Patriarchy and Sodomy

Welcome to Episode 72 of Axe to the Root Podcast, part of the War Room Productions, I am Bo Marinov, and for the next 30 minutes we will see how giving wrong solutions to problems can get us nowhere, and even worse, will get us deeper into the same problem we are trying to resolve. As Christian Reconstructionists, we are supposed to be problem-solvers – after all, we are the ones who believe that every problem comes from the people’s deviation from the Word of God, and therefore we are the ones who believe that the Bible has a solution to every single problem we can identify in our society today. And that solution is not simply the vague out-worldly solution of the final coming of Christ (although, all problems will eventually have their solutions there), but a specific concrete solution that can be worked out and should be worked and eventually will be worked out in history, before the final coming. And that it can, should, and will be worked out by the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. History is the battleground of the Gospel, and it is the victory ground of the Gospel, and the victory of the Gospel in history will be manifested in the fact that all problems will find their solutions, in history, in the Gospel. Or, to put this statement in Biblical terms, all of Christ’s enemies will be made His footstool, before He returns.

Problem-solvers we should be, that one should be obvious, but before we can be problem solvers, we need to learn to understand the problems, and to understand what causes them. In his book, Revolt Against Maturity, in the chapter on “Regeneration,” R.J. Rushdoony points to several fundamental facts about problems and problem-solving, and one of the facts is that different worldview systems will analyze problems in different ways and will see different roots for the problems and thus, will have different solutions attempted solutions for them. Humanism will mainly see the root of all problems as external to man (because humanism can’t acknowledge that there is systemic and inherent problem in man, and remain consistent), while Christianity will see the root of all problems as internal to man. Their proposed solutions, therefore, will differ from each other. And of course, only those solutions will really work that are based on the truth. An analysis of a problem that is not based on the truth of the Word of God, will give solutions that won’t work. Therefore, when we as Christians speak of solving problems, we need to first make sure that we are analyzing those problem based on the revelation of the Word of God and its application to history, not based on humanistic presuppositions and ethical and intellectual standards.

Unfortunately, in this, we as Christians have pretty bad history. Over and over again, in history, Christians have been swayed by this or that humanistic doctrine or religion only because they sounded so impressively right to our unredeemed senses. From the early ages of the Church, church fathers would utilize Aristotelianism because some enemy of the faith used Platonism, and then switch to that same Platonism because some other enemy of the faith used Aristotelianism; without thinking that both Platonism and Aristotelianism belonged to Athens, not to Jerusalem, and that Jerusalem has nothing to do with Athens. At other times, theologians would resort to rationalism to oppose some irrationalist and experientialist movements with in the church, and then the same theologians would resort to the same experientialism and irrationalism when their own teachings meet a rational challenge; without thinking that both rationalism and experientialism come from the presupposition of the autonomous mind of man, and therefore are both anti-Biblical. In recent years, because some enemies of the faith have resorted to feminism, the solution of many churchmen has been to resort to patriarchy; without thinking that both patriarchy and feminism are power religions, not covenantal principles, and therefore both are doctrines of hell. (More about patriarchy later.) We as Christians have often been gullible to adopt anti-Biblical analysis of problems, and as a result, we have often been misled by our our own gullibility to come to anti-Biblical solutions to our problems, which often lead to defeat.

The problem I will be talking about in this episode is sodomy. It has grown to be perceived as one of the main problems of the American culture today by conservative Christians. Just about 20 years ago it was not considered such a gigantic problem; perhaps one of the important problems facing our society, but certainly not a problem of an utmost importance. Today, it takes more preaching time and attention than the issue of abortion. Now, to make it clear from the beginning, I don’t believe that sodomy is such a gigantic problem in our culture; even though its acceptance as “normal” has grown among non-sodomites, this has not led to an increase in the number of those who practice sodomy. The so-called “gay bars” have always existed in the US, and a number of them are “historic,” dating back to 1933, or some even before the Prohibition; there isn’t much of a difference. In fact, if there is any dynamics, it seems like the sodomite community is losing, both in terms of numbers and in terms of economic power. For the last one decade, a number of sodomite publications – including electronic publications – went bankrupt; the last major one being the Frontiers magazine in Los Angeles. Some historic sodomite bars shut down over the same period of time; Houston’s oldest “gay” bar closed for good in November 2009. All the attempts by the sodomite community to salvage it failed; there just weren’t enough people capable and willing to donate. All that is left of it is a few artifacts in a small local museum of sodomite history. Similar decline can be observed across the country: while the media and political presence of a few sodomites appears intimidating, the reality behind them is that the sodomite community is declining. Those of our listeners who remember the Axe to the Root episode on “The Church’s Forgotten History of Sodomite Marriage,” will make the connection to what happened in the mid-15^thcentury: sodomy as a lifestyle simply disappeared from Europe, without any significant attempts at eradicating it. By its very nature, it can never last longer than a generation or two.

