Episode 147: The Sin of Sodom and Setting the Record Straight on Recent Accusations of Heresy

So, I had an interesting weekend—actually, I had an amazing weekend full of miracles but that will be next week’s podcast. This week I am having to address some accusations, outright lies, and to verify what I do and do not teach and believe because there was a rather unpleasant brouhaha over things that I had no idea I even believed but when the admin of a private Facebook group says it, it must be legit, right? And I usually ignore such things but I have no idea how many people shared it as though it was Gospel and I need parents to know the full story—they need to be able to trust me with their kids.

Fortunately, I have friends in said group who sent me the following:

Earlier today, I was unfriended by a “teacher” who posts and comments regularly. I’m not sharing this post because I am bitter. This is a report of what she is teaching and how she responded.

Okay—the context, yes I absolutely unfriended him and it had been a long time coming. Boundaries are a positive thing. I had posted this really cool book quote from Kevin Pendergrass’s book Blinded by the Bible and it is a great read. Really brings up the problems with a lot of our paradigms and how we interpret the Bible and it’s just a great wake up call to really begin to think about what we are doing and why and where these methods come from. Anyway, I am really enjoying it. And this is what I wrote:

“Ouchies, our hypocrisy is showing…so epic! If we are going to acknowledge that abominable practices were allowed and regulated in the OT as a cultural accommodation and starting place, we must understand the NT in the same light. You cannot have it both ways. Either we go back to the patriarchal norm of the OT where it is not just any man, but the oldest man in every family, in charge of everyone (no matter what age) and able to decide what his sons will do for a living, whom they will marry, how they will worship, etc, and back to the days where you (and your sons and daughters) can be owned as chattel slaves (and yes, the Bible allows generational, permanent, chattel slavery as long as said slaves are not Israelites), then we have to keep following the path of wisdom and striving toward the perfection that will be the fully realized Kingdom of God on earth. Man and woman were made the tselem (image/idol) of God so that they could rule and reign over Creation wisely, not over other image-bearers. Is Yeshua/Jesus our King or not?

“Most Christians are willing to admit there is a fluid change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Yet, many believe that the New Testament is prescriptively fixed, meaning that while God accommodated trajectories and allowed immoral practices (ie slavery and misogyny) to be incorporated in the Old Testament, all the specific instructions in the New Testaments are unchanging, binding, and absolute.”

Pendergrass, Kevin. Blinded by the Bible : Rethinking Our Relationship with Scripture (p. 146). Kindle Edition.”

For context, he would be referring to the fact that although Paul never endorsed slavery, and said that slave and free are equal in Christ, he never forbade it either. And Pendergrass made the point that Paul, and I agree to this, probably could never forsee a world without slavery. Really, no one except the Ebionites really seemed to object to it and until the 1800’s there was no mass awakening and push to eradicate it based upon the command to love our neighbors as ourselves. I actually didn’t find this at all controversial, but just a really great point. We don’t approve of holy war/genocide. We don’t require women to be silent in the congregations (and neither did Paul, as that seemed to simply reflect a local thing in Ephesus), we wouldn’t consider it immoral for slaves to escape and most of us these days would harbor them, or at least I hope we would! Nor would we think it acceptable for American soldiers to go overseas and genocide everyone in a village except the virgins and to forcibly take them as wives. Now, if you have read my book Context for Adults then you know why those laws were enacted and why they were mostly an improvement on the way the rest of the world did those things and why they were better off that way. But we would consider such things war crimes now and rightly so. Yet, they were an improvement on the brutality of the ancient Near East. Let’s continue with his allegations:

“A month or so back, Tyler Dawn Rosenquist shared a post about how Polygyny (one man marrying more than one woman) and slavery laws are done away with in the new Covenant.”

Okay, let’s stop right there. I actually didn’t say that, here is the original post (I won’t provide links that would “out” his identity unless there is no alternative):

“Polygyny–the ancient patriarchal social construct that determined that (for the purposes of political alliances, production of heirs and a rich and powerful man’s lust) men and women aren’t equal in any way, shape, or form because men deserve exclusive sexual power over their wives but wives had no such privilege when it comes to their husbands.

