The Sin of Sodom
With this crucial foundation laid, we now turn to the specific passages that deal directly with homosexual behavior, the first of which is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. The interim report of the diocese of Washington’s Task Force on Issues of Human Sexuality gives a typical reappraiser’s analysis of this passage:
Contemporary linguistic and historical scholarship finds that the Sodom story concerns hospitality, not homosexuality. In the key passages [sic] of the Sodom story, the men of Sodom exclaim to Lot: “Let the strangers come out that we may know them.” Traditionally, this passage has been interpreted to mean that the men of Sodom wanted to have sexual intercourse with the male strangers. Modern scholarship has shown, however, that the Hebrew verb translated as “know,” however [sic], rarely has any sexual connotations, and only in the Sodom story has it ever been associated with homosexual behavior, and that association appears to be a late phenomenon. We cannot in good conscience continue to insist that the main theme of the story is homosexuality and that the destruction of Sodom represents God’s judgment on homosexuals. A more natural, less forced interpretation suggests that the main theme concerns the hospitality ethic (p. 4).
The reappraiser tells us that this scene involves a breach of hospitality, an important insight that has not often been recognized by commentators in an age in which hospitality is neglected rather than considered sacred. The crucial point, however, is whether the sin of Sodom is one of hospitality rather than sexual immorality.
Several pieces of evidence indicate that the reappraisers reach an unwarranted conclusion. First, J. Robert Wright of General Theological Seminary has evaluated ten major commentaries on Genesis since 1955 and finds that they say or imply that “Sodom’s sin consisted in the violation of hospitality by homosexual conduct,” (
Anglican Theological Review, LXVI:1 [1984], p. 82). Second, the biblical book of Jude explains that the people of Sodom “acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust,” (v. 7). This unnatural lust was not (as some reappraisers maintain) that they lusted after angels but that they sought to engage in homosexual conduct, which was a violation of the created order in Genesis 1 and 2. The scene in Genesis 6:1–4, which some early Christians understood to be lust of angels after mortal women, was compared by Jude to Genesis 19 because it, too, was a violation of God’s created order. Third, even noted reappraiser Sherwin Bailey acknowledges that “the Fathers of the Christian Church . . . entertained no doubt whatever that the Sodomites were peculiarly and inordinately addicted to homosexual practices, and that they were punished on this account” (
Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, p. 25).
A fourth problem is the linguistic data. It is true, as reappraiser Sherwin Bailey has argued, that 10 out of 943 times the verb “to know” appears in the Old Testament it refers to sexual intimacy. What Bailey and the diocese of Washington’s Task Force fail to mention, however, is that 6 of these usages are in Genesis and one in the narrative under consideration (in which Lot’s daughters are said not to have “known” a man, v.
. The offer of Lot’s daughters instead of the men strengthens the suggestion of sexual immorality. In addition, the Hebrew verb used in verse 7 (and also in Judges 19:23) to denote activity contrary to God’s will (RSV “act wickedly”
seems too strong to describe a breach of hospitality, as does the ensuing judgment visited upon the whole city.
The parallel story in Judges 19 adds further weight to the case that Sodom’s sin involved sexual immorality since in Judges 19:23 the offer of the mob “to know” the male visitor is termed a “vile thing.” The unusual feminine noun used here frequently has sexual overtones: it is used to describe the sexual assault Shechem made on Dinah (Gen. 34:7), the sexual infidelity of a man’s daughter (Deut. 22:20,21), Amnon’s rape of Tamar (2 Sam. 13:12,13), and the adultery of the Israelites with their neighbors’ wives (Jer. 29:22,23). The use of this word four times in the sad episode of Gibeah (Judges 19:23,24; 20:6,10) paints a pathetic portrait of sexuality that is predatory and violent. Such a gross violation of God’s intent in creation results not in the destruction of an entire city, but in the civil war of a whole nation.
