{"id":429,"date":"2016-08-18T07:01:49","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T15:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/storiedtheology\/?p=429"},"modified":"2016-08-18T07:08:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T15:08:31","slug":"checking-in-on-sodom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/storiedtheology\/2016\/08\/18\/checking-in-on-sodom\/","title":{"rendered":"Checking In on Sodom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Nuremberg_chronicles_f_21r\"<\/a>It\u2019s good to keep coming around to places where we need to have our imaginations transformed\u2014especially those portraits\u00a0that have long histories. I firmly believe that the story of Sodom in Genesis 19 depicts one of, if not the greatest threats to the contemporary church.<\/p>\n

And it has nothing to do with homosexuality.<\/p>\n

The Cry<\/h3>\n

Genesis 18 and 19 are vague and general when describing the reason that God has come down to investigate the city, but we\u2019re not left without any clues:<\/p>\n

The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is exceedingly great.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is this \u201ccry\u201d?<\/p>\n

The NET Bible<\/a> helpfully translates the Hebrew as \u201ccry\u00a0agains<\/em>t<\/em>,\u201d and starts to point in the right direction when it says, \u201cwhich apparently refers to the outcry for divine justice from those (unidentified persons) who observe its sinful ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, I think that explanation is a bit too weak.<\/p>\n

There is no righteous observer sitting on the sidelines telling God what\u2019s going on. When a cry like this arises it does so from those who are suffering under the hands of oppression, injustice, or violence\u00a0<\/em>(see the use of the same word in Gen 27:34; Exod 3:7, 9; 11:6; 12:30; 22:23; 1 Sam 9:16, etc.). The point isn\u2019t that the word \u201ccry out\u201d carries some inherent description of what\u2019s being done to the people, but that those who cry out are crying out under duress.<\/p>\n

Not to put too fine a point on it, but these are not the moaning cries of people who are enjoying a sexual act that God finds illicit. These are the mournful cries of people who are being abused by other people\u2019s deployment of power.<\/p>\n

The Just<\/h3>\n

So when Abraham pleads on behalf of the city, asking God to spare it if God can find even ten righteous people within it, we are on the right track if we think of \u201crighteous\u201d or \u201cjust\u201d people in terms of social justice. The question is whether there is anyone in Sodom who is maintaining their place of social, political, familial, and economic power in a way that is faithful to their neighbors.<\/p>\n

Showing hospitality to strangers would fit into such a category of justice or injustice.<\/p>\n

So what about that whole attempted male, gang-rape thing?<\/p>\n

The Threat<\/h3>\n

The fact that the men of Sodom wanted to gang rape the angelic men who came to visit Lot is the lynchpin of the notion that the sin of Sodom is same-sex intercourse.
\nBut here I\u2019m reminded of some insightful words of my mother: rape isn\u2019t about sex, it\u2019s about power.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t take my word for it. There\u2019s this classic exchange in The Shawshank Redemption<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Andy Dufresne<\/i>: I have no enemies here.
\nRed<\/i>: Yeah? Wait a while. Word gets around. The Sisters have taken quite a likin\u2019 to you. Especially Boggs.
\nAndy Dufresne<\/i>: I don\u2019t suppose it would help if I told them that I\u2019m not homosexual.
\nRed<\/i>: Neither are they. You have to be human first. They don\u2019t qualify.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/BOzKIg_6AJM<\/a>\n

Rape is about power and domination.<\/p>\n

Sex can be an expression of power and domination. In the ancient world people were often quite explicit about this. To be the \u201cpenetrator\u201d was an expression of dominance, of superiority, of being higher up the pecking order.<\/p>\n

The men of Sodom get enraged when Lot tries to dissuade them: \u201cThis foreigner thinks he can be judge over us!\u201d The whole scene is about power and subjugation. It\u2019s not a story about hearts\u00a0longing for something that they see as beautiful and desirable in other men.<\/p>\n

Coherence<\/h3>\n

This is not a revisionist reading of Genesis 18-19, it\u2019s actually just a reading that lends coherence to the entire story.<\/p>\n

The fact that a cry is rising up to God against Sodom indicates that there are people on the wrong end of power and oppression. The men\u2019s attempted attack on the divine visitors is not some unrelated\u00a0expression of Sodom\u2019s depravity, as though people who previously were oppression their own have now decided that they really love having sexual relations with men.<\/p>\n

Instead, it places Lot and the visitors in the same place as the others whose voices have reached God: they, too, cry out against the people of Sodom. They, too, are attempted victims of a dominating abuse of power.<\/p>\n

There is actually quite a bit for us to learn from this story. It echoes a pre-flood assessment that what is wrong with humanity is violence. It can actually point us toward the sin that has the single greatest power to destroy people inside or outside the church: destructive deployment of power.<\/p>\n

And in doing so it can also point us more clearly to the gospel: the salvation that comes to us through a Messiah who refuses to grasp after power by worldly or spiritually manipulative means, receiving what is given to him from a heavenly parent, and being willing to be killed by penetration for the sake of those he came to save.<\/p>\n

We might find in Jesus\u2019\u00a0refusal to dominate, his willingness to submit,\u00a0the missing climax of Abraham\u2019s intercession: \u201cWon\u2019t you save the people, save humanity,\u00a0if you find not just ten righteous, but only one?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I\u2019ll save them all for the sake of one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image: \u201cSodom and Gomorrah\u201d from the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel, 1493.\u00a0Public domain<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story of Sodom depicts the greatest threat to the church today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2574,"featured_media":432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[192,193,53,6,194],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-church-culture","tag-genesis-18","tag-genesis-19","tag-homosexuality","tag-narrative-theology","tag-sodom-and-gomorrah"],"yoast_head":"\nChecking In on Sodom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The story of Sodom depicts the greatest threat to the church today.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/storiedtheology\/2016\/08\/18\/checking-in-on-sodom\/\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/storiedtheology\/2016\/08\/18\/checking-in-on-sodom\/2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Checking In on Sodom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The story of Sodom depicts the greatest threat to the church today.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/storiedtheology\/2016\/08\/18\/checking-in-on-sodom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Storied Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-18T15:01:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-08-18T15:08:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/624\/2016\/08\/Nuremberg_chronicles_f_21r.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"865\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"502\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"J. 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