The Sin of Sodom and Implications Today
Waterfall, Maxfield Parrish 1930
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines Sodom as "a place notorious for vice or corruption." (1) The figure of speech originates from ancient historical accounts of a city that was located somewhere in the region of what today is the Dead Sea between modern Israel and Jordan.
Prior to its destruction, the region was described as a lush valley "well-watered everywhere ... like the garden of the Lord." (2) This is in searing contrast to the valley as it is today — a baking-hot, arid wasteland that is the lowest point on earth, with the surface of the Dead Sea approximately 430 meters below sea level. It lies on a major fault zone between two tectonic plates, so the ancient destruction of Sodom likely involved a massive geological collapse between these plates, permanently and radically changing the topography of the region and very possibly burying the ruins of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah under tens or even hundreds of meters of earth.
In these ancient accounts, the inhabitants of Sodom were described as "exceedingly wicked" which, in the original Hebrew language, meant that they were unusually "morally depraved." (3)
Relevance today
The sin of the citizens of Sodom is an issue in discussions within Christianity having to do with sexuality. In the early 1990s, sociologist Tony Campolo gave his perspective on the sin of Sodom that glossed over the issue of sexual immorality. (4) Campolo, and others up to the present, argue that the sin of Sodom was not really sexual in nature, but a failing in social justice. In reality, it is not a matter of either-or, but of both, plus an even more fundamental and greater sin.
The incident
According to the historical account, the evening before the destruction, two angels arrived in Sodom, looking like two men, and were invited to stay in the house of Lot overnight. Later that evening all the men of the city, "both young and old" gathered around the house, demanding to have sex with the two strangers, at the same time ignoring Lot’s appalling offer to gratify themselves with his two virgin daughters. (5)
It should be noted that the decision to destroy Sodom had already been made, and the inhabitants were already known as "exceedingly wicked," so we can infer that this incident was only a specific example of the moral depravity of Sodom, given that their reputation was already established.
The sin
In the book of Jude in the New Testament, it describes the men of Sodom as those who indulged in "illicit sexual relations" (6) and "pursued unnatural desires" (7) — an example of which we saw above, where men desired and engaged in sexual relations with men rather than women.
The most detailed and revealing description of the sin of Sodom is given in another passage in the Old Testament. It is the one used by Campolo and others to argue that the sin was actually a failure in social justice. The passage reads,
This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. (8)
This statement contains significant implications for our civilization today in several ways, so it warrants careful examination before inferring any conclusions.
First, it states the cultural context at the time — they were prosperous and enjoyed a carefree peace. Some years earlier, they had been plundered and pillaged by several powerful city-states, but they had been rescued and those threats no longer existed. There is nothing wrong with living in abundance and enjoying peace; in fact, it is something we ought to thank God for if we enjoy such a time in life. So this was the societal context within which the sin of Sodom occurred.
The 'fly in the ointment' was that the account states that they had a problem with pride, where the original Hebrew word within this passage means "presumption" (9) — assuming in one's mind a higher position than one actually has and living as if that were actually the case. In this case, it was their assumed position, rights, and authority relative to God. The result was that they felt the freedom and authority to sin “greatly against the Lord” and to focus on satisfying their own sexual orientations and desires rather than their moral obligation to help the poor and needy.
One of the points God repeatedly makes in the Bible concerning human nature is that when a culture becomes prosperous, they inevitably begin to think it is they who have accomplished this on their own without God. Consequently, they become proud of themselves as the ones who made it happen and drift away from their God-given moral obligations and toward self-gratification. For example, there is the ancient proverb,
When your (God's) judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness. But when grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and do not regard the majesty of the Lord. (10)
It seems that the people of Sodom suffered from the same general flaw of human nature described above. The question is whether our own culture and civilization is going down that same road. Three consequences are listed — the first is something that they failed at, and the other two are something they did.
Three sins of Sodom
First, their failure to care for the poor and needy, even though they had plenty and were enjoying a time of peace, suggests they lived a self-focused and self-indulgent life. They cared more about their own rights and wants, rather than their obligations to others, especially the poor and needy. This was a violation of what Jesus described almost 2,000 years later as the second greatest moral obligation of humanity — to love one’s neighbor as oneself. The fact that the people of Sodom were held accountable by God for this implies that this moral obligation did not just appear at Mt. Sinai, but was already known at the time, at least in conscience, if not through the teaching of the contemporary priest Melchizedek.
