Concerning Dr. Zavala’s Chapter on Religion in Colonial America

Extract

Since the general framework of the Commission’s history of the Americas is unknown to me, it would be presumptuous to comment on the style and organization of any one chapter; therefore, a prudent silence shall be maintained on that aspect of Dr. Zavala’s work.

1. Has sufficient attention been paid to the possible effect of wilderness conditions upon the early development of institutional Christianity in'America? The chapter quite properly displays the Americas as a frontier in which European institutions met almost nothing in the way of a competing civilization to contest their plantation and expansion. On the other hand, it may have been that without such competition European institutions in some cases were modified to suit frontier circumstances more cheerfully and easily than if those institutions had been self-consciously propagated in the midst of a resilient alien culture.