Of course, declining or not, sodomy is a revolting sin, as Romans chapter 1 shows, and it is an indicator of a very perverse heart. On this one, there should be no argument among Reformed Christians. Where the argument lies, however, is what causes people to fall into that specific type of sin; what triggers it. It is clear that sodomy is not just a “natural” sin, like, for example, fornication or adultery. (I use “natural” in a conditional sense.) Even in their fallen state, all things being equal, boys naturally lust after women, not after men; such lust is spontaneous, often unconscious. God doesn’t make mistakes, He doesn’t put female hormones in male bodies. It takes some special trigger for the heart and the mind of a man to be so twisted as to lust sexually after other men. We all have a sinful nature; we are born with it. It makes us vulnerable to all kinds of sins. But the specific sins we commit are imparted into us by our cultural upbringing; and when it comes to something so unnatural, as sodomy, there have to be some strong cultural triggers to make the mind of a man switch from the “natural” lust after women to the unnatural lust after other men. The question now is, what are the triggers in the culture around us that make young hearts and minds become so perverted as to abandon the natural use of their bodies?

In the last several decades, a movement has appeared within the conservative Reformed and Evangelical segment of the population in the United States, which declares that the reason for the rise of sodomy – if there is such a rise in the first place, I would add – is the rise of what they call “egalitarianism.” The dictionary definition of egalitarianism, of course, is a social and political philosophy asserting the judicial equality of all men. (Women included.) I personally can’t see why egalitarianism would be a bad thing. The meaning this group uses for “egalitarianism” is a bit different, however, and is very particular to them – no one else uses it in the same way. “Egalitarianism” for them is an anthropological or religious doctrine which asserts the ontological identity (or sameness) of men and women. That is, men and women are basically the same, not different in any respect; and the acceptance of this doctrine of sameness has led to the acceptance of sodomy. This is the claim of that movement.

Now, I have never heard nor seen anyone espouse such doctrine. Not even the most radical feminists. In fact, the most radical feminists teach exactly the opposite: that there is a radical difference between men and women. They use it, of course, to postulate the necessity for granting judicial and institutional power of women over men; but this is not sameness nor egalitarianism in any conceivable sense of these words. Now, I have seen feminists espouse egalitarianism in the regular, dictionary sense: as social, judicial, and political equality. Or egalitarianism in the sense of equal job opportunities – which I think is fair enough, if women can do it. But egalitarianism as no distinction between the sexes, that I have never seen preached or proclaimed. Perhaps some isolated, mentally ill activist somewhere; but never at a large scale. And even such isolated, mentally ill activists have appeared only in the last decade or so. I can’t see how they can be blamed for sodomy, which has been present in the US in significant numbers since the beginning of the 20^thcentury, at least.

However, for the purposes of this discussion I will assume that there is indeed such form of so-called “egalitarianism” floating around. The argument of that movement is that this “egalitarianism” relativizes all human relationships and makes them equal to one another – it doesn’t matter whether the relationship is between a man and a woman or between a man and a man. And thus, sex between a man and a man is lifted up to the level of sex between a man and a woman. And this is the social and moral cause for sodomy.

