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The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (Volume 1997)
In this reexamination of what it means to have a tradition, Catholic and otherwise, Mark D. Jordan offers a powerful and provocative study of the sin of erotic love between men. The Invention of Sodomy reveals the theological fabrication of arguments for categorizing genital acts between members of the same sex.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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About the author
Mark D. Jordan
35 books5 followersMark D. Jordan is the Andrew Mellon Professor of Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School and Professor of the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. His focus is on European philosophy, gender studies, and sexuality. Much of his early work related to Catholic teachings of Thomas Aquinas. In recent years, he has more specifically focused on religious doctrine and its relation to LGBT issues.
In addition to his scholarship and classroom teaching, Jordan has discussed sexual and religious issues to audiences that range from college lectureships to National Public Radio, the New York Times, and CNN.
Jordan won the annual Randy Shilts Award for nonfiction for his 2011 book, Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality.
Prior to his return to Harvard in 2014, Jordan had held endowed professorships at Emory, Washington University at St. Louis, Notre Dame and at Harvard. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright-Hays grant (Spain), a Luce Fellowship in Theology, and a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Jordan received his BA from St. John’s College and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He grew up in Dallas, where he graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas.
In addition to his scholarship and classroom teaching, Jordan has discussed sexual and religious issues to audiences that range from college lectureships to National Public Radio, the New York Times, and CNN.
Jordan won the annual Randy Shilts Award for nonfiction for his 2011 book, Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk about Homosexuality.
Prior to his return to Harvard in 2014, Jordan had held endowed professorships at Emory, Washington University at St. Louis, Notre Dame and at Harvard. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright-Hays grant (Spain), a Luce Fellowship in Theology, and a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Jordan received his BA from St. John’s College and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He grew up in Dallas, where he graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
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March 24, 2012Good grief this was hardgoing. Not just because of its dry style of writing, though that is certainly the case, but also because of the contortions and twisted logic that is sometimes exercised by the some of the Fathers of the Church in their obsession with all things willy related.
Acquinas' comment about angels dancing on the head of a pin is normally seen, I think, as one which points out the ridiculous attempt to discuss and encapsulate things of the spirit in too simplistic terms. The ruminating and over-obsessing about definitive fact and figures when debating the things of faith and God is a mixing up of different disciplines it seems and yet both 'sides' of the argument try and argue the other into submission using its own vocabulary and concept without attmepting to communicate in the other's lingo. It drives me insane because it prevents any meaningful opening out to the other.
This book looks at the various approaches and developements, if that is the right word, of the history of the Church's stance on homosexuality as circumscibed with the word 'Sodomy'. It is a very academic tome and one that has not really affected my own feelings one way or the other unless it is to increase my frustration at so much effort given over by the Church to criticizing and belittling genuine attempts at living lives of love whilst injustice and rank poverty continues on unaddressed or certainly unabated.
Acquinas' comment about angels dancing on the head of a pin is normally seen, I think, as one which points out the ridiculous attempt to discuss and encapsulate things of the spirit in too simplistic terms. The ruminating and over-obsessing about definitive fact and figures when debating the things of faith and God is a mixing up of different disciplines it seems and yet both 'sides' of the argument try and argue the other into submission using its own vocabulary and concept without attmepting to communicate in the other's lingo. It drives me insane because it prevents any meaningful opening out to the other.
This book looks at the various approaches and developements, if that is the right word, of the history of the Church's stance on homosexuality as circumscibed with the word 'Sodomy'. It is a very academic tome and one that has not really affected my own feelings one way or the other unless it is to increase my frustration at so much effort given over by the Church to criticizing and belittling genuine attempts at living lives of love whilst injustice and rank poverty continues on unaddressed or certainly unabated.
April 3, 2008
Ever played "telephone", where one person tells another person something, it gets passed through several people, and comes out the other end of the chain completely different from how it started? The word "sodomy" is like that. This book tracks the process through time to reveal the lie. Fascinating read, and invaluable in setting the record straight (no pun intended) about how the concept of "sodomy" developed.
November 24, 2022
Mark D. Jordan does it again.
You can hardly pick up any book on sexuality + Christianity and not have the story of Sodom immediately and thoroughly debunked. In fact, it’s been debunked so thoroughly and frequently that most recent books don’t even bother with much more than an eyeroll. Y’all know this one already. Let’s move along.
That wasn’t completely satisfying my curiosity though. Yes, but how did the biblical story of Sodom come to mean the condemnation of “sodomy,” so much that the word was coined from it?
Even the Christian bible debunks it thoroughly! More than a dozen verses, old testament and new—every mention of Sodom, in fact—state explicitly what the sin of Sodom was: hostility to strangers, oppression of the poor, arrogance, greed, idolatry. (Amos 4:11; Isaiah 1:9-10 & 16-17; Lamentations 4:3-6; Ezekiel 16:48-50; Zephaniah 2:8-10; Deuteronomy 29:22-28 & 32:32-33; Matthew 10:12-13; Luke 10:10-12; Jude 1:7; also Ecclesiasticus/Sirach 16:8 and Wisdom 19:13-14 if you wanna go apocrypha.)
