Upset about the Wrong Things

本文是Darrell Lackey牧師寫的。他說很多基要派的信徒專門為一些雞毛蒜皮的事發怒，對另外一些很嚴重的現象反而無動於衷。我把他的文章轉一部分在這裡，請你看看是否如此？想想為何如此？

Sociologist Tony Campolo has been known, when speaking to Christian audiences, to begin by saying something like this:

I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact I just said “shit” than you are that 30,000 kids died last night.

His point, in my opinion, isn’t really about the children (although it is, obviously); his point is that we (Christians) get upset over the wrong things. Our moral sense of outrage is often misdirected.

The fact that we notice the language, our being offended, before we really register the fact that children are dying, tells us all we need to know. Any focus on a crude term and not on his greater point that children are dying of starvation or malnutrition proves his very point.

The legalistic, simplistic, and shallow world of fundamentalism (and even many aspects of evangelicalism) breeds some rather odd triggers for what it is we are supposed to get upset about. Here are just a few:

If you become upset when hearing that gay marriage is legal or that a transgender person may use the same public restroom as you, but you are less upset regarding the hate, violence, and discrimination directed toward such people, often leading to their suicide: You are upset about the wrong things.

If you become upset when people use the greeting “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” but you are less upset at the wasteful use of resources during this season and the rampant shallow consumerism while many live in poverty: You are upset about the wrong things.

If you become upset when the government uses its power to make corporations protect their workers and protect the environment, but you are less upset when those workers are exploited, injured, or the environment is critically harmed: You are upset about the wrong things.

If you become upset when you see people smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, but you are less upset when you see people over-eating, knowing the health effects of such, or wasting food, knowing that people go to bed hungry every night: You are upset about the wrong things.

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.

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.

這就是所謂的丟西瓜、揀芝麻。留下來的見證是什麼？是有公義、知是非？恐怕不是。