Based on their assessments for the causes of sodomy, this movement has a solution. That solution a return to what they call “Biblical patriarchy”; which is supposedly the Biblical doctrine for the family. (It is not, and we will see why, in a few minutes. “Egalitarianism,” as they understand it, realitivizes all social relationships; to counter it, the so-called “Biblical patriarchy” seeks to absolutize all social relationships, starting in the family. Men and women must have strictly distinct roles in the society, and these roles must be inculcated throughout the society and maintained by tradition, government legislation, and social practices. Men are supposed to be the rulers of their families, and the rulers of the society as well; women are supposed to remain passive and submissive at all times, and never assume leading roles in any field. Even where a woman is extraordinarily gifted – better than most men – to work, produce, and innovate in a certain field, she is expected to curb her aspirations and enthusiasm, as well as her exercise of her giftedness, and take the back seat to men who otherwise may be vastly inferior to her; after all, we don’t want a woman teaching or ruling over men. In fact, as per some patriarchalist teachers, it is better for women to not work outside the home at all. “A woman who works outside the home is a whore”: no, I didn’t make this sentence up; it was actually said in a sermon by one of those patriarchalist teachers. (I was present when he said it.) It is even better if girls are simply not allowed to go to college or grow in any professional way; their place is in the home, in the kitchen, learning to take care of their future husbands and children. Authority – as patriarchalists understand it – in the family is given to the husband, and he delegates it to his wife; she has no independent authority under God. (I have shown in a previous podcast that such view reduces wives to mere concubines. The Biblical wife has her own authority under God, she is not delegated anything by her husband.) In order to combat sodomy, therefore, we need to elevate the social status of men above that of women. And, in 100% of the cases, patriarchalists seek to achieve that by lowering the social status of women. Only when women are reduced to the level of children, of wards of men, then sodomy will be successfully defeated.

I must interject here that many good and honest Christians have sincerely fallen for this doctrine. But that doesn’t make the doctrine any more Christian or Biblical; “Biblical patriarchy” is just the same oxymoron as is “Biblical Hinduism” or “Biblical socialism.” Many of these good and honest Christians are trying to present it, and to make it work as a doctrine which is focused on servanthood. Reality is, however, that servanthood doesn’t need institutional power and submission to work, and patriarchy, even in its supposedly “Biblical: version, is a power religion from beginning to end. It is entirely obsessed with structures of power and submission and with who submits to whom. To start with, even the very name “patriarchy,” that is, “father’s rule,” is a misnomer. The concept that children are under the institutional power of their parents is common to all Christian persuasions, so there is really no need for any special doctrine to emphasize this. The real focus, and the real starting point of patriarchalism is not so much the authority of the father over the children, but the institutional power of the husband over the wife, and the submission of the wife to her husband; and of all women to all men; that’s where the real distinctive of patriarchy lies.

The last several weeks, I made several posts on social media covering Jesus’s words in Matt. 20-25-28; Mark 10:42-45; Luke 22:25-27; where Jesus explains the nature of authority among Christians. Among the Gentiles, it is those who are in power that claim to be “benefactors” and have authority over their people; but among you, it will be the other way around: if you want to have authority, you need to serve. Based on those and other verses, I suggested that among Christians, true authority is defined by service, not by one’s gender or ordination papers. I immediately got lots of flak from patriarchalists; their main complaint was, “Are you saying that our wives should rule over us, and we should submit to them?”

This instinctive reaction reveals two characteristics of patriarchy. First, and very ironic, it reveals that in the families of all those patriarchalists, it is the wives who are turned into servants, whereas the men, for all their babbling about “servanthood,” have preserved for themselves the role of “rulers.” Seriously, why would they even ask that question if they were real servants to their families, right? If authority is defined by service, then a man who is a true servant won’t be worried about whether he should submit to his wife; his question rather would be, “What do I need to do to be a better servant, then?” The fact that all patriarchalists – including the few among them who were sincere – weer rather concerned with whether their wives would rule over them, is clear evidence to the fact that patriarchy is nothing more than a power religion. And therefore, whether we attach to it the label “Biblical” or not is of no consequence. It is always un-Biblical. Second, and very telling of the spiritual state of all patriarchalists, in my analysis of the relation between authority and service, I never talked about rule, that is, institutional power. There is a clear difference between power and authority, and I have talked about it in other places; in this, I only follow R.J. Rushdoony who has, in many places, made the distinction between power and authority. Power is the ability of a person to force others to do his bidding – whether through physical force or through manipulation or through institutional mechanisms or other means. Authority is a spiritual reality, and it has nothing to do with power, whether institutional or physical or manipulation. A church can have duly ordained elders, and yet, the real authority in the church – the spiritual influence that shapes the minds and the hearts of the people in that church – can be seated in a man who has no formal ordination or power; as is the case in many churches today, especially Presbyterian churches, where ordaining faceless bureaucrats of no real ministry and no real authority has become the norm. A man can be very forceful and active in his attempts at ruling over his wife and children, and yet, the real spiritual authority in the family, the person through whom God speaks and acts in the family, may be his wife; or at times, even one of the children. This difference between power and authority should be New Covenant 101 to anyone who has read his Bible; the whole New Testament is a story of the conflict between power (Pharisees, Jews, the Roman Empire) and authority (Jesus, the apostles, the early church). In a much more extended and nuanced form the same conflict is threaded through all of the Old Testament as well. And even in church history, for us as Reformed, that same conflict has been at the bottom of the struggles of all the Reformers. I emphasized that definition of authority many times in my discussions, and yet, persistently, patriarchalists insisted that I was trying to make their wives rule over them. The fact that they would always imagine a power-submission relationships where the discussion is clearly about authority as a spiritual reality is another clear indication that no matter what pious epithet we attach to patriarchy (“Biblical,” “Christian,” etc.), it remains a power religion from beginning to end, and therefore is in its very essence always pagan. Yes, even if a number of good and sincere Christians have adopted it as their ideology and practice. And as a pagan ideology, it will always lead to disastrous results. These results may be postponed a bit if patriarchy is mixed with some Biblical principles; but eventually, the results will appear.