There’s even a bonus story in Judges 19:14-29 that recycles both the narrative and the moral of the story point for point—and with a much worse outcome—yet there’s no preoccupation with a “sin of the Benjamites,” nor did anybody adopt penal statutes against “Benjamy.”
So what tf happened? How did the “sin of Sodom” come to mean a sexual act, or in the greatest distortion, a condemnation of same-sex love? How has the story been misread so systematically for centuries?
Turns out: shameless fanfiction. Theological madlibs. Textual abuse. A centuries-long game of telephone with disastrous consequences.
“Sodomy” gets coined in the 11th century by theologian Peter Damien, and thanks to faulty exegesis, scribal error, hypocrisy, and prejudice, the complicated and disturbing story of Sodom eventually collapses down to the punishment of a single (unscriptural) sin.
It’s a fascinating and troubling history, and Mark D. Jordan does it justice. He goes a step further, thoroughly showing the actual silence of scripture when it comes to “sodomy,” much less condemnation of same-sex relationships. As he says, “homosexuality” is no more addressed by medieval theology than phlogiston, Newton’s inertia, or quarks. And yet here we are, with modern laws still being enacted and upheld on this nonexistent foundation.
It’s a dilemma that’s played out before, in fact: Christian doctrine upheld slavery, and was exposed as immoral. Same with the doctrine of just war and other medieval beliefs. We’re seeing that play out again in our lifetimes with LGBTQ rights.
Ironically, the historical invention of “sodomy” involves what the story of Sodom was about: arrogance, oppression, hostility. If we want to take a moral from the story, we’d do best to condemn what it actually condemns.
You can hardly pick up any book on sexuality + Christianity and not have the story of Sodom immediately and thoroughly debunked. In fact, it’s been debunked so thoroughly and frequently that most recent books don’t even bother with much more than an eyeroll. Y’all know this one already. Let’s move along.
That wasn’t completely satisfying my curiosity though. Yes, but how did the biblical story of Sodom come to mean the condemnation of “sodomy,” so much that the word was coined from it?
Even the Christian bible debunks it thoroughly! More than a dozen verses, old testament and new—every mention of Sodom, in fact—state explicitly what the sin of Sodom was: hostility to strangers, oppression of the poor, arrogance, greed, idolatry. (Amos 4:11; Isaiah 1:9-10 & 16-17; Lamentations 4:3-6; Ezekiel 16:48-50; Zephaniah 2:8-10; Deuteronomy 29:22-28 & 32:32-33; Matthew 10:12-13; Luke 10:10-12; Jude 1:7; also Ecclesiasticus/Sirach 16:8 and Wisdom 19:13-14 if you wanna go apocrypha.)
There’s even a bonus story in Judges 19:14-29 that recycles both the narrative and the moral of the story point for point—and with a much worse outcome—yet there’s no preoccupation with a “sin of the Benjamites,” nor did anybody adopt penal statutes against “Benjamy.”
So what tf happened? How did the “sin of Sodom” come to mean a sexual act, or in the greatest distortion, a condemnation of same-sex love? How has the story been misread so systematically for centuries?
Turns out: shameless fanfiction. Theological madlibs. Textual abuse. A centuries-long game of telephone with disastrous consequences.
“Sodomy” gets coined in the 11th century by theologian Peter Damien, and thanks to faulty exegesis, scribal error, hypocrisy, and prejudice, the complicated and disturbing story of Sodom eventually collapses down to the punishment of a single (unscriptural) sin.
It’s a fascinating and troubling history, and Mark D. Jordan does it justice. He goes a step further, thoroughly showing the actual silence of scripture when it comes to “sodomy,” much less condemnation of same-sex relationships. As he says, “homosexuality” is no more addressed by medieval theology than phlogiston, Newton’s inertia, or quarks. And yet here we are, with modern laws still being enacted and upheld on this nonexistent foundation.
It’s a dilemma that’s played out before, in fact: Christian doctrine upheld slavery, and was exposed as immoral. Same with the doctrine of just war and other medieval beliefs. We’re seeing that play out again in our lifetimes with LGBTQ rights.
Ironically, the historical invention of “sodomy” involves what the story of Sodom was about: arrogance, oppression, hostility. If we want to take a moral from the story, we’d do best to condemn what it actually condemns.
July 13, 2012
Mark Jordan's develops a genealogical analysis of sodomy in Christian theology. Drawing on the insights of Nietzsche and Foucault that challenge the objectivity, necessary and universality of the category of sodomy, Jordan shows how the concept has developed over time. The argumentative strategy of the book is thus to promote a kind of skepticism towards the essentialist conception of sodomy that often underlies popular debates about sexuality.
February 27, 2021
This book is magnificent ("herrlich"). I can think of only one person I would trust (I expect there are others with whom I am not acquainted) to assess this book: Walter J. Ong, SJ, who died 2003.
As I feel about any book worth a person's limited time on this earth to read, read the last chapter first. It will orient you to what comes before. And, curiously, even though the author says the last chapter may be relevant only to fellow Christians, I found it the clearest part of the whole book and I am agnostic.
