This post is featured in part of an ongoing blog. For the last entry from this blogger, see “September 11 and ‘No al lucro.’”
A good American fellow, who lives in my town, told me that we Chileans are immoral people. Although we claim to be Catholic, he said, we seldom go to church. We make commitments with no intention to fulfill them. We provide information having no idea what we are talking about, just because we are ashamed to say, “I have no idea.”
“You are immoral!” he told me. “You are the biggest liars I’ve ever met in my life.”
Basilica del Salvador in Santiago, Chile after the 2010 earthquake. Photo credit: Ccox via wikicommons
The hardest thing for him to accept is the lack of seriousness with which we Chileans use language. He said that we seem to speak just because we are unable to remain silent. He is convinced that he will never be able to distinguish when a Chilean is talking seriously, kidding, or simply is cheating him.
It’s funny because I used to say and think many of those things about Peruvians, Bolivians and Argentineans. Maybe I see a mirror of my own faults in them, who knows? However, I cannot accept that Americans are as correct as they think. In my experience they lie, cheat and steal more or less the same as us, but they respect some forms that in Latin countries we consider naive. Maybe it has something to do with religious Puritanism.
The different approach to religion is, in my view, fundamental to understand many differences between gringos and Latinos. We may be seen as a country of atheists considering the inconsistency of our actions and the Catholic moral standards, but Catholic religion is fundamentally different from any branch of Protestantism.
Catholic’s relationship with God is a sort of permanent bargain for miracles. If God cannot give us miracles, it has no worth for us. Our religiosity is more practical and positive. Few people in Chile think that they are obliged to go to church. Our relationship with the church is relaxed and the very pious Catholics are the only ones who take mass and rites seriously. In Latin countries, it is rare to find someone who actually believes that God is watching their actions and will punish him after he dies; most Catholics think that’s a ridiculous superstition.
In Anglo-Saxon countries, fear of God is a highly-prized virtue. It is almost synonymous with being a decent person. Kids are raised with the fear of God in Sunday schools and the Evangelical preachers describe in great detail the hell that awaits those who are evil. Fear is a strong motivation for gringos.
We believe in miracles instead. We see God, the Virgin and the saints as a kind of Santa Claus dispensing miracles and good luck. For miracles, people are willing to make sacrifices that horrify the non-Catholics. Have you ever seen people paying sacrifices in the religious fests? Moving in their knees for long distances, they pay cash and in advance for a miracle. No need to have a virtuous life; with a physical sacrifice you can obtain the same.
I think those are two fundamentally different ways of looking at religion. Which of the two forms is best? Individually, I think that believing in miracles is much more practical because we can almost immediately see the results of our faith. Those who fear hell and hope for heaven have to wait all their life to see if their religion was true. However, from the social point of view, the fear of God is much more useful because it forces people to behave according to rules of conduct dictated by the preachers, among others.
My personal faith is entirely based on the hope that miracles can happen. I do not care what is going to happen after I die but I pray every day for the things I hope to get. I’ve got enough worries in my life to worry about what will happen to me after I die. So I prefer the religion of miracles and saints offering me the impossible and I trust in the guardian angel caring for me. Although, sometimes it seems he is not doing a great job, but nobody is perfect, not even the guardian angels.
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Great video Thorny Rose, professor Zimbardo make a good point with the different tempo among cultures, and vision oriented to past an present versus those oriented to the future.
The funny thing is that I live in the border, very close to Peru, and I wonder every day on our cultural differences with those disorganized peruvians
Very interesting perspective, Tomas. It sheds more light on our cultural differences.
Someone sent me the link for a video which addresses some of the same issues. The second five minutes is about education in the USA, but the first five minutes explains a lot about the cultural divide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3oIiH7BLmg
Thanks for openly expressing your opinions.
Thank you Joe very much for your explanation,
It is perfectly clear your point, as you said I am not specialist in religion and I just tried to build an hypothesis on why we latinos are, let´s say, more lax in certain moral issues. It made me sense your explanation, maybe my mistake was to generalize “protestants” as a whole, homogeneous corpus.
Here in Chile we sometimes make the idea of protestants based in some preachers who make impressing speeches on the fear of heel and all those ideas who sound very strange to us, maybe as weird as you may see our belief in miracles!
Saluti!
Tomas
Tomas,
I appreciate how open and transparent you are in your observations. Though I disagree with you in regard to who God is and what is central to our faith, your honesty in assessing what you’re seeing shows keen observation and apparent integrity.
As a protestant, I would like to offer a couple of corrections, or at least clarifications. I know you didn’t present yourself as an expert, so I hope you don’t mind my comments.