Back to the main issue of this episode: in the view of the patriarchalists, what leads to sodomy in the society is “egalitarianism.” (Or what they believe is “egalitarianism,” not the regular dictionary meaning of the word.) In the specific context of our times, a flavor of conspiracy theory is thrown in the mix: that “egalitarianism” was the product of the conspiratorial activities of the Frankfurt School and its so-called “cultural Marxism.” I have talked in a previous episode about that boogieman of “cultural Marxism,” and I have shown why “cultural Marxism” is an oxymoron and a convenient escape for many churchmen from the necessity of doing a serious covenantal analysis of the failure of the church. Conspiracy theory is always more attractive than doing boring Biblical analysis. And the solution to sodomy is patriarchy: elevate men’s social status, make women submit to men, support this power/submission structure through legislation, propaganda (sermons), and social practices; and you will have a defense against sodomy. Simple, heh?

There is a serious problem with this analysis, however. And it is this:

First, there is no Biblical confirmation for it; and second, there is no historical confirmation for it. There has never been a single example of sodomy originating in an egalitarian society. And in fact, if anything – hold onto your chairs now – we have abundant historical examples that same patriarchy which they present as the solution, is in fact the mother of sodomy. Yes, rampant sodomy in the society always follows patriarchy, when patriarchy is the predominant social model; that is, patriarchy always begets sodomy, almost without exceptions. We also have logical reasons to go together with the historical data, namely, to conclude that patriarchy inevitably begets sodomy. And we also have Biblical and historical reasons to believe that the only solution to sodomy is exactly egalitarianism, namely, the doctrine that establishes the judicial, social, and political equality between the sexes. That is, reality is exactly the opposite to what the patriarchalist movement believes: the cause for sodomy is patriarchy, and the solution ot the problem of sodomy is rejecting patriarchy and a return to egalitarianism, which is the Biblical social doctrine, revealed in the Law of God.

So let’s get to the details.

The first and most obvious evidence that patriarchy is related to sodomy is the Biblical record. Romans 1:27 is the only text in the Bible which speaks of the internal motivation for sodomy, it certainly doesn’t speak of any equality between men and women. To the contrary, it says the following: “men abandoned the natural use of the female.” The word for abandonis literally send away. The same word is used multiple times for forgivingsins, in the sense of ignoringsins. It certainly doesn’t indicate that the pagans of Paul’s time elevated women to the position of equal to men; exactly the opposite, the verb there shows that men ignored the women, sent away their natural use, and that led to the spread of sodomy in the Classical world.

