Religion, Politics, and Rationality in a Philippine Community is a study of the relationship between material interest and ideological practices. Based on extensive field work in a municipality in northern Luzon, the book explores the structural and cultural bases of religious belief and practice. Tracing the historical pattern of the local response initially to Catholic conversion, later to American Protestantism and more recently to indigenous forms of Christianity, Dr. Pertierra argues that the complex response to conversion can be understood in terms of material political interests in association with the attempts to retain meaningful cultural forms. Drawing from the classical tradition established by Marx, Durkheim, and Weber, but extending their sociological in sights by incorporating more recent theory as well as modern anthropological techniques, this study questions the prevailing views of religious practice in Philippine society and chalenges the theories of rationalization found in Development and Modernization Theory.