Thank God that the overwhelming majority of men do understand that this is faithlessness to the wife of their youth.

Moses limited it as part of his “allowances” to the hardness of heart of the culture at large (as well as divorce per Yeshua/Jesus in Mark 10), along with strict limitations on the evil of chattel, generational slavery because it is a horrible thing for anyone to own and oppress a fellow image-bearer (be they enslaved or spouse). But in Mark 10:9 Yeshua says this–

“What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

But what does this mean in context and in clearer language? The context is one man and one woman being joined and him leaving the home of his parents (which they didn’t practice, by the way, men remained in the father’s home and brought the wives with them–so much for Hebraic culture being a faithful reflection of God’s will, eh?). And then Yeshua said, “What God has joined together (in a Covenant relationship of which He is the central player), let not “person” (anthropos–generic human being) separate (divide, come between, cause to withdraw or depart from).”

Polygyny, in the Bible, is always a destructive force within the family. Jacob’s sons, Leah and Rachel, Hannah and Peninnah, David’s sons, Solomon’s destruction of the kingdom, etc. It is because another person (or many, or hundreds) is separating husband and wife. There is no way around it. The woman has a divided husband and a divided home and a divided life and the children have a divided father. The man has a smorgasbord. The incoming wife is a separator, and the husband and she both are adulterers. That sin compromised David and led to the rape of Bathsheba and rivalries between the sons of different mothers before and after his death.

Yeshua doesn’t have multiple wives, but one wife–the Church. We aren’t individual brides but a collective. I am not a bride, we are the Bride:

“Husbands (plural), love your wives (plural, direct object of plural husbands), as Christ loved the church (singular) and gave himself (singular) up for her (singular), that he might sanctify her (singular), having cleansed her (singular) by the washing of water with the word, so that he (singular) might present the church (singular) to himself (singular) in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she (singular) might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands (plural) should love their wives (plural) as their own bodies. He (singular) who loves his wife (singular) loves himself.” (Eps 5:25-28, ESV)

What man is willing to love himself by sharing his wife with multiple husbands? Certainly not the men believing it is a good thing to have more than one wife. If they treat their own bodies to multiple women, then they must love their wives by allowing her to have multiple husbands. Of course, wives generally have no interest in this, we do desire our husbands and too many of them use it against us–just as Yahweh warned us would happen as a consequence of that relationship broken in the Garden.

I Timothy 3 is clear in the qualifications of Christian leadership and good standing–each man must be the husband of one wife. If not, if he came in with more than one wife which wasn’t common in Greco-Roman times but not unheard of either–some Jewish men still considered the lack of a Torah commandment outright outlawing it tantamount to making it a male prerogative. But to be a leader within the Body of Messiah, it was not permitted. Titus 1 repeats this prohibition because a Christian home cannot tolerate oppression. Oppression of a spouse is a violation of the Covenant and therefore grounds for divorce. When Yahweh divorced Israel, it was due to oppression and idolatry–the prophets actually spoke of oppression as much or more than idolatry as Yahweh’s reasons for anger. The Mormons ignored this and “black Mormons” (insider talk for polygamist sects) still do.

Anything, any doctrine, any tradition, that gives a man permission to run wild with his lust or longings for another woman is condoning the oppression of the wife of his youth and adultery. Anything, any doctrine, any tradition that prevents his wife from confronting and holding him accountable for his sin is oppression and a violation of the bilateral covenant of marriage. And anyone who is telling women to submit to this is an oppressor. Any woman who does this needs desperate prayer because no one would accept this as healthy if it had not been inflicted on them as some sort of way to please God by being treated as an inanimate object.