All of the evidence supports the Church’s traditional understanding that both of these passages concern the violation of hospitality by homosexual activity, a serious breach of God’s intention that sexual intercourse may only be enjoyed between a man and woman in marriage. But what of the allegation made by some reappraisers that the many other references to Sodom in the Scriptures do not mention homosexuality? It may be, as the recent study of the Lutheran Church in America (1986) suggests, that later prophets only knew part of the original story. It is also possible that the sexual dimensions of this episode were so well known that their repetition was not necessary in the particular cultural context of the later prophets. In any case, arguments from silence are notoriously inconclusive.
The Holiness Code, the Song of Songs
We now turn to the next clear reference to homosexual practice in the Old Testament in the Holiness Code: “You shall not lie with a male as with a female; it is an abomination” (Lev. 18:22); “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them” (Lev. 20:13). Even Sherwin Bailey asserts that “it is hardly open to doubt that both the laws in Leviticus relate to ordinary homosexual acts between men, and not ritual or other acts performed in the name of religion” (Bailey, op. cit., p. 30).
Some scholars have tried to argue that these verses refer to cultic prostitution since the general context is one of ritual cleanness, but the specific context is of sexual contact within the extended family. Also, ritual prostitution is clearly forbidden elsewhere (Deut. 23:17). Other scholars have maintained that violent homosexual practice is in view. But as Gordon Wenham explains: “The use of the term ‘lie’ without any qualifying verb, e.g., ‘seize and (lie)’ and the equal punishment shows that consent to intercourse is assumed between the partners. Comparison with the laws on adultery shows that if it were a question of homosexual rape only the rapist would have been executed (cf. Deut. 22:22,23,25),” (Wenham, op. cit., p. 30).
This clear prohibition of homosexual behavior in the Israelite community then raises the difficult hermeneutical question of the way in which it applies to us as Christians. Simply to argue that the law is overturned by the gospel is too facile; what is meant by “the law”? Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it” (Matt. 5:17). What is superseded in Christ is the ceremonial law, the sacrificial system which is so much the focus of the book of Hebrews. But what the Protestant Reformers called the moral law, the will of God as revealed for example in the Ten Commandments (Book of Common Prayer, p. 350), is still a valuable guide to the community of faith today. Whereas certain specific cultural applications of the principles underlying many proscriptions in Leviticus are not relevant, the principles are. Seen in the light of Genesis 1 and 2, the principle underlying these two passages is that homosexual activity violates God’s intention in creation, as does adultery (Lev. 20:10) and incest (Lev. 20:11,12).
It would be quite usual at this point to continue into the New Testament, but that would eliminate another important Old Testament contribution to the debate on human sexuality, the Song of Solomon. Because of its tender sensuality, the Church has had an unfortunate tendency to ignore this book, or, when it taught on the subject at all, to view this part of the Bible typologically as a depiction of the relationship between Yahweh and Israel and between Christ and his Church. Many recent commentators, however, have recognized the Song as a simple presentation of the relationship between the lover and his beloved. The poetic celebration of this love includes detailed descriptions of the human body (e.g., in 4:1–7) as well as of nature (e.g., in 4:8), each of which reflects the doctrine of God’s creation in which he made everything “very good.” The physical enjoyment of sexuality also reflects the Creator’s intention that this gift be enjoyed between a man and woman in an exclusive relationship (the marriage is implied by the prominent roles given to friends and to the perfumer).
In the only book of the Bible that depicts two people’s mutual delight in sexual expression, that expression is between a married heterosexual couple.
The New Testament Testimony
Having seen that the Old Testament is consistent and directly applicable to the sexuality debate, what about the New Testament? The first argument made by some reappraisers is that Jesus said nothing that has been recorded about the subject. This is highly misleading. First, Jesus consistently affirms that sexual intimacy belongs only within marriage, an understanding he derives from Genesis 1 and 2 (cf. Mark 10:4–9; Matt. 19:3–12, etc.). Second, he frequently uses the Greek word
inappropriate contenteia (RSV “fornication”
to describe something evil which men and women engage in (Mark 7:23, etc.), an umbrella term that may also apply to homosexual practice. Third, the argument from silence cuts both ways: we know that Jesus affirmed the Old Testament, so why would Jesus differ in any way from the Torah on the question of homosexual practice?
