There is a famous story that circulates in Latin America of a peasant who was learning to read in a literacy program that used the Bible as its principal text. Such programs were common in Latin American in the 1960s and 1970s, during the heyday of liberation theology. Reading aloud to his fellow students, this peasant came to the famous passage in the book of Galatians in which Paul declares to the Christians in Galatia : “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free.” In Spanish this verse reads: “En Cristo Jesus no hay judío ni griego, ni hombre ni mujer, ni esclavo ni libre.” When the peasant just learning to read came to this verse, though, he didn’t read, “En Cristo no hay judío ni griego …” Instead he read out loud: “En Cristo no hay jodido ni gringo …” because where “griego” means “Greek” – a word the peasant would have never heard of – the word “gringo” is common vernacular for “American,” that is a citi...
Life & Death, Faith & Doubt, Here & There