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Sodom & Gomorrah As They Relate to Christianity & Culture

February 21st, 2006 | 3 min read

By Matthew Lee Anderson

On Sunday my church considered Genesis 18:16-19:38, the story of the destruction of the infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A key character in the story is Lot, Abraham's nephew, who decided to go down into the fertile valley of the cities. Apparently, Lot found himself in the midst of a horrendously wicked group of people and his reaction to that situation in the unfolding of this passage of Scripture tells us a great deal about how Christians ought to interact with the culture surrounding them - namely that one must either actively confront the culture or retreat, passivity is not a good strategy.

When the two angels of the Lord in human form come to Lot, we find him mingling amongst the people of the city. He graciously takes in the two men, but soon the whole of the men of  the city, both young and old, are banging at the door clamoring to rape the new guys. Lot steps outside his home in the middle of the city in an attempt to calm the crowd and calls them "brothers" or "friends" showing that he was intimately involved in the community.

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Matthew Lee Anderson

Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.