Cultural or Biblical?

My Memorial Day plans were not exciting. I was to get up and skype at 6 am with a colleague in Tanzania who was going to help me confirm the data that I am using in my grammar research paper. I had finally been able to set up this skype time four days ago and was really grateful that my colleague had agreed to the time. I was going to be able to double-check my data before turning in the rough draft tomorrow!

My Memorial Day plans did not go as I planned. That skype chat did not occur, and I don’t know if I will be able to double-check the data before the paper gets turned in.

(Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting this until after the paper has been graded…hm. Oh well, I have a lot of data from the language, I have fair confidence in my data, I just wanted a speaker of the language to give me the nod of approval – hopefully this will still happen.)

The reason I wasn’t able to verify my data today was because my colleague was double-booked, he had told me that he could skype, when in fact he is busy this entire week with a consultant check of scripture. I’m glad that he has his priorities straight and he didn’t cancel on the consultant check. But this puts me in a bind, and brings me to my thought for the day.

I felt lied to, probably because I had been lied to. He had to have known that the consultant check was going to happen when he agreed to meet with me. I was indignant until I remembered that there is a simple cultural explanation, not only that, there is also some self-examination that needs to happen.

One of the highest Tanzanian cultural values is preservation of relationships. In a society where dependence on your friends and relations is often necessary for survival, preserving those relationships is very important. My colleague wasn’t lying to me with the intent to deceive me, he was telling me that he wants to help me and wants to meet my needs by verifying my data. He was simply putting off telling me that he doesn’t have the time right now. Had he told me straight away that he was going to be busy, I might have interpreted that as meaning he isn’t even interested in helping me or even beyond that, he isn’t interested in being friends.

I don’t know for sure that this was his line of thought, but given the importance of relationship preservation, it is possible that this is what he was thinking. I could carry on being indignant that the Bible says “Thou shall not lie”, even when you are preserving cultural values…but don’t we do similar things in America?

Maybe we don’t lie (at least we can tell ourselves that), but what are some of our American values that make us take some biblical standards with a grain of salt?

Do we dress in culturally acceptable ways, but maybe not biblically minded ways?

Do we talk about people in a culturally acceptable way, but not with the love that God commands us to have for our brothers?

Do we value our independence (a very high American value) over living in community and mutually helping and building each other up by sharing our needs and struggles?

So, this is what I am thinking about today, in what ways am I living up to my cultural values and standards at the expense of biblical values and standards?