For protestants, generally speaking, the fear of God is generally not the terror related fear of being condemned to hell. It is more of a recognition of God’s awesomeness in contrast with our finiteness; His holiness in contrast with our depravity. But, as a Christian, this is with a sense of gratitude and awe that leads to a desire to please and honor our Savior.
Of course, in proclaiming Christ it is appropriate to point out that we have rebelled against our Creator and that hell is real and deserved for everyone who sins (in other words, everyone). This should result in fear. But the fear is relieved in recognition that Jesus paid the price we deserve to pay and that forgiveness and full pardon are found in Him.
If I may contrast this with your statements regarding Catholicism, we’re not worried about miracles. We can’t buy them. We can’t earn them. And personal sacrifices to appease God are meaningless because Jesus’ sacrifice was perfect, needing no other sacrifice to attain favor with God. Our obedience is out of gratitude and our fear is out of recognizing God for who He is and respecting Him accordingly.
Obedience to God is a good and necessary result of being saved. However, if there is no fear of hell and it’s all about getting miracles for your life now, then there is simply nothing to be saved from. This is a fundamental difference if I understand what you’ve presented correctly. Protestants are grateful to be saved from eternal hell through the sacrifice of Jesus, who actually secures believers a place in heaven for eternity. Do Catholics see this as pretty much a non-issue because they’re not worried about their sins, but about what God will do for them now? It seemed to come across that way.
Anyways, thanks for the thoughtful and provoking article.
Regards,
Joe
Well Kevin, I feel sorry if I offend your religious beliefs, It was not my intention indeed. I respect others beliefs and don´t want to be involved in a religious controversy.
But I think that your comment enforces my point, I wrote pretty much the same in spanish forums and nobody felt offended, even some latino reader said that my opinions was “obvoious”.
I guess that more than ignorance there are a different approach to God, many latinos can not even imagine God as a punisher, or a judge of our actions, but we consider it as provider of good things instead.
Remember that -unlike in America- here the indians was not exterminated and most of we Chilean and Latin American are mestizos, which adapted the faith “our way”, which may differ to ortodox or puritan way. I wrote this entry trying to explain how the things are, not how it must be. Anyway, it is just my view and I talk by myself only, take it as a nosense if you wish so, it is your privilege.
From what I’ve seen, the most devout Chilean Catholics (attend mass but outside of that like personal conduct, hmmm) are the old rich set.
In the poorer communities, the most religious are the Protestant evangelicals, Mormons and similar.
The remaining majority is only nominally Catholic and couldn’t explain in-depth anything about their nominal religion.
Kevin, the article is dead on. Chilean Catholics privilege form over substance when it comes to religion. This story will illustrate the point: every 10 years, the Chilean government conducts a census, and one of the questions asked is the religion of the surveyed. A couple of weeks before the last census (held in 2002), an e-mail went viral asking the recipients to not declare themselves Catholics if they disagreed with the church on fundamental issues like contraception, divorce (which wasn’t a legal option at the time, partially because the church opposed), or if they didn’t attend mass regularly. To my surprise, the e-mail sparked the outrage of none other than the Catholic Church itself. Even the maximum authority of the church in Chile, the cardinal, stepped into the controversy declaring that the e-mail wanted to ‘damage the church’. Even more surprising was that the crux of the matter, which was that a lot of Catholics didn’t care about the Catholic teachings, was never even mentioned. To me that was a clear proof that the Catholic church was more worried about losing power and influence than about educating its own followers. It’s no wonder then that Catholic Chileans are so ignorant about their own religion.
The problem with this “opinion” piece is that many people (especially non-Spanish speakers) use this site as their primary source of news in Chile. Someone who just arrived here and/or knows nothing about the culture/people is likely to walk away from this article thinking they have an understanding about religion in Chile, which is problematic when you consider the fact that there are no truths in this article. If anything, this article paints Chilean Catholics as superstitious miracle-seekers, who live frivoulous lives with no fear of consequence. I would love to see this site present a contrary (and more accurate view) to combat the fallacies raised here.
How can somebody be ignorant about his own observation? I don’t see anybody claiming facts here, only opinions.
In my 10 year here, Tom Brad’s essays taken as is have revealed more about the Chilean mind and the reality that is Chile than any other resource out there written in English.
Your mileage may vary.
This has got to be the single-most uninformed piece of writing that I have ever seen. Please include a note at the end of this piece that Mr. Bradanovic is only speaking for himself here, and obviously has no clue what he’s talking about. His treatment of God and faith alarmingly resembles children’s naive belief in Santa Clause, with both hoping for the same result (something for nothing). No matter what country you are in, or what religion you believe in–while faith may be person–it is always a give and take relationship with God. Please, Mr. Bradanovic, read your Bible and inform yourself what it means to be Catholic. Attending mass now and again wouldn’t hurt, either.