Second, they became "haughty." The original Hebrew word describes a special kind of pride that is "boastful." (11) It is a bold-faced kind of pride that is celebrated and flaunted. It is what we would use to describe a kind of pride that is paraded in public and celebrated with banners and flags, similar to what we observe in our culture today, surprisingly and eerily, under the internationally recognized name of “Pride.”
Third, their sin culminated in them practicing an "abomination" (singular), described, as previously noted in the book of Jude as "unnatural desires" to do with sex. There are two perspectives to consider, the citizens of Sodom’s, and God’s.
Since the event occurred some 400 years prior to the commands given at Mt. Sinai, could they have been expected to know they were doing wrong? Recall that they already had a reputation for being “exceedingly wicked” as mentioned earlier. We can infer from this that the people of the larger region had moral standards which the citizens of Sodom violated in a major way.
It should also be noted that Melchizedek, “priest of God Most High” (12) was present in that region when Abraham, Lot’s Uncle, gave a gift to Melchizedek after he rescued the citizens of Sodom some years earlier. We can infer, therefore, that God’s basic moral laws to do with murder, stealing, and sexual immorality, were known and taught in that region and at that time.
More important for today is God’s perspective. The Hebrew word for "abomination" is the same word used by I AM (a title also claimed by Jesus Christ) at Mt. Sinai to describe a man lying "with a male as with a woman" (13) —consistent with the “gross immorality” and “strange flesh” description in the book of Jude. The abomination they ultimately engaged in was the end result of a road that began with their pride, and focusing on their own desires rather than helping the poor and needy, within the context of an affluent society.
Implications for our civilization today
There are some remarkable parallels between the prosperous and sexually-free culture of Sodom and our culture today which, like Sodom, also enjoyed a time of prosperity and peace after World War II and the fall of the Iron Curtain, and which also brought with it our own sexual revolution. The question is, what can we learn from the ancient culture of the Sodomites?
1. Perhaps we can react to the wrong thing. Today in our culture, when observing the failure of social justice, and the promotion of various kinds of "illicit sexual relations," there is a tendency to respond by trying to ‘fight’ for social justice and oppose the full range of sexual immorality, from online porn to infidelity, to the over-sexualization of our sex-besotted culture. Upon reflection on the sin of Sodom, however, merely trying to enforce social justice as well as stop sexual immorality might be like breaking off the top of a weed without removing the root which produced it in the first place; it will simply continue to grow, like the heads of Hydra. The powerhouse behind social injustice and human-produced evil is pride, the presumption of rank and rights that trump all other things, including the will of God. This sort of pride is self-focused rather than others-serving. Unless the problem of human pride is solved, we will face a never-ending series of the full range of other problems.
2. Human pride is a prominent aspect of our culture. Society today presumes that the individual, not God, holds the right to decide ethics and moral values. Human pride congratulates ourselves and our science for the prosperity we have enjoyed. Within this context, despite what our culture claims, there is an appalling lack of personal care for the poor and needy, which has largely been delegated to governments. (14) Present-day culture presumes it has the right to enjoy any kind of sex without taking responsibility for the children that are conceived, creating a massive problem of how to dispose of unwanted unborn. Contemporary culture also assumes that everyone has the right to enjoy sex outside the context of a lifelong commitment in marriage between a man and a woman. There is a general cultural assumption that we have the right to have what we want, and the right to not be questioned or offended. This is what pride does; it is self-serving, rather than others-serving.
3. Human pride in our culture has reached the level of "haughtiness." No human being can look down on another person as if they themselves did not do anything wrong. If we're human, we sin — it is a cold hard fact of humanity. Doing something morally wrong produces a spiritual kind of pain — we can call it shame, guilt, or fear. Such pain can be good — it tells us we are going in a spiritually destructive direction. Admitting one has done something wrong is hard on human pride, however, so when human pride rules contemporary culture, it does not admit it has done wrong. Instead, it fights shame, guilt, and fear by celebrating and normalizing the actions that cause such reactions, reaching a state of "haughtiness" like the ancient citizens of Sodom, where the practice of their sin became totally open, widespread, and public, going so far as to impose their own sexuality, even forcibly, on those who held a very different moral perspective.
4. Human pride corrupts religion. When the men of Sodom surrounded the house wanting to have sex with the two strangers who looked to them like men, the pressure it put on Lot reached a crisis point that only the two angels were able to deal with.
