Maglipay Universalist: A History of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines

UU World: The Magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Sep/Oct 2002 by McNatt, Rosemary Bray

A History of Transylvanian Unitarianism through Four Centuries of Sermons. By Imre Gellerd. Translated by Judit Gellerd. Uniquest and the Unitarian Church of Romania, 1999; $25. Order from the UUA Bookstore, 8000215-9076, www.uua.org/bookstore.

We know ourselves to be an ever-evolving faith; over the years, we've learned to count on it. But embedded in our assumption is the notion that such evolution will follow a predictable and recognizable path, rooted in the Western history and culture with which we're most familiar. But what if Unitarian Universalism were to evolve quite differently? What if there were an indigenous Universalism with roots in a culture that, though it shares several elements with the North American context, is almost wholly different? In Maglipay Universalist: A History of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines, we learn the complex answers. Written by the Rev. Fredric Muir, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, Maryland, Maglipay Universalist relates the birth and struggle of Universalism in the Philippines, a society marked by centuries of Spanish Catholicism, decades of Western imperialism, the prominence of close-knit communities known as barangays, and a profoundly poor and oppressed people.

In the late 1800s, the country experienced its own version of the Protestant Reformation, thanks to Bishop Gregorio Aglipay, a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Philippine national army, and Don Isabelo de los Reyes, Sr., a member of the Philippine Labor Council. Following the country's liberation from Spanish rule, de los Reyes and Aglipay succeeded in forming a Philippine Independent Church with an increasingly liberal theology. The leaders of the new church were encouraged by American Unitarians, including U.S. secretary of state (and later president) William Howard Taft, who brought the church leaders Unitarian literature in 1907. The president of the American Unitarian Association, the Rev. Louis Cornish, hosted the Philippine leaders in Unitarian churches on two visits to the U.S. in the 1930s. The movement away from a more orthodox Christianity proved too radical for the budding Philippine church, however. After several bruising court battles involving property rights, the breakaway group eventually joined with the Philippine Episcopal Church. (It's ironic that Cornish, as secretary of the AUA earlier in the century, was unable to work up some enthusiasm for an AfricanAmerican Unitarian congregation organized by the Rev. E. Ethelred Brown in Harlem, but that's another story-see Mark Morrison Reed's pivotal history, Black Pioneers in a "ite Denomination, for more details.)

But the reformation continued. Toribio Sabandija Quimada was raised on the island of Negros as a traditional Philippine Catholic. Quimada had no direct contact with the Bible until he and his wife moved in with a Presbyterian cousin in 1937; it was that direct encounter with scripture that led him to leave the Catholic church and eventually to join a local congregation known as Iglesia Universal de Cristo. As his faith deepened, the ministry beckoned, and Quimada was ordained by the church's leadership.

In 1951 Quimada stumbled upon information about the Universalist Church of America, and he began a correspondence with what was then the Universalist Service Committee. He read and used books, hymnals, and religious education materials he received from them and found his theology changed forever. By 1954, he had been excommunicated from Iglesia Universal de Cristo, but the nine congregations he served had followed him. By 1955, he had founded the Universalist Church of the Philippines (renamed the Unitarian Universalist Church in 1985) and began his evangelizing work on the island of Negros with help from the Universalist Service Committee. Increasingly active in a justice-making ministry to the poor farmers of his communities, Quimada was murdered in 1988. The investigation into his death remains at a standstill, but his church continues under his daughter Rebecca's leadership.

Fred Muir tells the story not only of Quimada's life and tragic death but also the story of a hopeful and energetic community burdened by a long history of oppression. One distinctive feature of the faith of our Unitarian Universalist brothers and sisters in the Philippines may be found in their acceptance of faith healing. It's likely that even the most liberal among us will take a deep breath at such a prospect, and the fact that most UUCP members are uneducated and poor may conjure stereotypes about the validity of their faith.Yet Muir does not let readers off the hook about our affluent Western biases. Faith healing, he observes, "is about empowerment, independence, and protest, and it provides an authentic substitute to modern medicine. It is a religious and social phenomenon by which many UUCP members find Unitarian Universalism appealing and sustaining."

For many of us in North America, such claims seem sensational, and the decidedly Christian nature of their faith may be anathema here. But in the lived experience of the Filipino communities visited by Muir, the liberal Christianity of the UUCP is life and spirit giving. "Like western Unitarian Universalists, they have a deep and profound desire to know truth and meaning, and they don't believe that there is a single way for finding it.They have a thirst to know and do what is right.... [Their social, economic, and political] conditions might lead many westerners to cower and turn away . . . but for Filipinos, the depths and richness of their emerging Unitarian Universalist tradition is broad and eclectic, and holds promise." Anyone ready to be challenged about the nature of our faith and about the reach of our good news will be well rewarded by reading Muir's fine book.