It seems like holiness to submit ourselves, as women, to a man’s oppression, dehumanizing us, and I have heard so many heartbreaking testimonies from women over the last 24 hours, but it is decidedly unholy. When we look at Scripture with an eye to see what we can get away with instead of with the goal of spurring us on to an end of oppression and radical, self-sacrificial love, the Bible becomes a weapon. When we grasp onto Moses’s allowances as rights and invitations to do as we will to others, evil is never far behind–be it in terms of the justification of chattel slavery, the degradation and dehumanizing of women, or the beating of children (anyone else read the abuse manual “To Train Up a Child”?). It damages the souls of all involved, and for what? Nothing of righteousness or justice. And it is damning their husbands, not saving them. That is not what love does. Love cares enough to confront–contempt inspires silence.”

Obviously nothing there about claiming that the New Covenant did away with the polygyny “laws”. However, I do not believe that either polygyny, misogyny, or slavery or genocide are compatible with the Gospel, and I stand firm on that. No apologies.

“On that post, I said this approach was a slippery slope. These commands are parts of God’s eternal law. If we say that some of God’s Law isn’t eternal and good and righteous, then before long we will be cutting out other things as well.”

Obviously rewriting what I said but okay. The allowances of Moses for the culture aka cultural accommodation, were in many ways good and righteous for the times. Righteous is a legal term meaning when two things are weighed in the balance, one comes out right and the other wrong. Compared to the laws of the ancient Near East, Torah was very righteous. But we cannot ignore the words of Yeshua/Jesus when He plainly stated that some of what is in there makes allowances for hard-heartedness and I definitely put slavery and polygyny in that category, along with quite a few other laws that we would never want to see followed now, like forcing POW virgins into marriage after slaughtering their families. Torah wasn’t given in a vacuum and it was the beginning of the legal conversation between God and men and not the end and the Jews totally get this.

“Well, today she shared what’s in the pictures below and unfriended me when I commented.”

Yes I did and it was a long time coming. I have been far more patient with him than with most. No idea why. Here’s why—the first commenter decided to change the subject and made insulting remarks about “sodomites” and how this sort of thing will lead to their justifying their “perversion” which had zero to do with the topic and when I corrected him on his use of sodomite, he and this other gentleman decided that I was waving a rainbow flag or something. What I said was this:

“I would rather err on the side of people going too far sexually than in the oppression allowed even during the first century. I believe that we are too quick to credit humans with rebellion than we are to credit the Spirit with the ability to led us in the right direction. And the sin of Sodom wasn’t sexual perversion. There were shame rape gangs violating foreigners not because of sexual attraction but because that was an ANE power play, it was symptomatic of the larger problem of oppression, which is what Ezekiel labels as their sin. Men don’t go around raping other males in the ancient world because of desire, it was a way to strip them of honor by treating them as women. It isn’t even remotely what we have in the world today. It was treating men like women, and the victim and not the perpetrator was shamed. Leviticus reversed that and made sure the rapists were subjected to penalties.”

Getting this wrong is one of my pet peeves and the person who said it is a teacher who should know better. And a scholar backed me up on my take on what happened in Sodom. Lev 18:22 reversed the pattern of the ANE world—a raped man wasn’t shamed while the rapist was honored because it made both sides of the homosexual relationship shameful. So, no more double standard. That being said, I don’t believe anything in Scripture would support the shaming of a male rape victim just because the crime happened to involve male penetration, which is inherent in the Lev 18:22 prohibition, as I explained later, in a comment that was conveniently not posted along with the original one. I also made it clear that slurs against homosexuals are not okay with me.

“this is why I speak up against when folks denounce polygyny and slavery as “absolute evil” and abolished by the New Covenant. It’s not popular. I get almost no love for it. Some folks pm me and thank me for taking the hits. The truth is that God allowed men to have slaves and allowed husbands to marry more than one wife as long as she wasn’t taken to spite the first wife. God also sanctioned the destruction of babies. Our cultural morality needs to take a back seat to God’s.

