The Sin of Sodom
Over the course of the next several months, I want to focus on the passages of Scripture that are often named as “the clobber passages.” These verses are seen as the reason why same-sex relationships are sinful by nature. Often these verses are cherry picked out of context, and my aim is to locate them within their historic, and cultural framework and show that there is a huge disparity between what they are actually talking about and the current reality of same-sex relationships.
The first story that we are going to talk about is the Story of Sodom. It has been so ingrained in Christian thought that this story is about homosexuality that it has affected even the translation of other verses, which will be discussed later. This story is where the offensive term of sodomite comes from. Genesis 19:1-11 states:
The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground. He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the square.” But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” But they replied, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came here as an alien, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near the door to break it down. But the men inside reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the door of the house, both small and great, so that they were unable to find the door.
In these verses we see several things. We see angelic beings, who were in the form of men, (Gen. 18:3) coming to the town of Sodom. While they intended to spend the night in the square, Lot persuades them to spend the night in his house instead. In doing so, Lot has now enacted the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) hospitality code, and these angelic guests are now under his protection. Later on in the story, all the males of Sodom came and asked Lot to break this hospitality code so that they could ‘know’ these angelic beings disguised as men.
This entire story is flooded with imagery that is abusive and sexual in nature. The Hebrew word that is used here for ‘we may know’ is yd’ . This word does have the ability to know someone sexually, and this translation makes sense given that Lot then tells the men of Sodom to leave the angels alone, and insists that his daughters have never known a man before (read that they are virgins) and he offers to give his own daughters over to the men of Sodom. On the initial reading of this, it seems clear that the men of Sodom wanted to commit gay gang rape of these two angelic beings, and this, as is so often concluded, is what the sin of Sodom was. What is often neglected however, is the context of the alluded to same-sex encounter that the men of Sodom where looking for. Another thing that is often forgotten is that the men of Sodom were trying to break the ANE hospitality code, and if we turn to the prophet Ezekiel, we see that this plays an important role in the story. When Jerusalem is about to go into captivity, God through the prophet Ezekiel warns Jerusalem of how she is acting like her sister Sodom. In Ezekiel 16: 49, we read that the sin of Sodom was that they were indulgent, and full of pride and that they did not give to the poor and needy. They neglected to take care of those in need within their circle of influence, and in doing so, they neglected to demonstrate godly hospitality to the very least amongst themselves. This is a very different focus than how the Church has usually used this story against the LGBT community.
At the same time, let us posit for a minute that this story is about gay sex. The context that is being promulgated in these verses is one of abuse. These men of Sodom want ‘to know’ the angels against their consent, as in rape. When the Church and Christians today equate the sin of Sodom as the same thing as homosexuality today they are in essence, whether intentionally or not, equating all same-sex relations with the atrocious act of rape. When the Church equates the LGBT community as a community that is solely about sex, and they hyper sexualize the community and label it as deviant, they are only continuing and promoting the stigmatization of an already highly stigmatized and marginalized people group.
From this story, we get the term sodomite. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1: 9-10, the term that is used in some translations is sodomites, and in others it is translated as homosexuals or homosexual activity. The use of this word sodomite is an inaccurate rendering of the greek words malakoi and arsenokoitai that Paul uses in these verses. There are more appropriate ways to translate these words and this will be discussed in a future post. It was not until Augustine that the sin of Sodom was explicit described as the desire for same-sex intercourse, but even with Augustine it was not merely relegated to same-sex desire. (Jordan, 35) The term has influenced entire nations, and 73 nations around the world today still have laws against gay sex (often coined as sodomy) in effect. (https://76crimes.com/76-countries-where-homosexuality-is-illegal)
The negative effects of a harmful translation has affected the LGBT community for centuries. The consequences of reading the sin of Sodom has same-sex relations has wreaked havoc not only for LGBT people of faith but for the wider LGBT community. It is time that the Church owns up to this inaccurate interpretation of Scripture and asks for forgiveness. I think that we, the Church, do need to remember the story of Sodom and more importantly remember that their sin was that of not welcoming the stranger. The very act of using the story of Sodom to neglect LGBT people has opened up the Church to committing the very sin that Sodom actually committed—that of inhospitality.
The Christian community is at a cross-roads. For too long we have allowed the Church to be a place of unwelcome not only for the LGBT+ community, but for other marginalized people groups. The question we have to ask ourselves is: are we going to follow in our sister Sodom’s foot steps, or are we going to engage and welcome these marginalized communities with a love that is more powerful than death, that is the love of Christ?
Bibliography
Jordan, Mark D. The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology. University of Chicago Press, 1997.