MetaCatholic

Note that the previous posts in this series (asking for moderation and courtesy in the comments) are:
Gay questions to straight answers
Texts of Queer Terror (1)

This may only be early days, but I’m already half-wishing I hadn’t started this series ruminating on some of the texts most regularly deployed (sometimes in full armour) in discussions about the appropriate forms of discipleship for gay Christians. Part of my trepidation comes from the fact that today’s text is the story of Sodom, and I have by now a long history of frustration with those who casually equate a story of forceful rape with any kind of loving relationship between adults, purely (impurely?) on the basis of the gender of those involved. Partly it comes from the way in which I am trying to ruminate on and engage with the texts, and some of those who are commenting are treating this as an argument in which I am simply making a case for something. I am trying very hard not to do that yet, since marshalling the texts in battle order risks suppressing significant nuances and questions in order to score points. Partly it comes from the ways in which discussing these questions doesn’t seem to do justice to the way in which, in the end we are talking about people, perhaps friends, perhaps relatives, perhaps ourselves. Partly my anxiety comes from the fact that (you may chose not to believe this) I genuinely don’t know exactly where this rumination will end up. Even if I have some broad directions in mind, I haven’t really worked out how to resolve what look to me like conflicts between some of my principles. This is an uncomfortable, but I hope helpful (not least to me) way of thinking out loud where friends and others can drop in on the conversation.

After that rambling and semi-confessional introduction, I will try to get to grips with the story of which I quote only the beginning, before the visitors rescue Lot and bring about the destruction of the city.

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.” (Genesis 19:1-8)

It follows hard on the heels of another story of angelic and divine visitation, as three strangers visit Abraham and receive model hospitality. In return, God reveals his plans for the destruction of Sodom to Abraham, and the two haggle over what might be enough to make God hold back his destruction. The wickedness of Sodom, first introduced in Gen 13:13, is again introduced by God. The nature of the wickedness is unspecified, but it is particularly bad. The way in which the townsmen of Sodom respond to the angels is not, in itself, their appalling wickedness, though it is no doubt presented as the strongest examples of their corruption. But how exactly are we to understand the value judgements of the narrator in this portrayal?

The immediate juxtaposition of Abraham’s hospitality and Sodom’s inhospitality strongly draw attention to that aspect of the story, as something that dominates the themes of sexual violence and male-on-male rape. It seems to me that we don’t dwell enough on Lot’s response in our telling of the story. Surely to our modern ears what he is willing to do is even more shocking than the threat of aggression to (adult) strangers: “Come on guys, don’t be so evil. Look, I’ve got two tasty teenage daughters, gang-bang them instead and leave my visitors alone.” (I’m assuming their age from their virginity.) I’m not fully sure exactly where the sharpest divide between the biblical culture and our own is: is it the comparative value placed on the duty of hospitality? Or is it the comparative value placed on daughters? I’m not sure, but it’s a sharp reminder of how problematic this text is.

Alongside it, we also need to consider another similar story, that of the Levite who visits Gibeah.

When the old man looked up and saw the traveller in the town square, he said, “Where are you heading? Where do you come from?” The Levite said to him, “We are travelling from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote region of the Ephraimite hill country. That’s where I’m from. I had business in Bethlehem in Judah, but now I’m heading home. But no one has invited me into their home. We have enough straw and grain for our donkeys, and there is enough food and wine for me, your female servant, and the young man who is with your servants. We lack nothing.”

The old man said, “Everything is just fine! I will take care of all your needs. But don’t spend the night in the town square.” So he brought him to his house and fed the donkeys. They washed their feet and had a meal. They were having a good time, when suddenly some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, surrounded the house and kept beating on the door. They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.”

The man who owned the house went outside and said to them, “No, my brothers! Don’t do this wicked thing! After all, this man is a guest in my house. Don’t do such a disgraceful thing! Here are my virgin daughter and my guest’s concubine. I will send them out and you can abuse them and do to them whatever you like. But don’t do such a disgraceful thing to this man!” The men refused to listen to him, so the Levite grabbed his concubine and made her go outside. They raped her and abused her all night long until morning. They let her go at dawn.