In the same way our culture today relentlessly pressures and shapes us to conform to its demands. Consequently, there are many people who identify as Christians and are even leaders within the Church, but actually practice a culture-led religion that does not always respect the authority of God’s Word, or seeks to redefine certain words or modify commandments to make them more culturally acceptable, like the commandments against divorce, sex outside of marriage, or sex with people of the same sex.
By doing so, culture-led, progressive Christianity disrespects God and what he has communicated to us through the Bible by creatively changing any commandment that goes against what culture finds acceptable. Jesus said that in the last days of humanity, the love of many Christians will grow cold because "wickedness is increased." (15). The rise of culture-led rather than Christ-led Christianity usually results in a waning love and reverence for God and his words.
It is essential, therefore, to distinguish between culture-led Christianity and Christ-led Christianity. Jesus Christ defined authentic Christianity as denying oneself and following him, rather than culture. (16) He had very harsh words for those who claim to follow God but who follow the world rather than him. (17)
5. Like Sodom, our civilization will be destroyed. Research of 86 cultures by Oxford anthropologist J.D. Unwin found that when a society reached a point of increasing sexual freedom, it collapsed (either destroyed from within or without, or lapsed into a primitive, crude, or “inert” society) within three generations — no exceptions. (18) According to his research, our own civilization crossed the tipping point just one generation ago; we have at most two generations left.
But what is the real problem? There is a fascinating prophecy God gave approximately 2,700 years ago about the end of human history. It goes like this ...
I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant. (19)
What is gripping about this is that of all the evil humanity has committed over the course of the entirety of history, and it includes all of the most horrific things you have ever heard of, God picks out one thing that gets special distinction — pride. We can infer from this that pride is the ultimate evil of humanity. Like an eerie death knell foreshadowing the collapse of our own civilization, the word "pride" has become one of the most recognized, internationally-celebrated words in our civilization.
What, then, should we do?
I enjoy growing garlic, but that includes taking care of the weeds that compete with it. I know from abundant experience that breaking off the visible part of the weed is not the solution. Yes, it produces a temporary result, but the resurgence of the weed is inevitable. We can attempt to throttle and contain the full range of visible evils of our culture, and the government has a role in that, (20), but unless the most powerful and invisible evil of all is dealt with — human pride, we will find ourselves constantly putting out fires but not dealing with the arsonist that lights them.
This discussion is primarily for two categories of Christians. First, it is for those who believe they are Christians, but who find themselves following culture when it comes to sexuality. Second, it is for those who genuinely desire to follow Christ but who are involved in discussions on the sin of Sodom. What I say next is mainly for the first category — those who believe they are followers of Christ but find they are actually following the culture and its secular sexuality.
The sin of Sodom was both a failing in social justice as well as sexual morality, fueled by human pride. Humanity’s greatest evil is human nature and its pride; it is what ignites and fuels human-originated evil. We cannot change our own nature; we were born that way — it is the way we naturally are and it is in a state of advancing corruption. (21) But there is a divine solution in the form of spiritual rebirth and healing from God that literally produces a new nature. Perhaps it is best to close with a quote that one can contemplate for a few months, or as long as it takes to understand and embrace it.
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. (22)
If you wish to think further along these lines in a positive direction, you may be interested in another article I wrote, ‘What does it mean to be human?: Part 2 - Vastly more than you can imagine!’
(If you would like to interact confidentially and anonymously with an online mentor about this further, follow this link.)
References:
Merriam-Webster 'Sodom'.
When studying ancient accounts, it can be enlightening to understand the meaning of the words in the original languages, since it is often difficult or impossible to find an English word that precisely corresponds to an ancient word in another language. A lexicon for these ancient languages, therefore, can be very helpful. For ancient Hebrew and Aramaic languages, The Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT) is regarded as the top choice by many scholars. For Koine Greek, it is The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature (BDAG). In the case of "exceedingly wicked," the original word used is discussed in this reference: HALOT, (electronic ed., p. 1250). Leiden: E.J. Brill.
Tony Campolo, 20 Hot Potatoes Christians Are Afraid to Touch, 1993, Thomas Nelson.
BDAG, (3rd ed., p. 309).
HALOT, (electronic ed., p. 169).
HALOT, (electronic ed., p. 171).
Arthur C. Brooks, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, 2007, Basic Books.
Kirk Durston on Unwin, Why Sexual Morality May Be Far More Important Than You Ever Thought.