Such attitude to women was common to Greece and Rome. Women in Greece and Rome were indeed abandoned by the men in their societies. Women couldn’t inherit property, and women had virtually no rights under their fathers or husbands. As Fustel de Coulanges shows in his study, The Ancient City, in most of the classical cultures, women’s social status was no higher than that of today’s Saudi Arabia. In the so-called “enlightened” Athens, married women couldn’t leave the home without a male companion from the family; they were expected to remain at home all the time. Athens was a strictly patriarchal society, and Solon’s judicial reforms made sure that the patriarchal character of the Athenian society was encoded into the laws as well. And yet, judging from Plato’s Dialogues, sodomy and pederasty were considered the norm. Thebes, another Greek city and capital of Boeotia, was an even more radical example. The ancient myths and the later plays about Thebes by Aeschylus and Sophocles show a society that is strictly stratified, with a strongly subjugated position for women. And Thebes was too sodomite even for the other Greek city-states. You probably remember from a previous episode where I talked about the Theban Sacred Band of sodomite soldiers. And, note that, the mythological history of Thebes starts with a sodomite rape of a young boy by a Theban king. In Rome, sodomy was taken for granted and was not even registered as a deviation; the father of the house (the patriarch) had the right to sexually penetrate anything and anyone in his house – including male or female slaves – without incurring any judicial guilt. That right followed from his judicial position as a patriarch. Rolling back to the early days of Israel, all the surrounding nations that practiced sodomy were also marked by strong social stratification and patriarchy. Not only were those societies tolerant of sodomy, but some even practiced it as a matter of religious ceremony. Over and over again, the extant law codes of those ancient nations show two persistent traits: (1) their societies granted no independent social status to women, and (2) they tolerated sodomy, and only tried to regulate it in some extreme cases (like rape of underage sons by their fathers). And not only their laws, but their extant art also shows that sodomy was prevalent and accepted.

There is a strange exception among those pagan nations in the antiquity: Egypt. Egypt was not a patriarchal society. In fact, it was noted even in the antiquity, by Greek authors, that Egyptian women enjoyed a much higher social status than Greek women. A number of modern studies on the status of women in Egypt also conclude that Egypt was unique among the cultures in the ancient Middle East. Women not only didn’t suffer any social or judicial disabilities, when it comes to marriage, they had more rights than men. A woman could divorce her husband citing just his failure to provide love and moral support. Royal governors could be deposed by the Pharaoh just on account of their mistreatment of their wives. We also have a Biblical evidence of this equal social status of women in Egypt, in Exodus 2: ever wondered about the fact that in times when the Pharaoh decreed the killing of all Hebrew male children, his daughter saw no problem in sparing the life of one of those children? She even sent him away with his mother, so that he grew in his own home, safe from the Pharaoh’s henchmen. How could that happen? It could happen only because in Egypt, the word of a woman had the same power as the word of a man, and the word of the daughter of the Pharaoh could overpower even the Pharaoh’s edicts. The Talmudic rabbis also mention the high status of women in the Egyptian society, and even the fact that, unlike other culture, women in Egypt could take multiple husbands.

And, guess what. Egypt was also unique among the nations of the antiquity in that we have no evidence of sodomy being part of their culture. Of the vast number of extant original sources, we have only three or four mentions of anything close to sodomy, and they are vague enough to be interpreted in many different ways. In one of those stories, King Pepi II of the Sixth Dynasty (the Old Kingdom) is said to have visited one of his generals in the night hours, in secret. Even if the language is taken to mean sodomite relationship (which most egyptologists deny), the fact that even the king had to do it in secret clearly shows the attitude of ancient Egyptians to sodomy. The Talmudic rabbis also agree that male sodomy was not characteristic of Egypt; they attribute it rather to the Canaanitic cultures, which were highly patriarchal.

Clearly, then, we see a pattern even among the pagan cultures: the more patriarchal a culture is, the more prone to sodomy it is. And cultures that were egalitarian and held a high social status for women, even if they entertained other sins, were not prone to sodomy. Even among pagans, sodomy was not usually practiced, unless the society was patriarchal.

But these were pagans and their patriarchy was not Biblical. We now have Biblical patriarchy, under Christ, right? Well, not really. In another episode of Axe to the Root I talked about the church’s forgotten history of sodomite marriage, in the 14^thcentury and the first half of the 15^thcentury. This period of rampant sodomy came after a long period of elevated social status for men and diminished social status of women. It was, after all, the age of strong men, knights in shining armor who left their homes and went to fight against the infidels. It was a romantic age of religious orders of monks-warriors who swore loyalty to each other to death, and also that they would remain celibate. An age when women were relegated to a lower status, because they were unable to take arms and fight, and fighting was the only thing the culture was obsessed with. That age ended in rampant sodomy among the ruling classes, and in multiple disasters which decimated the population of Europe, and more important, decimated the ruling class and put an end to feudalism in Europe. During the 15^thcentury, women increasingly took over the devastated European society and ran it. And by the time of Luther, sodomy was gone from most of Europe.