The next passages that deal explicitly with homosexual practice are from the Pauline Epistles:
Make no mistake: no fornicator or idolater, none who are guilty either of adultery or of homosexual perversion, no thieves or grabbers or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers, will possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9,10, NEB).
The law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, immoral persons, sodomites, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine (1 Tim. 1:9,10, NEB).
The interpretation of these texts turns on the understanding of the two Greek words
malakoi and
arsenokoitai; both appear in 1 Cor. 6:9,10 (lumped together by the NEB as those guilty “of homosexual perversion”
and only the second appears in 1 Tim. 1:9,10 (translated “sodomites” by the NEB).
Robin Scroggs has recently argued that these two words refer to the adolescent “call boy” and his older male counterpart; what Paul is condemning is pederasty and therefore these passages do not apply to the contemporary debate. Bailey, however, argues that
malakoi refers to those involved in passive homosexual acts and
arsenokoitai to those engaging in active homosexual acts.
Two pieces of evidence suggest that Bailey may be right. First, Paul adopts Greek words almost certainly formed on the basis of the Septuagint (an early translation into Greek of the OT) version of Lev. 18:22 and 20:13, which describe general homosexual practice. Second, the list in 1 Cor. 6:9,10 is a very general list of vices: “Why would the Apostle single out ‘male prostitutes’ when he is referring to ‘idolaters, adulterers, thieves, greedy,’ etc.?” (Williams, op. cit., p. 84). A similar conclusion may be reached on 1 Tim. 1:9,10 (which comes in the context of the proper use of the law, and may have in view Genesis 1–2).
The last biblical section for scrutiny is Rom. 1:26,27, described in a 1973 position paper of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops as “the clearest condemnation of homosexual acts” in Scripture. In a crucial opening section of his letter, Paul looks at fallen humanity as a whole (1:18-3:20) in our rejection of God. In verse 18 the Apostle begins his diagnosis of the degree of humanity’s need for God by arguing that God’s wrath, his righteous reaction to human unrighteousness, is revealed from heaven against “all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth” (RSV).
What is the truth to which Paul refers? The truth of God’s character as it is made clear in creation, a creation that shows such a majestic design that we know there must be a designer. How do we suppress this truth? Although it is clear through creation that there is a Creator, we are unwilling to acknowledge him to be the Lord who deserves our worship and submission. The result of this rebellion against the Creator is a distortion of our relationships in two directions. We no longer worship the true God, but we still have a created desire to worship which becomes perverted into the worship of “images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles” (v. 23). Also, our relationships with our fellow human beings no longer function as God intended them, and both women and men exchange the natural created desire for a consummated relationship with the opposite sex and engage in same-sex relationships: “women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another” (vv. 26,27).
The key question for biblical interpreters is the meaning of the RSV phrase “unnatural” (v. 26), which in the Greek literally reads “against nature.” Understood in the light of the whole of the Bible which begins in Genesis 1 and 2, Paul sees these acts as contrary to God’s intention that sexual intercourse belongs only within heterosexual marriage. As C. K. Barrett comments, “In the obscure pleasures to which he refers is to be seen precisely
that perversion of the created order which may be expected when men put the creation in place of the creator,” (C. K. Barrett,
A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 1957, p. 39, my emphasis).
Kicking Against Nature
Two alternatives to this interpretation of Romans 1 have recently been proposed. The first is by the late Yale historian John Boswell in his work
Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (University of Chicago Press, 1980), described by Robert Wright of General Seminary as “the most sophisticated revision of church history to date from a pro-gay or pro-homosexual viewpoint” (Wright, op. cit., pp. 89–90). When examining verse 26 in Romans 1, Boswell maintains that rather than meaning “contrary to” nature, the Greek preposition in this instance should be rendered “more than” or “in excess of.” “The persons Paul condemns are manifestly not homosexual,” argues Boswell; rather “what he derogates are homosexual acts committed by apparently heterosexual persons” (Boswell, op. cit., p. 109; Bishop John Shelby Spong makes the same case without citing Boswell as a reference in
Living in Sin? A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality, reprinted by HarperSanFrancisco, 1990, p. 150). On this reading, “unnatural” would mean homosexual acts outside the bounds of the heterosexual nature of the agent.