When there is a justification for changing the standard of what God allows to continue (God doesn’t ever endorse the continuation of sin), it never stops there. The justifications keep rolling. Before you know it, the sin of Sodom is redefined, and Leviticus 18’s prohibition against homosexuality is rewritten off as a cultural polemic against ANE sex gangs.

Thanks for asking this question.”

Obviously a cheap shot across my bow and I had just had enough at that point. Enough of the assumptions, enough of the chest beating about taking the hits and getting no love. So yeah, unfriended him. I admit it, no apologies. And I locked it all down because the post had become about homosexuality while the actual context had been lost. I was at the airport and had a long day ahead where I knew I wasn’t getting home until at least midnight and I just didn’t have the patience.

“To summarize, she’s saying that *because* we have *moved forward* from and *abolished* slavery and polygyny from the Old Testament revelation, we can do similarly with New Testament revelation pertaining to women in positions of leadership.”

Whoa there, this is literally the first mention of women in positions of leadership. What the heck? I do teach whoever will listen, obviously, and would never tell a man he can’t listen to me. I also say that we have to be sensitive to the Spirit and not close our eyes and ears to when God calls someone to leadership, regardless of gender and I do point out the instances of female leadership within the NT corpus. But he just added 1 and 1 and got the letter W. Now, I did point out that Yeshua pointed to a much better way, obviously, and there are a lot of things that we recognize now to be cultural accommodation and a starting place toward how things will be in the New Jerusalem. I don’t feel that’s controversial. I also never said that anything was abolished from the OT revelation, I mean, it’s still written there, right? I am not endorsing rewriting the Bible. But I do make it clear that the world has changed and so now that women are educated we shouldn’t feel bound by the restriction that existed in Ephesus when in Corinth it obviously wasn’t practiced, as per Paul’s own words and by his approval. That’s it.

“She was pressed about her position, and her answer was simply heresy.”

I assume he is talking about my correction of what happened in Sodom and why calling them sodomites is misleading—as Ezekiel himself tells us in 16:49-52.

^“Behold, 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. So I removed them, when I saw it. Samaria has not committed half your sins. You have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed. Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have intervened on behalf of your sisters. Because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.”

Is Ezekiel guilty of redefining the sin of Sodom? I mean, you don’t even get to the point where rape gangs are roaming the street unless there is first a systematic and severe level of oppression and wickedness going on. That isn’t what people do as their first step into oppression. And a major NT scholar backed me up on it—is he guilty as well? In fact, you won’t find serious scholars making the claim that the sin of Sodom is homosexuality because serious scholars know their Bible too well to make that mistake and peer review would tear them apart. It’s only the un and under educated who make this error. So count Ezekiel among the heretics.

What I was pressed about, and refused to answer (but I will answer later) is if that meant that I endorsed homosexuality. Now, you have to know me and I despise people changing the subject on my posts and then trying to force me along with the agenda. And I had had a long day and was being toyed with and the guy demanding the answer wasn’t even acknowledging his error, he just sidestepped and was interrogating me—based on nothing but assumption. And in private messages after I just locked it down because I was sick of the nonsense and that agenda having taken over, he demanded that I answer him or else he would be forced to assume I supported it. You see, that’s just a mistake with me. I have lived with that sort of manipulation and threats and it just doesn’t work with me. I will refuse to answer every time because it was out of line. But I will answer it in a bit because it is my choice to do so and I hate to encourage bad behavior.

“She recently just taught at a women’s conference in Dallas, Tx and folks need to be aware of what she is teaching.”

I teach everything out in the open so it isn’t even really a question. And now he will make a list of claims that are kinda weird. And remember that until I unfriended him, he wasn’t raising any concerns about my teachings.

“She’s teaching that the apostles oppressed women and taught oppression.”