We see the same trend in action in Victorian England – another part of Christendom. During the 19^thcentury, England had two separate and parallel cultures. One was the culture of the aristocracy: highly patriarchal and segregated. Schools for the aristocratic elite – Eton, Cambridge, Oxford – remained exclusive for boys until the first half of the 20^thcentury. The English aristocracy was not subject to the English Common Law which established the judicial equality of men and women; it was under the Royal Law, which could be traced back to old pagan laws – mainly Roman and Saxon – and was intensely patriarchal. Women could not inherit estates and titles, and the only reason for them to be able to inherit the throne was political expediency for the reigning dynasty. On the other hand was the common population of England, the middle entrepreneurial class and the industrial workers. These were by necessity egalitarian: the Industrial Revolution demanded labor at rates higher than the market could supply, so all went to work, women and children together with husbands and fathers. Boys and girls mingled freely at an early age, working at factories and mines and offices; and then they mingled freely at union gatherings and in the pubs. Two cultures within the same nation, one strongly patriarchal, the other strongly egalitarian . . . and which culture do you think was given over to sodomy? That’s right, the patriarchal one. By the early 20^thcentury, more than half of all aristocratic boys had at least some experience with sodomy acts, even if most of them didn’t go to the end to become full sodomites. Some did, however,, and from this era we have names like Lord Byron and John Maynard Keynes and multiple others. At the time when England’s lower and middle classes were producing missionaries and preachers, the aristocracy was digging deeper and deeper into the hole of iniquity. Patriarchy, again, produced sodomy. Egalitarianism produced stable families, even at times when men and women and children had to work 1-14 hours a day in the factories in order to get by. Just read about the early life of David Livingstone to get a glimpse of what it was.

Many of these famous British sodomites chose to travel frequently to Muslim lands in order to find partners for their lust. And for a good reason, for, contrary to our modern perceptions, Islam has historically been quite friendly to sodomy and sodomites. Some of the most expressive pieces of sodomitic literature and poetry have to us from Persian. Openly sodomite poetry was considered the highest expression of art in Persia, and poems were translated in English for high-class connoisseurs in England as early as the 1860s. In the neighboring Afghanistan, pederasty and sodomy are considered national tradition even today. (Goodle “the dancing boys of Afghanistan.”) And there is hardly any doubt that Muslim societies are hard-core patriarchal societies. Whatever issues they have, egalitarianism – in any meaning of that word – is hardly one of them.

As I mentioned earlier, it has become a habit for many Christian and conservative talkers to indulge in conspiracy theory and throw the blame for the “sexual revolution” and the modern dissolution of sexual morality upon the boogeyman of “cultural Marxism” and the Frankfurt School. But there is one problem today. We have, in the 20^thcentury, a nation that self-consciously rejected and opposed the influence of Marxism – including the “cultural” version – and the influence of Hollywood and modern media: South Africa. For two generations, under the apartheid, the white population was the most churched population in the world. Its government was officially Christian and even Reformed; it did everything in the name of Jesus Christ. (The apartheid was designed and introduced by a dutch Reformed minister who headed the government of the National Party in the 1950s.) In addition, the white culture of South Africa was self-consciously patriarchal – to the point that women did have to deal with certain social and political disabilities, many of which were encoded in the laws. (White women of South Africa often referred to themselves as “an inferior sex within a superior race.”) Take this, also: South Africa did not have television until 1975. And Hollywood movies were generally banned, except those that were deemed “clean” by the government’s censorship. A thoroughly churched population, an officially Christian government, an unapologetically patriarchal society, the influence of the Frankfurt School banned, Hollywood movies banned, no television, strong censorship . . . what could go wrong?

