Category Archives: culture

Soccer vs. Futbol

7 Replies

It’s hard to compare soccer announcers that you hear on English-speaking television with those that you hear on Spanish-speaking networks. The announcers in English are relatively unemotional. They give lots of stats. They rely a lot on the technology of the network they are broadcasting on.

Announcers in Spanish get excited. Really excited. They speak poetically. The other day, during the South Africa-Mexico game, I heard the announcer say, “Using his heart as a compass, the goalkeeper launched himself…” During the Argentina game the following day, I heard: “He went after that ball with heart, soul and body.” You just don’t hear expressions like that on the main U.S. broadcasts.

I was seeing that as a difference between the Latin culture and the mainstream U.S. culture until… they played a replay of Japan’s goal against Cameroon, listening to the Japanese broadcast. It was more like the Spanish broadcast than the English one. That rattled my assumptions, since I don’t see the Japanese culture as being particularly expressive.

So maybe I should avoid any sweeping generalizations about culture. I’ll just say this: soccer will be a lot more fun on U.S. TV when they start hiring announcers from Latin America rather than Europe.

The ties that blind

12 Replies

tiesI like neckties. I think they look good. In most cases, I don’t find them to be that uncomfortable.

And I think every missionary should leave them at home.

We’ve exported an obsession with this piece of clothing to countries far and wide. In some of those countries, no one wears a tie except for preachers. They aren’t a part of the culture in those places. In others, people who otherwise wouldn’t even own a tie are forced to put one on every Sunday.

In many countries, Christians believe that a preacher has to use a tie or he isn’t worthy of respect. Preacher schools around the world have required their students to wrap this colored cloth around their necks as a sign of their seriousness and spirituality.

In Argentina, it was easy to spot the evangelicals on Sunday: the women all wore long skirts (completely out of style) and the men used ties (often with short-sleeved shirts… ugh). You didn’t even need to see the Bibles under their arms to know, without a doubt, that these people were part of some religious group, a group that had been imported from the United States. They stood out, not because of Christian behavior, but because they tried to dress like people from another place and time.

Do Christians have to dress like Americans from the 1960s to be faithful? Are we supposed to create barriers between us and outsiders by the way we dress? Obviously I think not. What do you think?

The Fishbowl Revisited

Leave a reply

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.” (Luke 15:13-16)

“Why did this young man in the Parable of the Prodigal Son become hungry?” A university professor asked this question to his students here in the U.S. [Note: No, I don’t think this is crucial to understanding the parable, and I actually think focusing on such details hurts understanding.] The students here in the U.S. knew the right answer: He was hungry because he had squandered all of his wealth.

The professor then traveled to the ex-Soviet Union to teach a class. While there, he had the opportunity to ask his students the same question. Once again the response was almost unanimous. But the answer was different. These students knew the right answer: He was hungry because there was a severe famine.

The same professor also traveled to Africa and had the same opportunity. As in the other two cases, the students were generally in agreement with each other. They knew why the young man was hungry: No one would give him any food. He had left the area where God’s people were and lived among people who would not help him.

Feel free to think about your own answer to this question, but also take time to recognize one thing: like it or not, our culture influences the way we see things, even “obvious things” from the Bible. Can you think of other possible examples?