Tag Archives: Sodom

America’s Lot Moment

29 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Current Events, Pop, Social Justice

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sodoma_-_aldegrever

I wrote this only a few days after the election.  This is how I felt – not only at the time – but continue to feel as I process what happened in our country.  This is how I feel every time I hear of another hate crime committed. 

 

I am a woman of privilege.  While I have some awareness of my racial, citizenship, and sexual orientation privilege, I am also still waking up to my privilege.  The results of the election came as a shock, and part of this shock is due to my privilege-related naiveté. 

This was written with much respect to all people who have been assaulted in any shape or form, not making light of assault, and also knowing that a piece of us felt violated on Election Day because the results affirmed the complacency with abuse.  Abuse has happened in many forms, and the Bible reflects that abuse as well.  Please be aware that this could be a TRIGGER WARNING for many people.

*****

“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.” (Genesis 19:8)

I imagine most people feel disgust after reading this text and are shocked to know this is actually in our sacred Scripture.  Angels, in the form of two strangers, visit Lot in Sodom.  When the community heard about the visitors, they bang on Lot’s door and order him to send them outside so that they can know them intimately – – or, basically, rape the two men.

Lot refuses to accept their demands.  Instead, he offers them another option.  Here are my two virgin daughters.  Know the two of them intimately instead of our visitors.

Unfortunately, Lot’s daughters would not be enjoying the intimacy that comes when two people mutually give themselves to one another.  This would be a violent gang rape of two young women.  Based on the fury of this crowd, there is even a possibility the rape would have led to the death of one or both of the young women as we see in the similar story of Judges 19.

What appears in Genesis 19 does not seem like a story about Lot’s hospitality or creative problem solving. By offering his daughters, Lot still affirms the violent actions of a group of men. He does not give a second thought to sacrifice his daughters in the attempts to placate the Sodom community and to protect the rights of the privileged.

Up until a week ago, whenever I read this text, I could not fully imagine what the two daughters must feel.  How could someone who says they love you be fine with throwing you away with such haste? How could the one to whom you looked for protection be willing to throw you to the wolves knowing that you would be violently attacked?

And then the election of 2016 happened. Just like Lot’s problem-solving proposal, it felt like many Americans have offered up the lives of people of color, the bodies of women, the equality of LGBT people, the religious freedom of Muslims, the well-being of immigrants, and the dignity of people who are disabled.  In the process of trying to solve foreign and domestic issues, our neighbors chose to overlook love of neighbor and turn their heads so that racism, sexism, xenophobia and bigotry could grow stronger.

While some believe that the election results will eventually lead to positive results in our country, within the first week we saw the number of hate crimes grow.  Pictures of hateful words spray painted alongside of buildings and videos of students chanting slurs continue to become the new normal in 2016 America.

Couldn’t Lot have offered a more humane solution? Couldn’t we, as Americans and Christians be more compassionate and considerable in the way we solve our problems?

Some of our neighbors wonder why we still “can’t get over” the election results and its aftermath. Like Lot offering to throw his children to strangers in order to solve a problem, many people across our country feel like their neighbors were willing to toss them aside in an effort to build a country that could be to their satisfaction once again.

Knowing that many of us have been treated like Lot’s daughters has left us aching, worrying, and wondering what will happen next.

It feels like we must live under a new normal. We must live with the normality of women being physically assaulted.  We must live with a renewed interest in a type of “law and order” which will elevate the mass incarceration of our brothers and sisters of color.  We must know that families will be torn apart based on who was born in this country and who was born elsewhere.  We must know that Muslims fear for their lives as the country waits to see if a registry is forced upon them.   We must know that marriages of our gay, lesbian, and bisexual sisters and brothers are in jeopardy.

We may be Lot’s daughters in twenty-first century America, but we refuse to be thrown to the men of Sodom without a struggle.

Lot’s daughters found agency… and all who have been marginalized will find their power.

*****

Photo credit: Heinrich Aldegrever (1502-1561), Lot impedisce la violenza contro gli angeli, (1555).