But it did go wrong. As early as the 1960s, the South African military realized that a great number of the young people (between 16 and 24 years of age) conscripted into the military had sodomite inclinations. Since this was deemed unacceptable, military commanders tried to deal with it in the typical military way: through brutality. Young sodomites were beaten, or forced to participate in group rape of Angolan or Namibian women. Some commanders simply grouped sodomites together in units in order to avoid further complications. In 1971, the military started the so-called Aversion Project with the purpose to heal young men of their sodomy. Thousands of young men were included in it for their sodomy. The project was based on the Pavlov theory and consisted of series of tortures (usually electrical shocks) designed to create aversion in the patients against sodomite desires. The tortures were so cruel that they left many people crippled for life, physically and psychologically. The worst cases, those deemed “hopeless,” were assigned to a sex-change surgery. Between 1971 and 1989, the South African government paid for more than 900 such surgeries. Given that the white population of South Africa at the time was only about 8 million, and that the patients were only a small segment of that population (young men between 16 and 24 years of age), we can easily conclude, first, that no other population group in history has had so many sex-change operations per capita, and, second, no other population group in history has had such a high rate of sodomy registered among its young males. Just stop and consider: 50 sex-change operations a year, only for young males between 16 and 24 years of age, of a total population the size of Virginia. And these were only the hopeless cases. No matter what you may think of South Africa and its supposedly Christian character, something was terribly wrong. And that terribly wrong thing was its patriarchalism.

Coming back to the US, let’s not forget that the modern wave of sodomite social activity came in the wake of the 1950s; it was the children of those parents who revolted against Biblical sexual morality. And when one studies the US culture of the 1950s, one things becomes very clear: the 1950s were the most patriarchalist decade in the history of the United States. The media of the time were full of articles, studies, and advertisements that employed self-consciously derogatory attitude to women. Some of the advertisements are mind-blowing, even those directed at women: showing a husband spanking his wife like a child because she didn’t do the shopping the right way, or a wife kneeling like a slave serving her husband. Church sermons didn’t fall far behind; some sermons of the time were deliberately disparaging of women. In hisInstitutes, pages 349-352, Rushdoony points out that such attitude to women came from the Enlightenment and affected the churches as well. The original feminist movement was not against Biblical ethics but against this revived pagan ethics of patriarchalism. The church failed to take the right side, and took the side of patriarchalism instead – and this is what led to the feminist movement being taken over by the enemies of God. The 1950s were the culmination of this patriarchalism in the society. And, as was to be expected from our historical experience, this inevitably led to a rise of sodomy. God is not mocked; you replace Biblical ethics with patriarchy, He lets your children turn over to sodomy.

And even a cursory look at the sodomite community today shows that it is very far from being “egalitarian” in any sense of this word. Women are not only not welcome or valued among sodomites, they are actively excluded. And the sodomite so-called “families” are strongly patriarchal and hierarchical – as is the sodomite community. There is no thought of any equality in any sense of that word. If anything, the most consistent patriarchalism today can be found among sodomites. They know what hierarchy is.

Of course, this is all historical evidence. But is it based on a solid logical analysis? Can we say for sure that the relation between patriarchy and sodomy is not simply correlational, but also causal? What is the mechanism by which patriarchy turns perfectly normal boys into future sodomites? What triggers these boys to switch to sexual lust toward other boys, instead of their natural list for women? (Which needs to be controlled, of course, but is at least natural.)

The answer should be obvious: any doctrine or social practice or custom that diminishes the social status of women to being inferior to, subservient to, or subjugated under men will inevitably produce a trigger for young boys to engage in sodomy. When men’s social status is elevated above that of women, then fellowship with men becomes more desirable than that with women. Their elevated social status creates an aura of loftiness and superiority around their relationships. Men, you know, can talk about hings that women are too stupid to understand, or too emotional, or too petty, or whatever else, you know all the stereotypes. Women are also weak, never direct, always manipulative, and they need supervision from men all the time, even when they go shopping to do chores around the house. In the family, Mom is always the one to retreat and concede, even when the kids can clearly see that Dad is being cruel, or unreasonable, or simply stupid; obviously, being the more powerful person pays off, and women are not worth befriending, since they can never project that power which makes Dad get what he wants all the time. When boys go to an all-boys school, or simply hang on in an all-boys company, it creates a bond that girls are not supposed to take part in. this leaves the impression that even if there is a future marriage in the life of a young man, it will have to take a second place, while his loyalty to his male friends will remain forever. I mean, look, where do we find glory but in being one of the band of brothers; whereas there is no glory in bragging about being friend to a girl. This attitude is still present to a great extent in the collectivist environment of the public schools in America: a boy who befriends girls is usually mocked by other boys. It is present in many churches in American where men tend to exclude women from any important conversation about the affairs or the future of the church. Patriarchy is a religion of power and submission; sodomy is also a religion of power and submission. In both, some human beings are relegated to a lower status. There is no philosophical difference between the two.