A careful and systematic refutation of Boswell’s exegesis has been made by Richard Hays of Yale Divinity School (“Relations Natural and Unnatural: A Response to John Boswell’s Exegesis of Romans 1,”
Journal of Religious Ethics 14/1 [1986], pp. 184–215). Hays shows convincingly that Boswell’s use of the linguistic evidence is forced because in a number of instances the phrase
para physin means “contrary to the structure of creation.” Further, in discussing Paul’s exegetical argument, Hays demonstrates that the Apostle is making an indictment not of a specific group of heterosexuals tempted to engage in homosexual behavior, but of all humanity in our rejection of the Creator. Paul’s charge that we fallen humans have “exchanged natural relations for unnatural” means “nothing more nor less than that human beings, created for heterosexual companionship as the Genesis story bears witness, have distorted even so basic a truth as their sexual identity by rejecting the male and female roles which are ‘naturally’ theirs in God’s created order” (Hays, op. cit., p. 200). By using the anachronistic idea of “sexual orientation” and applying it to Paul, Boswell reads his own bias into the text and draws it back out again.
Another approach to the Romans 1 passage has been articulated by William Countryman, Associate Professor of New Testament at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, in his work
Dirt, Greed, and Sex (Fortress Press, 1988). Countryman’s book has become influential in the Episcopal Church (it features prominently in the diocese of Washington’s Task Force report, for example), and it therefore also deserves our attention.
According to Countryman, two ethics, the purity ethic and the property ethic, explain all of the passages in the Bible. The first means “avoidance of dirt” and involves “all rules that govern the boundaries of the human body” (p. 11). The second understands property as “something which is . . . an extension of the self, so that a violation of my property is a violation of my personhood” (p. 147). Countryman’s thesis is that whereas the Old Testament upholds both ethics, God’s new covenant in Jesus Christ overturns the purity ethic yet affirms the property ethic.
Countryman contends that in Romans 1, Paul described homosexual acts “as being unclean, dishonorable, improper, and over against nature,” but “he did not apply the language of sin to them at all. Instead, he treated homosexual behavior as an integral if unpleasingly dirty aspect of Gentile culture” (p. 117) in order to bring the Jews and Gentiles in his audience into his argument. In other words, Paul was temporarily using a purity ethic which he no longer believed.
But Countryman cannot stretch the evidence to fit the Procrustean bed of his thesis. In a footnote, he admits that Yale scholar Richard Hays claims that Paul’s phrase “against nature” (v. 26) is based on the creation narratives in Genesis, but argues that “there is no strong evidence for such a conclusion” (p. 114). This puts Countryman on a collision course with himself, since he argues that elsewhere in the New Testament (1 Corinthians) Paul appeals to the creation story (p. 204) when dealing with sexual ethics. It also fails to note that earlier in the Romans passage Paul has spoken about the confusion of the creature with the Creator, so that exegetes such as C. K. Barrett and C. E. B. Cranfield understand him to be referring to the created order in verse 26. Even Bishop Spong is forced to conclude that “with the context explained and the words analyzed, it still appears to me that Paul would not approve of homosexual behavior” (Spong, op. cit., p. 151).
Our examination of the evidence indicates that the biblical witness is entirely clear in its prohibition of homosexual activity since it is outside God’s created intention for those whom he has made. Gordon Wenham’s comment on the seriousness of rejecting this witness needs to be carefully heeded:
To set aside the biblical teaching on homosexuality as no longer applicable to our era is doubtless possible, but in so doing one is not simply eliminating one uncomfortable feature of scriptural teaching. At the same time the whole biblical teaching on creation, sex, marriage, forgiveness and redemption will be fundamentally altered. The remarks condemning homosexual practice are the tip of an iceberg of biblical theology. They cannot be set aside without at the same time melting down very major parts of biblical teaching. For a church which affirms that the Holy Spirit spoke by the prophets and prays that we will read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the Holy Scriptures, this is a serious step (Wenham, op. cit., p. 38).