The Sin of Sodomy Series

WARNING: The following is a Tongue and Cheek analysis of the Sin of Sodomy in action.

For many Christian’s, the sin of sodomy is considered one of the worst of all sins; a sin worthy of God’s most severe punishment. This belief is based on a centuries old interpretation of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where God supposedly destroyed those ill fated cities for committing homosexual sins.

As the belief in the wickedness of Sodom became entrenched within Christianity, Christians became increasingly fearful of God’s wrath. For centuries, Christian rulers enacted harsh laws against sodomy in an effort eradicate sodomy to once and for all. Christians believed that by eliminating sodomy, or at least restricting it as much as possible, God’s anger would be quenched thus preventing their own destruction. But is this belief based on any verifiable real world data? Or is this belief just religious nonsense cooked up by a bunch of holier-than-thou theologians? Does God actually punish evil sodomite cities and bless faithful Christian cities? If God actually destroyed sodomite cities, then it should be relatively easy to observe evidence of God’s wrath throughout the course of history. In theory, an upstanding Christian city should experience fewer catastrophes than an evil non-christian city.  For our purposes I will call this the Sodomy Theory.

To check the reliability of the Sodomy Theory, I examined the histories of three famous cities for patterns demonstrating God’s wrath. The cities I looked at were Rome, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and Jerusalem. I searched the historical record of these cities looking for patterns that would indicate God punished sinful cities more than righteous cities. The histories of these cities span between 1,700 and 2,600 years, covering many transitions between different religious and political systems.

Methodology

Throughout history, these three cities they have been subject to numerous disasters and calamities. Fortunately, these disasters and calamities have been extremely well documented enabling me to do a complete analysis. To start, I organized each city’s historical record into eras based on logical transitions from one religious and/or political system into another. The following is a list of eras I have created for each city:

Rome

• 500BCE-27BCE – Pagan Republican Rome. This is the era where men were men, and the virtuous, self-reliant Roman citizen helped forge the empire. Historians of all ages look back on this time as an era of honour and moral virtue.
• 27BCE-300 – Pagan Imperial Rome. Sin City, need I say more? This is the stage where Imperial Rome got its reputation for sexual immorality and decadence. One might expect Imperial Rome to be the ideal candidate for God’s wrath.
• 300—1900 – Christian Rome. Rome became a Christian city in approximately 300AD. How does a city become Christian? It does so when a majority of its citizens profess the Christian faith. Early, Christianity was essentially an urban phenomenon that attracted middle/upper class city dwellers in droves. As we all know, Rome became the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church and as such, I will classify the city as a Christian city for the following 1,600 years. Given Rome’s high standing within the Christian faith, one would expect the city to be more Christian and virtuous than the decadent version that preceded it.
• 1900-2009 – Modern Rome. With the emergence of the modern era, cities became a lot more secular and a lot less religious. Along with the rise of secularism is the increased tolerance of homosexuality. One might also think that the increase in homosexual behaviour among modern city dwellers may lead to an increase in punishment from God.

Constantinople

• 324–1453 – Christian Constantinople. Constantinople was founded by Constantine I to be the Roman Empire’s new capital. Constantinople was to be the new capital of a Christian Roman Empire that would usher in an era of Christian righteousness. Given Constantinople’s Christian beginnings one would expect it would curry God’s approval for years to come.
• 1453-1920 – Muslim Constantinople. Like all good things, they must come to an end. The city fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and became the seat of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 500 years. The change in religion away from Christianity gives us an excellent opportunity to examine whether the city suffered an increase in disasters.
• 1920-2009 – Modern Istanbul. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, Constantinople was renamed Istanbul and remade into a modern city.

Jerusalem

• 630BCE-135AD – Hebrew Jerusalem. This is the Jerusalem of the Bible’s Old Testament that we all know and love and is chock-a-block full of God’s wrath and punishment. This era gives us a baseline to compare God’s punishment of the city (as described in the Bible) with that of succeeding generations that occupied the city.
• 135-330 – Pagan Jerusalem. At the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135, Jerusalem was razed to the ground and all Jews were expelled. Jerusalem was remade into a pagan city and Jews were forbidden to enter.
• 330-636 – Christian Jerusalem. On Constantine’s orders, the city was rebuilt as a Christian center of worship and remained thus for the extent of Christian rule. Jews were still banned from entering the city.
• 636-1099 – Islamic Jerusalem. A new religion called Islam rose out of Arabia and swept across the Middle East vacuuming up almost everything in its path. During Islamic rule, Jews and Christians were permitted to live and travel to the city.
• 1099-1244 – Crusader Jerusalem. Crusades were sent from Western Europe to the Holy Land in an effort to restore Jerusalem to Christianity.
• 1244-1917 – Islamic Jerusalem. Eventually, the Crusades petered out and the Muslims were able to restore Jerusalem to Islamic rule.
• 1917-2009 – Modern/Israeli Jerusalem. The British conquest of Jerusalem in 1917 ended Islamic rule over the city. Jerusalem became the capital of modern day Israel in 1948.

Secondly, I have identified and counted the tragedies these cities have suffered.  I organized these tragedies into the following categories:

• Floods – Applicable only to Rome. Since Rome is located on the Tiber River, it is often subject to devastating floods at irregular intervals.
• Fires – These are devastating fires that destroy entire neighbourhoods. These fires could be started by earthquakes, sieges, battles or riots.
• Sieges/Battles/Riots – These three cities have often been subject to sieges and battles where the city has resisted or been captured by enemy forces. Sieges and battles can often cause considerable distress and destruction within the affected city. I also lumped riots together in this category since military force was often required to put down the revolt.
• Earthquakes – This applies to Constantinople and Jerusalem. These two cities were often subject to devastating earthquakes at irregular intervals.
• Plagues – Plagues were often the curse of the ancient and medieval world. They left devastation in their wake often wiping out entire cities.  Influenza epidemics will be counted here as well.

For each era, I summed the number of tragedies and then calculated the total number of calamities per century. This gives me a metric allowing me to make comparisons between the different historical eras. From this data, I did some analysis and drew a few conclusions. In Part II of the Wrath of God, I will present my results and provide some analysis of what all these numbers mean.