Excuse me, what? Has anyone ever heard me say such a thing? On the contrary, I make a point of talking about how positively egalitarian they were compared to the world around them. They looked like liberals, for goodness sake, compared to the surrounding culture. So this is a flat out lie. He made it up. It can’t even be argued coherently from anything I have ever taught. I have made it plain that Paul set a definite trajectory toward a more balanced relationship between men and women and especially in the congregations. Twenty percent of the leadership of the early church that he cites were women! He called Junia an apostle and others were deacons and such. Oppressive? Heck no. But they did also practice cultural accommodation based upon the cities they were in and the specific concerns. Paul told masters to treat their slaves as equals. I just—I don’t know where this comes from but it must involve some really creative eisegesis.

“She’s apologizing for modern same-sex activity as *not* what God forbid (sic) in Lev 18-19.”

No, but I did clean up some bad context on the slur “sodomite”. I never said anything about Lev 18-19 not referring to homosexuality. A homosexual, however, isn’t a rapist and just because men rape men, doesn’t make them homosexual. It’s about power, now and then. Rape is something that violent people do, regardless of sexual orientation.

“I explain my position a bit in my comment on her post, but I’ll give a brief answer. All of God’s laws are good, and we need to lean on His understanding and not our own—even when it comes to marriage, slavery, genocide, and who can lead ministry, etc. Until she repents of what she is teaching, she should be unfollowed.”

So, his take is unless something is outright outlawed, we can’t call it bad and therefore it must be righteous. He defends slavery, polygyny, etc. and is very vocal about it. I won’t detail his teachings or even name him. But I am responding to the lies and charges and twisting of what I have said and believe.

Am I an apologist for homosexual behavior? No, I do believe that the Bible clearly outlaws it. However, and this is where the confusion comes in—what the Bible describes is not what we know today either. It was describing sex, pure and simple and actually only male homosexuality. Paul is the first to even mention women and he didn’t do that until near the end of his life when he wrote Romans. What would be said now about committed relationships between same sex people? I don’t know but I do fall on the side of there still being a prohibition. What I do know is that I love those who are same-sex attracted. If Fred Phelps rose from the grave and was chasing them down in the streets with a gun, I hope I would have the courage to hide them and care for them in my own home before allowing them to die. So, I don’t approve but I also wouldn’t dream of allowing them to come to harm. But then, don’t we all disapprove of this or that in another person’s life? Why does this one loom so large when worse sins like gossip run unchecked in our congregations? And not just gossip. I do not see it as being any more offensive than other things described as abominations, like eating unclean meats (Lev 11), dishonest scales (Pro 11:1), and this entire section of Proverbs 6:16-19:

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. (ESV)

Honestly, given the choice of being in a church full of gays and lesbians and being in a church full of the people in Proverbs 6, there is no contest. And frankly, those abominations describe very well what happened in that group (and at least one more) on Monday, and in the fact that that post remained up for over 24 hours while the admins couldn’t decide it if was wrong or not, and that the only person involved who has apologized or tried to make things right was the one person who had nothing to apologize for. And if this was just a matter of adults thinking these things about me and believing the lies, I wouldn’t really care. But my primary ministry is to kids and for the last seven weeks, specifically trying to help them deal with gender and identity confusion in particular so that they will have a firm foundation. I mean, that’s the irony of the situation. I am trying to keep kids out of all that and here I am being slandered as an apologist. The timing doesn’t seem all that coincidental to me. Parents need to trust me and they need to know what I do and do not teach and what my ministry aims are in teachings kids about the Bible. This isn’t a hobby for me although I am not paid for it either. I am tired of watching kids fall away from the faith when they grow up. I am tired of them not being able to answer the hard questions and I hate it when they are so sheltered that they are caught off guard by objections that they have nothing but easy answers and platitudes to offer that are easily knocked down even by an unbeliever of moderate intelligence. I want them to know who God is, who they are, and the purpose of His Word to us. It bothers me deeply to think that parents would be scared of me because of what they have heard from someone with an axe to grind simply because I believe slavery and polygyny to be incompatible with the Gospel Yeshua preached.

But next week I will have to let you know about the miracles that happened at the Surge Women’s Conference in Texas (but not in Dallas, he was wrong about that too), and especially those related to my health and my ministry future.