The woman arrived back at daybreak and was sprawled out on the doorstep of the house where her master was staying until it became light. When her master got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went outside to start on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, sprawled out on the doorstep of the house with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, “Get up, let’s leave!” But there was no response. He put her on the donkey and went home. When he got home, he took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces. Then he sent the pieces throughout Israel. (Judges 19:17-29)

The same mix of values are seen here, but without the angelic intervention that rescues Lot and his family, the story plunges deeper into depravity. Presumably the Levite’s concubine is a slave. She suffers a night of gang-rape by a crowd who don’t seem too bothered whether they catch a man or a woman, and then is chopped up (dead or alive, the story is ambiguous) by her master, and her dismembered body is sent throughout Israel as a rallying cry for vengeance. The stories of Sodom and Gibeah partially illuminate each other, and suggest to me that the key issue is the choice of violent rape over the obligation of hospitality. However, for me, the main impact (especially of the less familiar story of the Levite) is to leave me feeling just how far some of the biblical narrators’ values are removed from some of mine. Is there more horror in the rape of an adult, or a child? Of a stranger, or of your own young daughter? Both may be horrific, but I think, given the awful choice, none of us would choose as Lot chooses. I can’t see any comfortable and easy way of domesticating this brutal text for contemporary ethics.

There are, however, some inter-textual interpretations to attend to. The story of Sodom enters the biblical tradition as a byword first for the utter and complete destruction God might wreak on a faithless people (see Deuteronomy 29:23, Isaiah 1:9, Jeremiah 49:18 among other references), and then wickedness. The prophet Ezekiel refers to it, but the sins he singles out for specific mention are that: “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 abominable things before me” (Ezekiel 16:49-50 – It’s interesting that he uses the accusation “she and her daughters” when the story is so specifically about the men, and perhaps an example of how free one part of the Bible can be with interpreting another part.) Presumably the sexual sins of Sodom (or perhaps better the sexual expression of Sodom’s sins) are part of what Ezekiel finds abominable, but he doesn’t single them out in the same way.

Jesus also refers to Sodom as an example of judgement in the gospel tradition. One example refers to the suddenness of God’s judgement (Luke 17:28-32), but two refer to its sinful behaviour and judgement (Matthew 10:14-15; compare Luke 10:11-12, and Matthew 11:23-24). Neither of these comments, though they take Sodom as a byword for wickedness, focus at all on the sexual nature of Sodom’s sins. The first focuses on inhospitality, the second implies that the sin of refusing to recognise the work of God’s Spirit in Jesus’ actions is considerably worse even than the legendary wickedness of Sodom. So it would seem that later biblical interpretation tends to stress the sin of inhospitality and failure to welcome the stranger. I also note the implicit comparison between Sodom which rejects God in rejecting the angels, and the villages who reject Jesus and the kingdom when they reject the disciples. Both rejections lead to judgement. Not only does this imply a certain equality between rejecting God and rejecting Jesus, rejecting angels and rejecting disciples, but it implies that the one hope for God’s mercy lay in welcoming the stranger. That is a strand we should not lose sight of in this discussion.

There is one clear exception to this tradition of interpretation, and it comes in the letter of Jude.

And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great Day. Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 6-7)

This is hardly the world’s most transparent text! A full exploration is beyond me, not least because it wold also involve convoluted arguments about the relation of Jude and 2 Peter (and how we understand the differences), and the importance of the Enoch literature. However, I take the reference in verse 6 to “the angels who did not keep their own position” to be a reference to the “sons of God” of Genesis 6 who came down and enjoyed sexual relations with human women, a view that fits the text and Jude’s later references to Enoch (apparently as inspired scripture). If I’m right about that, then the “unnatural lust” of Sodom in verse 7 could be either the lust of men for men, or, given the shape of Jude’s argument, a mirror image of the lust of the angels in verse 6. Where in Genesis 6 angels lust for humans, in Genesis 19 (albeit unknowingly) men lust for angels. I rather assume that Jude is probably holding both ideas of unnaturalness together, but I wonder if the angel-human unnaturalness is the major note.

Now, to be honest, I really don’t know entirely what to make of this rather rambling engagement with the text. I suppose the following pointers are things to take forward into the discussion:

• The text is very strange to us, and if we really take in the horror of it, ought to hit us hard as coming from a very different culture. The harshness of the difference means that listening to scripture is not the same thing as adopting “a biblical culture”.
• The overwhelming note in the story and its later interpretation is about the place of hospitality and the welcome of the stranger. This is not the same thing that we mean by “inclusivity” but probably does have something to say to us about the welcome we give to those who are different.
• The addition of the note of male-male rape in the story is almost certainly intended as the worst possible example of being inhospitable, and saying it is about inhospitality does not remove what the writer expects us to feel as abhorrence for the nature of the “welcome”.
• Jude, in his rather odd way, seems to keep the interest in a proper ordering of things that we noted in the previous post about Leviticus. At the heart of what he means by order here, however, is less the ordering of male-female relationships, and more the ordering of human-angelic relationships.

This is a pretty meagre haul for the story that has given its name to the English word for anal sex. It turns out to be mainly about something else, and the sexual component is an important intensifying detail. Its primary theme seems to be the sin of offering humiliating violence to those who should be welcomed, and missing the chance for God’s mercy in the stranger. I can’t help hearing the slow drip of irony in that observation.