 

Not Only in Steubenville

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in Current Events, Life, Pop

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There may be triggers with this post.

And it may be NSFW.  But so is the Bible in certain places.

Let me tell you a story.  No names will be used to protect all involved.

One weekend night in college, my friends came back from a night at a bar.  Most of them were pretty intoxicated and very sick from their evening libations.  A couple of them were unconscious.  They thought they had alcohol poisoning.  Looking back on the situation, I wonder if there were other substances that had been slipped into their drinks by someone at the bar… but that’s secondary to this story.

A number of people were in one dorm room.  I saw all of this occur from the doorway as many of my closest friends were in the room.  The person who lived in that dorm room, Mr. Snake, decided to kick everyone out of the dorm room except Ms. Deer who was passed out on his bed.  Two of my male friends refused to leave the room.  One jumped on Mr. Snake’s back.  The other, Mr. Rhino, headbutted Mr. Snake, in order to protect his friend Ms. Deer.

Guess who got in trouble from this?  Mr. Rhino, of course.

It doesn’t matter if Mr. Rhino was standing up for Ms. Deer trying to protect her from any abuse or violation  (and thank God she wasn’t raped or abused).  What mattered to the powers that be is that Mr. Rhino be held accountable for what he did to Mr. Snake even when his actions were needed.

I was friends with men who stood up for the protection of women, but when they were trying to be faithful allies to women, they were the ones who got in trouble.

The ones who wanted to take advantage of women never got reprimanded by the powers that be.

Too many people I know have endured sexual assault in many various forms.  There are men who cared about these women and tried to protect them.  But there were still men who felt they had the right to use these women’s bodies as they wanted.

I’d love say that any decent human being should know not to rape someone when they are passed out or in any other vulnerable position.  Isn’t this a “duh” situation: don’t hurt someone who is more vulnerable than you.

But I guess some people need to feel powerful.  And abuse is how they attain that power.

The conversation we should be having in the 21st century must include how we associate power with sex, and that conversation must include how the Bible portrays rape.

The Bible, especially the Old Testament, does not do the greatest job defending people against rape.  Sure if a man is to rape a man, then that’s an incredible sin.  People associate the sin of Sodom being sex between men, but the Sodom citizens really wanted power over the visitors.

Lot offers his daughters in return.  So, back during the time when this text was written, it was apparently more acceptable to offer women and their bodies.  Fortunately for the girls, the Sodomites didn’t want Lots daughters.

Yet even Lot’s daughters took advantage of their father while he was drunk.  (This can go both ways.  While women being attacked by men is more common, we can’t forget that men can be assaulted as well.)

A similar story to Lot offering the rape of his daughters is found in Judges 19.  When the men in a town called Gibeah demand to rape a male visitor to the town, his host offers to give the men his virgin daughter and the guest’s concubine.  As the host says to the rowdy men “Ravish them and do whatever you want to them; but against this man do not do such a vile thing.”  The men of Gibeah take the concubine and assault her all night.  They throw her dead body in front of the guest’s door.

Did women have so much less value than men that they deserved to have their bodies raped until they were dead?

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 does not condemn a man from raping an unmarried woman.  He must buy her as a wife from her father.

(And sometimes I wonder how I’m still a Christian with texts such as these.)

And then I continue to read… The book Song of Solomon shows a more egalitarian and loving relationship between two people.  Seeing 1 Corinthians 13, I am reminded what real love is about: not taking advantage of another.  Jesus was never a “power over” person but rather “power with” those around him.

Why do we continue to allow a rape culture, and does Scripture perpetrate that culture?  If it looks alright in the Bible, which was written in a completely different context, are we implicitly allowing it in our current culture?

Which leads us to Steubenville.  People turned their heads and laughed as a young, unconscious drunk girl was sexually assaulted.  Why were there no people like my friend Mr. Rhino?  Where were the men and women who could have called the police?  Why do the powers that be cover up and glorify certain men (especially ones who shine in sports)?

And in how many other high schools and colleges are situations like these happening?  It’s time to talk, and it’s time to put Scripture stories of rape in their proper place.