Sin of Sodom

So whenever a newspaper headline has the word "Sodom" in it, I'll admit, I'm probably going to read it. Here's an interesting article by Nick Kristof about evangelicalism in the U.S. and how it might deviate from some of the stereotypes held by those outside of the church. I don't identify as a conservative evangelical, but I do think that far too often the good work done by the church is overlooked thanks to the media's focus on the more strident voices coming out of Christianity in the U.S. today.

While I appreciated the overall tone of the article, this part did leave me a little cringe-y:

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

If I'm not mistaken, many Biblical scholars been saying for years that Sodom is not about homosexuality but about hospitality. This was something we learned in Intro to Hebrew Bible, in our first semester of seminary. It's something I've heard preached on. It makes me sad that Mr. Kristof finds this so striking. If those of us in the church want to let people know that not all of us interpret what the Bible has to say about homosexuality literally, we need to speak up about it. This is a basic text used by many who blindly quote the Bible's prohibitions against homosexuality without doing the contextual work necessary for thorough exegesis.

And it serves as yet another reminder that no matter how loudly we shout from the doors of the church that not all of us use the Bible as a weapon, there is little we can do to change people's opinions of the church and of our faith unless we go out into the world and show them what being a follower of Christ is all about.