Born
1957
Dunedin, New Zealand
By Spencer D Gear PhD
The journalist has labelled people as sodomites without providing a correct definition.
The Bible’s definition of sodomite will be emphasised.
Ferrelly’s agenda is pro-gay.
Ferrelly’s original definition of sodomy – yes, some biblical theologians do define it as lack of hospitality. I refer you to Neil Carter’s article, ‘Why doesn’t “Sodomy” refer to a lack of hospitality?’
Fight for gender equality is emphasised, which pushes for same-sex equality
Fight for marriage equality is an emphasis.
Fight for asylum seekers to be treated like seekers of asylum.
Father Rod Bower vs Bill Muehlenberg.
Although this article is 7 years’ old, Tenets of democracy get lost in hate storm, it is riddled with pro-homosexual presuppositions. Take a read of the first line, “The sin of sodomy, say biblical scholars, was not homosexual sex but a failure of hospitality.” Farrelly gives no example from theologians who adopt that position. However, her view is not that of the evangelical theologians and ethicists I have on my book shelves.
However, the traditional understanding of sodomy has been a “sexual perversion originally associated with male temple prostitutes for which the city of Sodom became infamous.” It also has been associated with “intercourse of men with animals” (bestiality).[1]
In reading around the homosexual topic in the Bible, I’ve come across this interpretation of the sin having to do with a lack of hospitality – but it’s a minority view. When we examine the Bible’s definition of homosexuality (sodomy), we learn . . .
The True Nature of Homosexuality.
“No Israelite man or woman is to become a shrine-prostitute . . . because the Lord your God detests them both” (Deut 23:17-18 NIV). So, God “detests” homosexuality. That sure doesn’t sound like lack of hospitality and its association with lack of hospitality.
The Book of Judges records a shameful incident in Judges 19:22-25 (NIV) where some wicked men pounded on the door of an old man:
‘Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.’
23 The owner of the house went outside and said to them, ‘No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing. 24 Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing.’
25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.
This sodomy is a wicked same-sex act.
Sodomy is condemned in the Book of 1 Kings 14:24, “There were even male shrine-prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites” (NIV).
See also 2 Kings 23:7: Lev 18:22-23; and Ezek 16:50.
The New Testament provides a similar emphasis in Romans 1:24-29. Paul called it a sin for which the wrath of God would fall on sinful people who practised homosexuality. Verse 18 calls it a sin received for “all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”
In vv 24-27, the sin is called, “sinful desires”; “degrading of their bodies with one another”; “God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error”; “God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” “God gave them over to a depraved mind.”
No matter how much a journalist wants to make the sin of sodomy appear as the sin of lack of hospitality, that’s not how God sees the sin in both Old and New Testaments.
Farrelly asks:
“So I ask again, is Scott Morrison a sodomite? Is Tony Abbott? Are we okay with this?”
I ask her: What evidence does she have that Morrison or Abbott is practising the “shameful lusts” and “degrading of their bodies” as sodomities do?
Notes
[1] Robert K Jacobsen, “Sodomy,” in Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics, Carl F. H. Henry (ed.). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 643.
Copyright © 2021 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 05 September 2021.
