This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

SOCIAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHALLENGES 105ern Luzon as well as the Chinese community in Manila and the Muslims on thesouthern islands of the Philippines. 81The original missionaries were two army chaplains stationed on the islandswith the soldiers, but their work was soon superseded by that of Charles HenryBrent, who served as the missionary bishop of the Philippines from 1901 until1917. Brent was a strong proponent of “muscular Christianity,” and like mostEnglish and American missionaries in that era, he recognized the need to “takeup the White Man’s Burden” and uplift the “lower races” by bringing them intocontact with Anglo-Saxon cultural values. 82 Nevertheless, Brent also proved tobe a capable and energetic religious leader, visiting remote sections of the islands,founding mission stations, and establishing schools. Viewing the inhabitants ofthe Philippines as “a fine people, with large possibilities,” Brent and other missionariesbelieved that properly trained and taught Filipinos could adopt Westerncustoms and thereby become good Episcopalians. 83The next position that Charles Brent assumed was chief of chaplains of theAmerican Expeditionary Force in France in 1917. The military post that Brentoccupied was symbolic of a tremendous change that had occurred in the relationshipof the Episcopal Church to American society between the Civil War andWorld War I. By the time Congress approved a declaration of war against theCentral Powers, Episcopalians had joined the majority of Americans of all faithsin unreservedly backing the Allied military effort. Denominations that had theclosest ancestral ties to Great Britain were the ones most supportive of war in1917, and few were more steadfast than the Episcopal Church. In stark contrastto its uncertain stance during earlier conflicts, the Episcopal Church had littledifficulty in blessing what one rector in Washington, D.C., called “a crusade” and“a Holy War.” 84 According to William T. Manning, then rector of Trinity Church,New York, “the soul of America never uttered itself more nobly and truly” thanit had when entering battle against the “malignant power of [German] militarism.”85 And as the House of Bishops declared in October 1917, whenever a nationis at war “on behalf of justice, liberty and humanity . . . , the Church’s station isat the front.” 86Church agencies sent Bibles and other religious literature to the Americantroops, and more than two hundred Episcopal clergy left their parishes to becomemilitary chaplains during the war. So complete was Episcopalians’ support of thewar that when Paul Jones, the missionary bishop of Utah, openly expressed pacifistsentiments, he was strongly condemned throughout the church. Although heinsisted that “German brutality and aggression” needed to be stopped, he did notthink the church was justified either “in treating the sermon on the mount as ascrap of paper” or in abandoning its claim to universality by becoming “thewilling instrument of a national government.” Accusing his fellow Episcopaliansof adopting an unchristian attitude—one that “savors too much of Mohammedanismwith its policy of carrying religion by the sword”—Jones reluctantly resignedfrom his position as bishop in 1918. 87