For example, “How can you be so upset about my behavior in a concert when the world is filled with real and violent injustices?” Or, as I have heard several times in the past six weeks, “Why are people so concerned about what’s happening with Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill when our Christian brothers and sisters are being beheaded in the Middle East?”

Kanye’s Argument

You may have heard about Kanye’s on-stage outburst in Melbourne, Australia. You know, the one where he stopped his entire show and refused to continue performing until every single person in the arena stood on their feet—including one with a prosthetic limb and one in a wheelchair. Yes, that one. The one where after seeing the individual in a wheelchair, he reportedly still refused to continue his show without first sending his security guard into the crowd to confirm the person was genuinely disabled.

Several days later, Kanye said the incident was misinterpreted (which may be the case) and presented himself as a “married Christian man with a family” and merely a media victim. In doing so he added, “We got Americans getting killed on TV; we have kids getting killed every week in Chicago; we have unarmed people being killed by police officers…” Though West did not state it directly, he appeared to be appealing to an argument many of us make , but none of us should.

Our Argument

The argument generally goes something like this: “How can you be so concerned about issue ‘A’ when we have issue ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’ in the world, which are obviously much more serious!” For example, “How can you be so upset about my behavior in a concert when the world is filled with real and violent injustices?” Or, as I have heard several times in the past six weeks, “Why are people so concerned about what’s happening with Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill when our Christian brothers and sisters are being beheaded in the Middle East?”

The problem with this argument is not that it claims other issues are important. The problem is that it claims, in light of these other important issues, that the issue at hand should be ignored. This is a fallacy because God is not only concerned with certain evils or certain injustices. God is concerned with all evils and all injustices.  As his image-bearers, our concerns should reflect his.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on raanetwork.org – however, the original URL is no longer available.]