Thread by @crazypastor

We have to stop with this peddling of Sodom as an anti-gay story.

It’s embedded in our cultural context.

It birthed a brand-new English word: sodomy.

It has perpetuated anti-LGBTQ+ hatred for far too long.

It’s often helpful to let the Bible interpret the Bible.

Genesis’ 18th chapter gives us a clue as to its 19th chapter — God hears an ‘outcry’ (18:20).

This word doesn’t appear often in scripture, and when it does (Exodus, Isaiah), it refers to injustice.

So the “outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah” is intimately connected with the most foundational event in the Torah — the Exodus of God’s people from slavery and oppression.

As it happens, the Bible doesn’t say much about the ‘sin of Sodom’ — it’s much more obsessed with its destruction.

No other city gets this much space dedicated to its destruction. Nineveh gets saved (to Jonah’s annoyance); Jericho is beaten in a few verses.

Any image you see of Sodom & Gomorrah won’t show you what’s actually happening inside — it’ll give you fireballs from heaven and smoke rising, that’s it.

So, for those who rip on me for not being “bible-believing” enough, I say, let’s go to the story itself.

Tell me what the sin of Sodom is. We hear all about the fact that there was sin (in Genesis, then later in Deut., Jeremiah, Isaiah, Lamentations, Amos, Zechariah…).

My NRSV bible calls Genesis 19:1-11 “The Depravity of Sodom.”

We’ve talked before about how these chapter titles are not biblical at all, and usually betray the biases of previous commentators.

But ANYWAYS, okay, I’ll bite, what’s the depravity?

Here’s the whole thing.

I want to zero in on two pieces.

First, the opening of this story mirrors the opening of Genesis 18 — Lot (Abraham) encounters angels (men) who appear.

When Lot sees them, he bows his face to the ground. He CANNOT WAIT to show them hospitality.

So, we’ve established in these two adjoining stories that they devote *several* verses to hospitality.

To 21st-century western (white) eyes, we can easily forget the Near Eastern *obsession* with hospitality. It’s everything.

The second thing is verses 6, 7, and 8.

The men of Sodom come to the door and demand Lot release his guests so they can gang rape them.

This is the extension of their inhospitality. We’ve heard how horrible they are — here’s the proof.

“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…’” (Gen. 19:6-8)

See what the narrator does here?

The term “wicked” is smack in the middle of this story. On one side, it’s a group of men terrifyingly threatening gang rape.

On the other side, LOT CASUALLY OFFERS UP HIS VIRGIN DAUGHTERS FOR THE SAME PURPOSE.

Too often we let Lot off the hook for his sadistic suggestion, but the narrator doesn’t.

They force the reader to look straight on at the depravity — both of the men of Sodom *and* Lot (the other man of Sodom).

So, the story continues. We get eleven verses to tell us (cryptically, it seems) what the sin of Sodom is; then, we get seventeen verses to show us the destruction itself.

It’s time for the action scene.

I would argue we have to go outside Genesis to get the actual ‘sin of Sodom’ that happens here.

And some of y’all have named it — it’s in Ezekiel.

And it’s clear as day:

And for Christians, as if this isn’t enough, we get Jesus naming Sodom’s sin — twice — in Luke and Matthew.

In the story of Jesus sending out the disciples, he describes what will happen if those towns are inhospitable to them: “It will be worse for them than it was for Sodom."

(That’s Matthew 10:15 and Luke 10:12 for those keeping score at home.)

WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY WOULD JESUS BRING UP SODOM IN A STORY ABOUT INHOSPITALITY...

...IF THE SIN OF SODOM ISN’T INHOSPITALITY?

I swear to sweet baby brown Jesus, anti-gay Christians are so fucking obsessed with hating queer people that they’ll go against what Jesus himself says about Sodom to make their dumbass, bigoted, unbiblical point.

The real sodomy — the true sodomites — relates to being inhospitable.

It’s why the disciples who don’t recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus invite him in once night arrives…that’s how essential the practice of hospitality is (Luke 24:28-29).

So, for the “bible-believing” among us.

Read Genesis 19:1-11 and tell me what the sin of Sodom is.

Nowhere in that story is sexual orientation brought up. The “wickedness” relates to people using gang rape to carry out their commitment to inhospitality. Period.

Plus there’s the disgusting actions of Lot himself.

(Sidenote: if you want to get even more sick, read the end of Genesis’ 19th chapter. You’re welcome.)

Anyways, like usual — it’s often ‘bible-believing’ bigots who actually have zero fucking clue about what’s in the Bible.