For myself, the main value of this book goes far beyond the author's enlightening exegesis of the contentious title word. I believe in the importance of hospitality. I personally read the Bible but disagree with conventional interpretations (item: I think Abraham was a criminal who, like Adolf Eichmann, just followed orders to murder Isaac).
My main takeaways from this book concern the history of hypocrisy and repression of the spirits of so many individual living persons (not an aggregated "humanity") in Western Europe (and the rebellious British New World colonies) through the centuries and continuing today ("political correctness").
For my self, the climax(sic) or the book is on page 126, and it has nothing to do with same gender anything, but rather outs the Robert Borks and Amy Comey Barretts of this world.
I am proud to learn that I am a sodomite, even though I have never copulated with another man (a Buddhist abbott did once try to seduce me, and I couldn't perform for him, but I remember his overture to me will kindness). To be safe, I have removed the dust cover from my copy of this book and replaced it with the dust cover of Carl Schorske's "Thinking with History", which is another great book. Tolle, lege!
As I feel about any book worth a person's limited time on this earth to read, read the last chapter first. It will orient you to what comes before. And, curiously, even though the author says the last chapter may be relevant only to fellow Christians, I found it the clearest part of the whole book and I am agnostic.
For myself, the main value of this book goes far beyond the author's enlightening exegesis of the contentious title word. I believe in the importance of hospitality. I personally read the Bible but disagree with conventional interpretations (item: I think Abraham was a criminal who, like Adolf Eichmann, just followed orders to murder Isaac).
My main takeaways from this book concern the history of hypocrisy and repression of the spirits of so many individual living persons (not an aggregated "humanity") in Western Europe (and the rebellious British New World colonies) through the centuries and continuing today ("political correctness").
For my self, the climax(sic) or the book is on page 126, and it has nothing to do with same gender anything, but rather outs the Robert Borks and Amy Comey Barretts of this world.
I am proud to learn that I am a sodomite, even though I have never copulated with another man (a Buddhist abbott did once try to seduce me, and I couldn't perform for him, but I remember his overture to me will kindness). To be safe, I have removed the dust cover from my copy of this book and replaced it with the dust cover of Carl Schorske's "Thinking with History", which is another great book. Tolle, lege!
May 8, 2025
Me parece un buen punto de partida para investigar sobre el origen de la teorización de la persecución de la homosexualidad por parte de la Iglesia Católica. Va repasando todos los textos de autores importantes en los que se va construyendo la noción de sodomía y los va comentando y explicando (y eso ayuda porque las vueltas que dan para que les encaje que las relaciones sexuales entre personas del mismo sexo están mal porque "introducir motivo aleatorio" a veces se hace denso).
Mark Jordan es profesor de teología y de feminismo, género y sexualidad en Harvard, es católico y es gay. Si sumas todo se juntan en él una serie de características que te aseguran que no va a ser radical en ningún sentido, y de cara a tener una primera visión general eso viene muy bien (porque si lo primero que lees es de algún nazi, pues ya se te complica un poco saber qué es verdad y qué no y todavía no tengo base para discernir).
Mark Jordan es profesor de teología y de feminismo, género y sexualidad en Harvard, es católico y es gay. Si sumas todo se juntan en él una serie de características que te aseguran que no va a ser radical en ningún sentido, y de cara a tener una primera visión general eso viene muy bien (porque si lo primero que lees es de algún nazi, pues ya se te complica un poco saber qué es verdad y qué no y todavía no tengo base para discernir).
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November 3, 2024Thank goodness for the postlude, because it summarized all the book's content and made a final concise argument in a way that actually allowed me to take something concrete away from this.
This text was incredibly dense and I struggled to understand many parts of it, which is why I feel like I can't give it a proper rating. I think this is probably targeted more at theologians/students of theology than the average gay Christian reader. That said, it was still interesting. The postlude in particular is going to linger with me a long time.
This text was incredibly dense and I struggled to understand many parts of it, which is why I feel like I can't give it a proper rating. I think this is probably targeted more at theologians/students of theology than the average gay Christian reader. That said, it was still interesting. The postlude in particular is going to linger with me a long time.
September 24, 2021
Love a good mark jordan book. Love the way he engages seriously with all this medieval stuff on its own terms and attempts to them at the end direct people using methods rather than teachings. Everything for him must come out of love, and moral teaching as a science as described in the various texts he reads in this collection of connected essays.
August 12, 2021
Una buena revisión del papel de la Iglesia en el discurso homófobo que se crea en la Edad Media. Echa por tierra la tesis de Boswell de una Iglesia tolerante hacia los homosexuales hasta el siglo XIII.
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November 17, 2020Interesting, and I learned a lot.
February 24, 2022
It's so interesting to see how these ideas and interpretations have altered and warped over time
June 22, 2024
Postmodernists, unfortunately, are almost all annoying even when they are saying things that are interesting
July 16, 2025
Every gay man needs to read this. Accessible, brief, and liberating.
December 6, 2020
This is a very interesting exploration of the invention of the Word Sodomy itself as well as the change of specific meaning over time in medieval Christianity. It reads like a dissertation, but has a lot of good and poignant information.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews