Note: Sorry I took such a long break between posts! I returned most of my books to the library before I left to study abroad, and then law school resumed, wedding plans got crazy, and life just filled up. But before I returned all those books, I'd almost completed the Sodom & Gomorrah post. So, here it is!
The story of Sodom & Gomorrah:
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his
face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your
servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”
“No,” they answered, “we will spend
the night in the square.”
But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his
house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part
of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you
tonight? Bring them out to us so that we
can have sex with them.”
Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and
said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this
wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters
who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do
what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come
under the protection of my roof.”
“Get out of our way,” they replied.
“This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing
pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and
shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door of the
house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
The two men said to Lot, “Do you
have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the
city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” [14-23: In sum, Lot
gets his wife and daughters; they flee]
Then the Lord rained
down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus
he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those
living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But
Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
(Genesis 19: 1-13, 24, NIV)
The pivotal issue here is “how important was the fact that the example
of inhospitality—the gang rape—was homosexual
gang rape to guests?”
Robert Gagnon argues the issue must have been homosexuality. (Note: I keep
coming back to Gagnon because he advocates so strongly that homosexuality is condemned in the Bible. I find using
his own interpretations but pointing out how his conclusion need not be reached
is most helpful, though other scholars are insightful as well.) Gagnon argues
that Lot offered his daughters to the crowd as a replacement for the visiting
men because it would make the gang rape heterosexual instead of homosexual—thus
implying this heterosexual gang rape is some how “less bad” than homosexual
gang rape. The problem with that, however, (other than it still being rape) is
it uses a western lens, a lens that says women are equal to men. Here, that was
not the case.
Gagnon states:
To “lie with a man as though lying with
a woman” (Lev 18:22; 20:13) was to treat a man as though his masculine identity
counted for nothing, as though he were not a man but a woman. To penetrate
another man was to treat him like an assinnu,
like someone whose “masculinity had been transformed into femininity.” Thus
three elements (attempted penetration of males, attempted rape, inhospitality),
and perhaps a fourth (unwitting, attempted sex with angels), combine to make
this a particularly egregious example of human depravity that justifies God’s
act of total destruction.
(The
Bible and Homosexual Practice, p. 75-76)
Did you catch it? Penetrating a man was bad because it devalued him.
It stripped him of masculinity. It converted him into a passive sexual partner
(traditionally the role of the lesser, submissive woman) and lessened his worth
in some sort of patriarchal system emphasizing power of men. Sex was viewed in
the context of the active and passive partners—the active partner (man) being
the one with status and power through the act of penetration, and the passive
partner (woman), who had no action and simply received the actions of the
penetrating partner.
Homosexual rape had nothing to do with sexual preferences: it was a
method of shaming. Let me repeat that: homosexual
rape had nothing to do with sexual preferences. It was a method common to ancient warfare because it shamed
and conquered the passive sexual partner. It reduced the status of a man to
that of a lowly woman in a time when women were essentially property. This was
simply not the place for a man.
This immense shame the citizens of Sodom sought to impose on Lot’s
guests was worse than a father losing the valuable commodity of two virgin
daughters. He would rather have the shame of impure daughters—for which he
would feel a monetary consequence
upon their marriage—than commit such a grossly inhospitable act as allowing his
male guests to be reduced to the passive sexual partner, or to have their power
and masculinity stripped from them.
Another reason to disbelieve homosexual
gang rape (as contrasted with “normal” gang rape, hear my sarcasm) was
S&G’s main sin is that the destruction was not originally thought to have
anything to do with sexuality, even though sex was part of it. It was redefined
in the Middle Ages to be about homosexuality, and only later was homosexuality
connected with “sodomy” and “sodomites.”
Other evidence Sodom & Gomorrah’s destruction wasn’t about homosexual gang rape:
“Now this was the sin of your
sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned;
they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable
things before me.” (Ez. 16:49-50. Note: She
and her daughters did detestable things, but the attempted homosexual acts,
for which Gagnon argues Sodom was condemned, was done by males)
“And among the prophets of Jerusalem, I
have seen something horrible: They commit adultery and live a lie. They
strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that not one of them turns from their
wickedness. They are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.” (Jeremiah
23:14. Note: the issue is adultery and deceit.)
“In a similar way, Sodom
and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual
immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the
punishment of eternal fire. In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly
people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial
beings.” (Jude 1:7-8. Note: This could refer to any manner of
perverse sexual acts, including gang rape, sexual infidelity, etc. The passage
does, however, say “In the very same way…”
This could mean the surrounding sins are just as bad as the sexual immorality.)
And even if the homosexual gang rape was the “straw that
broke the camel’s back,” the entire story of Lot still fails to support
the current, main-stream Christian understanding of “moral sexuality.” Here’s
what happened after Lot and his daughters were the only people who made it out
alive (because Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into salt):
Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters
lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, “Our
father is old, and there is no man around here to give us children—as is the
custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him
and preserve our family line through our father.”
That night they got their father to
drink wine, and the older daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware
of it when she lay down or when she got up.
The next day the older daughter said
to the younger, “Last night I slept with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine
again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family
line through our father.” So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went in and
slept with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got
up.
So
both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father.
(Genesis 19:30-36, NIV)
Really? A story advocating pregnancy
by incest is used to condemn
homosexuality?
Enough said.
UP NEXT: Homosexuality
& the Bible: Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13
These are the Hebrew laws cited most often in support of the belief
that homosexuality is a sin. The problem is not as simple as “well, no one
follows the verses before and after anymore, so this one is ridiculous too.”
That can’t be the explanation, because then the whole chapter should be thrown
out (or the whole book, or the whole Bible). Instead, I will look at the types
of laws and their different scopes in order to really understand why those laws were important and how to still follow anything else the Bible
says.
