Albert Mohler takes note of a Forbes article that attempts to rank cities by the “seven deadly sins.” New Orleans came in at number three for wrath, thanks to our incredibly high murder rate, and number two for sloth, which will not surprise anyone who tries to do business here, although Forbes based the ranking on data on body mass index, physical inactivity and TV watching habits.
America’s Most Sinful Cities?
Most Murderous [Wrath]: The crime statistics are clear — the most murderous city is Detroit, followed by Baltimore, New Orleans, Newark, St. Louis, Oakland, Washington DC, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Buffalo.Most Slothful [Sedentary]: Memphis tops this list as well, followed by New Orleans, Las Vegas, Detroit, Birmingham, Louisville, San Antonio, Jacksonville, Nashville, and Miami.
I’m amazed we didn’t make the list on gluttony. We have the best food in the world, and people are not shy about eating it. In most cities, if you ask someone about a restaurant they went to, the furthest the conversation will usually go is “How was the food?” In New Orleans, you can expect a lengthy discourse. Similarly, no conversation about the holidays is complete without the question, “What did you eat?”
Mohler makes the important point that
In reality, the whole world is a Genesis 3 world — a fallen world inhabited by sinners. Sin is a universal problem and every single human being is a sinner. Put sinful humanity in close quarters, and sin inevitably multiplies.
Because we enjoy such a wealthy lifestyle in the United States – even our “poor” enjoy a phenomenal standard of living compared to poor people in other countries – we often discount the idea that our country is a mission field. Although a minuscule percentage of people slip through the cracks, taxpayers provide a minimum standard of living to the poor – and that glorifies government, not God. We think of mission trips as going to a third world country to serve people, or more rarely, going to an American city for disaster relief. New Orleans has been blessed with tens of thousands of people who came here with their churches to serve, and my church and others have been both the co-laborers and the beneficiaries of that mission effort.
But in spite of the fact that we don’t have “the poor” in the same sense that Guatemala does, our country is just as lost. And all the people who have been moved by the fact that total strangers came here to serve them for the glory of God were just as lost before Katrina as they were after it. I’m not suggesting that we stop having mission trips to other countries. I’m just suggesting we ought to be doing more of that here at home, specifically in the cities where we already live, where we can make it part of our daily lives instead of an annual occurrence. Every city has opportunities to serve, and those opportunities are our chance to show people the meaning of the Gospel.
