SOURCE: Puente, Lorenzo. “Split-Level Christianity in The Praying Man.” Philippine Studies 40, no. 1 (1992): 111-20.

In the following essay, Puente perceives the protagonist of The Praying Man, Cris Magat, as a “split-level Christian.”

In The Praying Man, Bienvenido N. Santos (1982, 5) attempted to explore “the dramatic possibilities of the idea of dwelling in the same man both the need to pray and the tendency to prey on others” [subsequent citations from the novel are indicated by the page numbers in parentheses]. His working title, 'Tis the Praying Man, a pun on “the praying mantis,” showed his intention of using the mantis as a primary symbol for the “idea” (p. 5). Santos's idea of the “man-mantis” corresponds to a type of personality called “split-level Christian.” The term was coined by the Filipino psychologist, Jaime Bulatao, S. J. (1966, 2) and refers to a person in whom two or more thought-and-behavior systems which are inconsistent with...