Renowned Baptist Historian Albert Wardin described the Philippine Baptists as a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces are challenging to fit together. Due to the scarcity of Filipino Baptist history writings, this paper strives to augment the Baptist narratives of the Philippines. Hence, this paper aims to offer a glimpse of the Baptist movement in the Philippines, specifically the Southern Baptists (SBC). Additionally, it presents a story of how the Filipino Southern Baptists sought for Filipinization—to think and lead for themselves.
Initially, the paper introduces a historical sketch of how the Baptist movement entered the Philippines in the early 1900s, the American Baptist, and again in 1948, the Southern Baptist. This section includes why many indigenous Filipinos joined the Baptist movement in the early stage due to prophetic fulfillment.
Next, the following section focuses on the Southern Baptist context. It transitions to a specific Filipino Southern Baptist personality—a minister, a seminary professor, and a convention president—named Henry Palmejar Silbor (1938-2010). Silbor was influential in the broader Southern Baptist churches, seminary institutions, and even at the convention level. He promoted the Filipinization of the Southern Baptist in the Philippines. Towards Filipinization, Silbor advocated for Filipino leadership in the Luzon Convention of Southern Baptist Churches (LCSBC). Unfortunately, the SBC missionaries turned over the convention’s leadership, including the seminaries, to Filipinos and departed the Philippines. This transfer of leadership was not the ideal Filipinization for Silbor; preferably, he thought of working alongside the missionaries and not being left behind. To this challenge, Silbor called for serious pastoral equipping, church discipleship, sending missionaries, and theological training even during his last years.
Finally, the paper concludes with a current survey of the Southern Baptists in the Philippines, including, but not limited to, eschatology, ecclesiology, practical theology, and historiography. Was the call for Filipinization realized?