One pastor-friend wrote:

A couple of weeks ago The Age Newspaper featured a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer's specious contribution to this debate, claiming that lack of hospitality was the sin of Sodom that prompted God to destroy the city. Wow! Let's all keep our larders full and empty chairs and extra settings available for every meal or snack in future, because none of the New Testament letters include this dire consequence (apart from entertaining angels and leaders needing to be given to it) with respect to hospitality. If the rest of his writing is as badly researched as that contribution, I can imagine that the awards committee would be keen to Pulitzer Prize out of his reach in future!

To which Nathan responded:

You are of course welcome to your opinions on homosexuality, but if you are going to criticise the quality of someone else's research, you'd be well advised to make sure your own is exemplary. The statement that God's anger at Sodom was over their lack of hospitality is not an idle speculation. It comes directly from the Bible itself; from Ezekiel 16:49. It is the most explicit Biblical attempt to summarise and name the sin of Sodom. There are plenty that speak more generally about abominations, and it has become customary to say that that must mean homosexuality because of the homosexual dimension of the event described in Genesis. Of course the events described in Genesis also constituted rape, but I don't hear anyone makes the similar logical step that God despises all heterosexual behaviour on the basis of the events described in 2 Samuel 13:1-22.

While it is quite reasonable to assume the sexual acts of Sodom were at least a significant part of the sin of Sodom, it is also true that the sexual exploitation of strangers is far from being unrelated to the Old Testament hospitality codes. Your facetious use of modern examples of the meaning of hospitality to discredit the author's argument would suggest that you know precious little about the nature and significance of the hospitality codes in the Mosaic law. If bad research is the charge you wish to level, I think you may have to attend to a log in your own eye first!

Peace and hope,

Nathan

_____________________________________ Nathan Nettleton Pastor, South Yarra Community Baptist Church Melbourne, Australia