidity and intelligence that characterizes the whole, Studies in
Philippine Church History deserves careful and widespread study. With Father de
la Costa's The Jesuits in the Philippines and Phelan's The Hispanization of the
Philippines, it is the key that unlocks a subject of major importance.
Professor Anderson has divided Philippine church history into three phases.
Part One, "The Spanish Church in the Philippine Setting," deals with the
theological conception of Spain's mission; the transmission of the faith,
administration within the church under the patronato real; the multiple origins
of the three-cornered dispute (friars, Filipinos, and the governmental and clerical
establishment) over emergence of a Filipino clergy; and the centrality of the
church in Spain's control of the Filipino people. Coherent in scheme and
distinguished in scholarship, this last section is nevertheless notable in its
omission of any discussion of syncretism. Are we really dealing exclusively with
a "Spanish" church?
Part Two, "Nationalism, Dissent, and Disestablishment," explores va¡
ways in which Catholicism and nationalism have affected each other, working
toward the end of state Catholicism, the ambivalent feelings of revolutionaries
toward the church, the Aglipayan schism, and the separation of church and state
under the Americans. Conflicting interpretations are more evident in these essays
than elsewhere, e.g., Aglipayanism and the treatment of Spanish friars by
Filipino revolutionaries.
Part Three, "Protestantism and Pluralism," includes two eloquent essays on
American religious motivation for annexing the islands and on the tangle of
difficulties involved in secularizing Philippine schools, and four explorations of
Philippine Protestantism. Interesting in itself, it has the added value of giving
perspective to the earlier portions of the book.
This collection of eighteen essays, complemented by a rich and sophisticated
bibliographical survey, provides a window on Philippine Christianity. Pre-
dictably, since it is a window whose panes are the work of sixteen separate
individuals, the overall effect is uneven. With few exceptions however the
subjects are pregnant, the scholarship eminently professional (in some cases
broad-ranging and creative as well), and the editorial conception alear.

Peter W. Stanley