If you become upset when Hollywood puts out movies that contain coarse language or nudity, but you are less upset with the excessive, sadistic, and pornographic displays of violence, murders, gore, and bloodletting in war movies and action movies: You are upset about the wrong things.
If you become upset when the government tries to pass reasonable gun restriction laws, but you are less upset with the amount of firearm accident related deaths among children and the general level of gun violence in America: You are upset about the wrong things.
If you become upset when you feel the government is restricting your religious liberties, but you are less upset or even applaud the restriction of the religious liberties of others: You are upset about the wrong things.
If you become upset when someone commits adultery or at the sexual lapses of others, but you are less upset when people gather around to stone them, or gather around to throw insults, or gossip, or shun them, or shame them, or pass laws to single them out: You are upset about the wrong things.
If the response to the above is still, “I get it, BUT…” one has missed the point and made the point, all at the same time. Yes, you can be upset at those other aspects (rightly or wrongly). The point however is that those aspects pale in significance when placed alongside the deeper and much more important moral failing noted—the failing that should really upset us. It would be like someone telling Jesus, just before he overturned the money-changer’s tables and grabbed a whip, how upset they were at the price of doves that year. It isn’t a false dichotomy. It’s a problem of scale.
I am reminded of a scene in the movie “Life is Beautiful” where we see Guido (Roberto Benigni) so happy to think that his old friend, the Nazi doctor, will help him after the doctor recognizes him and makes his life easier inside the death camp. The doctor remembers how clever his friend was, and how he could solve difficult riddles. We begin to think the doctor realizes the moral wrongness of the death camp. Maybe he will try and save Guido and his family. But no, we finally realize, as does Guido, that the doctor simply wanted help solving a riddle. He doesn’t see Guido or the suffering. That doesn’t upset him. What upsets him is not finding the answer to something as insignificant as a riddle. He even says he can’t sleep at night because of it.
An extreme example? Maybe. Still, I think such is the sort of person we look like, and are perhaps in danger of becoming, when we get upset over the wrong things, when we focus on the incidental and miss the deeper moral issue. Christian: Don’t be that person.
