Cultural ramblings

As we were talking this morning, I was painfully aware of the need to understand the culture one lives in. I say painfully because I still don't understand why someone would come to live in a different culture and not at least try to understand why where they live is how it is.
Brasil is a country of many different cultures, from the northeast to the south, from Rio to the Pantanal to the Amazon. But as different as the regional cultures are, one thing is very common: most Brasilians do not question authority, whether it be government, police, the church, or educators. What I am NOT calling for is madness or mayhem. What I would love to see is critical thinking and reasoning for one's own self. The reason I bring this up is that it presents a problem to Christians who accept everything that their pastor tells them, even if it is not true. These same pastors say that if one is questioning the work of the Holy Spirit in the pastor's life, these people are blaspheming the Holy Spirit, as if there were no room to make sure that what they are doing is from God. The Bible instructs us to test the spirits, to not accept blindly what others say. In a religious culture driven by fear, I fear that the truth of God's grace and love will make its way in too slowly to make the greatest difference possible.
But back to my original point.... I fear that we have come in without understanding that things are the way they are. Yes, they need to be changed; that is why we're here. But we can't just walk up to people and tell people they need to change their thinking. That turns one from belief in one person to belief in someone else. We have to get at the root of culture and understand why things are the way they are if there is to be any hope of spreading the gospel and teaching truth with effectiveness.