Customer Reviews

The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book addresses some of the same terrain as John Boswell's 1980 book CHRISTIANITY, SOCIAL TOLERANCE, AND HOMOSEXUALITY, but with important points of contrast, one of which is it's half the earlier book's length in pages.

Jordan takes a Christianized, quasi-Foucauldian approach to the subject, whereas Boswell's approach was essentialist, stressing historical continuities which Jordan opposes. Boswell equated the modern concept of homosexuality with the medieval concept of sodomy, whereas Jordan does not.

Instead, Jordan argues that the term "sodomy," as used by early church fathers and pre-Renaissance theologians, was a usefully vague invective, employed not altogether differently from the ways "philistinism" was used later or, for that matter, the way "homophobia" is used in some circles today.

But parallel to what Jordan says about the term "homophobia," "sodomy," too, has been used politically not as a precise explanation for human behavior, but as "a placeholder for an explanation yet to be provided" (167-68).

[Arguably, as philosopher Judith Butler does argue elsewhere (cogently), the same could be said for the current uses of "gay," "homosexual," "queer," etc., or for that matter, "sex."]

Jordan's book is an important one for people who identify themselves as either Christian or gay (--or both) because it addresses issues underlying the clash of values and "culture wars" being played out in society now. If indeed, as Jordan suggests, "sodomy" was invented to fill a gap left by Christendom's refusal of the "erotic"--even between two sexes, perhaps progress lies in our seeking a place for the erotic INSIDE the moral, instead of persisting in (often hypocritically) dichotomizing the two--something, in response to a previous reader's comments, Plato did NOT do (though the later Platonists did).

The writing and reasoning in this history of the medieval formation of Christian condemnation of the "nefarious sin" of "sodomy" are very crisp. My only complaint is that the book is too short (not examining the condemnation of "sodomites" in the first Christian millennium, or in Jewish or Islamic theology).

Jordan shows how one after another Church Father produced incoherent condemnations of sodomy--monastic, clerical, and layman--in part out of concern for suggesting such a sin to those not aware of its possibility, in part not wanting to reveal the extent of its prevalence within the priesthood and monasteries. One striking feature is that this tradition/discourse only began more than a thousand years after Christ, who is not recorded as having condemned sodomy or sodomites.

at the start of the second millennium of Christianity.

Looking at the preceding "review" that ignores the subject of the book (what Christian theologians of roughly a millennium ago wrote about "sodomy") and seems to have been written by someone who did not read the book but substituted his own condemnations of homosexuality, I was astounded to read that Romans 1 is clear. The "reviewer" also must not have read that, because the syntax (in the original, which the reviewer probably does not know was not English) is VERY convoluted.

There are no condemnations of "sodomy" (by any name) in the Gospels that allegedly report the words of the Christ, and Mark Jordan's book does not deal with the Hebrew background or the first millennium of Christianity.

(An earlier reviewer must not have seen the blurb FROM Michel Foucault for John Boswell's book, one that is considerably less sound than Jordan's.)

Jordan does show convincingly that "sodomy," in the Bible defined as the sins of the men of Sodom, applies to a range of sinful activities rather than specifically homosexual ones. He does not, however, show that homosexual activity is excluded within that range of activities.

But even if Jordan were to show that homosexual activity is not one of the sins of Sodom, the implication for us is merely that "sodomy"--if we would like to be etymologically correct--ought not be used as a term for homosexual activity. If he were to establish that, he would not be establishing that homosexual activity is not a sin. The only implication would be that we should use a different term to describe homosexual sin (as for instance was often done by using the more inclusive term "luxuria," it appears). Since Jordan shows a hermeneutical friendliness to the Bible (which is what motivates his etymological interest in "sodomy" in the first place), he would be hard pressed to do away with passages of similar brevity in which homosexual activity is specifically labeled as a sin. (In fact he ignores these passages entirely, as the authors he reads do not, which decimates the value of his arguments around pp. 166 ff.)

Regarding the Middle Ages, even if "sodomy" had been constructed incorrectly as a term for homosexual activity and similar sexual sins, the idea of those sins was not constructed. His interest turns out to be merely etymological through page 40.

For most of the remainder of the book, Jordan moves to "invention" in the rhetorical sense, finding all the different ways that sodomy was discussed--seldom engaging the arguments, as though he is having enough fun repeating all the unsayable words.

On 42 and towards the end, he unfairly objects to the use of places and place-names as symbols, calling this an "essentialism" that is "antihistorical." This hermeneutical prejudice is untenable, and not just in the case of Sodom. One might say that "homophobia" is also one of those words that is used as "an attack upon a [supposedly] malignant essence" (43, cf. 167-68). If Jordan really is attacking the whole system of applying abstract words to sets of activities, he loses the ability to make many of his own points as well.

For those interested in the relationship of nature and ethics, the most relevant and good parts are: 54-56, which are especially good for showing the connection between nature, reason, and ethics in Peter Damian; at 87 (and the whole section as well), esp. where Jordan summarizes how Alan of Lille demonstrates the naturalistic fallacy; after a lot of digressing, some material on Albert the Great at 126 ff.; and a good summary of Aristotle's NE at 132. By the Albert the Great section, it becomes apparent that the relation of pleasure to the natural and the moral is what is really at issue. One should also pick up some Plato on this, e.g. from the Laws, 732e, 836c-e, 838b-839c, passages which seem very pertinent. Jordan and Plato seem to diverge regarding this relation. My vote is with Plato.

I had the pleasure of being taught by Mark Jordan my senior year of college at Emory University. I'm not a particularly emotional person when I'm not supposed to be, but one of the lectures he gave in class about this very topic made me teary. I would say that any piece of academic work that you can get your hands on by Dr. Jordan is a must-have.

Only a "scholar" could ignore the plain text of Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-32, and similar pre-Christian and early Christian proscriptions of homosexual sex, then divert into the etymology of the term "sodomy" to pretend that the sinfulness of homosexual behavior is some recent fabrication of a "homophobic" cabal in the Church. As early as the Council of Ancyra (314 A.D.) the Church spoke juridically against those "who.. commit [acts of] defilement with animals or males." Certainly that the Church spoke in different terms, even in circumlocutions, to avoid describing acts so foul against Christian morality provides no "cover" for the sin. Whether "sodomy," "defilement," or "liers with mankind," Christians have always taught that homosexual behavior is intrinsically disordered and sinful --- at least until revisionist "scholars" sought to muddy the water with fabrications.

No one is at fault. It is simply the nature of the beast that each book has its limitations, each author his or here axe to grind, and so be it, and so what? The point is that books in general and this book in particular do not go far enough, deep enough. Robert Graves (e.g., THE GREEK MYTHS) is a good place to start one's investigation into the Original Sodomy, which was heterosexual...always!...indeed, it involved a complex sodomistic Priesthood in honor of the Great Goddess, and had nothing whatsoever to do with males.