Another Christian Perspective on Southern Decadence

I am a Christian minister who takes great joy in proclaiming the Gospel in Downtown New Orleans. I believe that the Vieux Carrè and other downtown neighborhoods are home to the same sort of people that Jesus Christ showed a special compassion for; those who were marginalized and alienated from mainline culture and the religion of his time. It distresses me greatly when moral purists attempting to speak for all Christianity take aim at the excesses at New Orleans festivals such as Southern Decadence. Their attempt to enforce their own moral values does nothing to further the Gospel and does much to impede it.

I watched the Decadence parade last year, and I saw nothing different than I have seen at many previous parades including Mardi Gras parades. As a matter of fact, I thought last year’s Decadence parade was tame compared to those in the past. I saw none of the blatant sex acts that so offended my more sensitive Christian brothers and sisters, but then I do admit that I did not go out looking for that sort of behavior with a video camera.

I do believe that had I looked for the lewdness and excess that they found I would have found it too, just as it can be found at Mardi Gras, Essence, and Jazz Fest. But my belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ would not be well served by seeking out sin and trying to prevent it by coercion. For one thing, the sexual "in your face" attitude of many of those whose behavior many find so offensive, has its roots in the anger and frustration they feel toward a religion that is presented to them as condemning their sexual orientation and any openness about human sexuality in general.

Offended moral purists protest that their point in this instance is not about homosexuality, but homosexuals find the protestations cynical and deceptive. Moral purists withhold all comfort to those for whom homosexual behavior is normal behavior. Instead they voice the same condemnation for acts in private that they condemn as lewdness in the streets.

Jesus Christ had little to say about sexual sin, but he had a great deal to say about religious hypocrisy. He also condemned many other sins such as greed and the indifference to the poor, issues that I would think should demand as much attention by the greater New Orleans Christian community than sexual acting out in public.

I am distressed as well because religion based on moral puritanism is tainted by the same excess we in the Western world find frightening about the religious fundamentalists in the Muslim world. Moral coercion makes a mockery of the religious freedom we enjoy in the United States. Hateful self-righteousness alienates those who are its target, preventing them from hearing the true Gospel of love and forgiveness. True morality flows from conversion and not the other way around.