My son’s 10th grade theology teacher in Old Testament explained to his class that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was strictly a story about hospitality. He dismissed the moral comment on homosexuality or on God being capable of punishment. “God is a forgiving God.” I got into an argument with my 15 year old over how God could be both a God of mercy and of justice. My son doesn’t believe God would execute his justice until after someone dies.
What is the best way to approach this subject with my son especially in regards to old testament stories.
The Catholic Library states the following;
***If there’s any misrepresenting going on, it’s being perpetrated by your parish priest. There is nothing in Genesis 18 or 19 which could support his theory that a lack of hospitality was the crime that caused God to annihilate Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 18 God said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin [singular] is so grave . . .” (v. 20). What was the sin which “cried out” for punishment?
Genesis 19 recounts the story of how Abraham’s nephew, Lot, entertained two angels at his home in Sodom. Word got around that Lot had some visiting men in his home, and “the townsmen of Sodom, both young and old,” gathered outside his home, clamoring for the two visitors to be turned over so that they could be homosexually raped: “Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we might have intimacies with them.”
Notice what’s going on here. The strangers had been shown hospitality by Lot and his family (vv. 1-3). The townsmen didn’t cry out to Lot that they wanted to be “inhospitable” to the visitors, but that they wanted to have intercourse with them, which is something markedly different. Lot attempts to quell the mob by offering them his two virgin daughters*, suspecting that because these men were homosexuals they would refuse. The entire account revolves around a single sin: homosexuality.
While it’s true that later Old Testament prophets pointed out other sins the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of (Is. 1:9-20, 3:9, Ezek. 16:46-51, Jer. 23:14), it’s clear that the primary sin, the sin which provoked God’s wrath, was homosexuality.
If you examine the Old Testament passages in which God outlines the sins which would merit the death penalty under the Mosaic Law (Lev. 20:27, 24:10-23; Deut. 13:5-10, 21:18-21, 22:21-24), you’ll see that homosexuality was condemned alongside such crimes as murder, idolatry, and blasphemy (Lev. 20:13). Search as you might, you won’t find the Lord meting out the death penalty to persons guilty of inhospitality. **
My son doesn’t believe God destroyed the cities because there had to be innocent children and women. By the way this aging Jesuit teacher also explained the multiplication of the loaves with the old liberal interpretation of Jesus just convincing them to share. This is what I’m dealing with.
saludos, cubalibre
God is indeed a merciful God. He grants mercy to those who seeks it. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.”
If the innocent lives were killed in Sodom and Gommorah would judge them accordingly by reading their heart. He would rightly so reward them. Death is a new beginning, it is not the end. It is what is often called in the Scripture, the “next life.”
I hope this will help.