In such a culture where women are denigrated, or relegated to a status of permanent submission, or patronized as being too weak to take care of themselves or to take on activities and occupations that are reserved for men, boys will grow up with the psychology that relationships with women are low class, whereas relationships with men are higher class. From this, the step to elevating intimacy with other men to a higher status is very small. In fact. Plato’s Dialogues give us exactly that rationale for sodomy: sex with women is just for material purposes, for procreation. In a patriarchal society, it is also for status: I mean, you can’t be a patriarch like everyone else unless you have a wife and kids. So, procreation and status: two quite mundane purposes. Intimacy, or even sex, with men is a different thing altogether: it has a lofty, spiritual meaning, and therefore brings more pleasure. The same mentality is present in many places in Islam. The sodomite community in the US has developed that mentality to its logical end: they reject sex with women altogether. As Paul said in Romans 1, sodomy doesn’t come from making women equal. It comes from abandoning, pushing aside, ignoring women.

And that’s what a patriarchal culture always does. And the patriarchal culture that some churches have developed over the last several of decades in the US will inevitably lead to the same result. It is only a matter of time before it starts producing sodomy at a large scale.

What is the true Biblical solution to sodomy, then? It should be obvious: Adam’s first relationship was with a woman, not with other men. Contrary to what many imagine, it was not firstly and primarily sexual, in fact, sexual relationship is not mentioned until chapter 4 of Genesis. That relationship was his only friendship, Eve was his only confidant, the only person he could share his thoughts with, whether in terms of his professional work, or in terms of his recreation or religious activities. Eve was his equal in all respects; he had no other friends.

Translated into our modern society, this means that the solution to sodomy is elevating the status of women to the position of being equal to men. Not only judicially and politically and socially and in terms of job opportunities, but also psychologically. Fellowship and friendship with women – of course, in an ethically controlled and regular way – should be considered superior to friendship and fellowship with boys. After all, a boy is not expected to spend the rest of his life in a close intimate relationship with his male friends. His life will be spent being the best friend with a woman; and he must be prepared for it from an early age. That’s why I think that the practice of courtship is not Biblical, and is harmful: it leaves the impression that the ultimate relationship in a marriage is between the bridegroom and the father of the bride. Whereas such relationship is helpful to develop, the center must be on the fellowship and friendship between the future bridegroom and bride. When that is relegated to a lower level, this relegates the whole concept of family to a lower level. In order to fight sodomy, we need to have our boys seek friendship with girls, become trained in friendship with girls, and value friendship with girls above friendship with boys. Or, if you want a popular culture reference, this is the lesson Dr. Sean Maguire gave Will in the movie Good Will Hunting: when you meet The One, you give up your friends, you you give up everything, even your ticket to the most important Red Sox game ever. “I just slipped my ticket across the table and I said, sorry, guys, I gotta see about a girl.”

Some may object that the Bible doesn’t really emphasize the importance of such relationships and fellowship. I agree. It doesn’t. But it is only because the Bible takes them for granted. In fact, when we reads the Bible carefully about such cultural relationships between men and women, we will see that the Biblical society is much more egalitarian than even our modern American society. Of course, I can point to the fact that there is no law in the Old Testament that specifically elevates the fathers and leaves out the mothers. The Fifth Commandment mentions both. But even more important, where the sons are instructed to obey their parents, the mothers seem to be a priority. Isaac took his wife to his mother’s tent (Gen. 24:67). The famous verse in Proverbs 1:8 and 6:20, “keep the instruction of your father and the teaching of your mother,” the heavier word is used for the mother’s teaching: it is actually “torah,” the word for the Law of God. The word is not used for anything else but the Law of God and the instruction of the mother. (Even the law of the Persians in Daniel is not called “torah,” but a foreign word is used for it.)

But a much better testimony would be the cultural practices in the New Testament. And when we pay attention to them, we will find out that, in terms of men-women relationships, the Jewish culture of the first century was much freer than today. We don’t have much time to dig deeper, but consider this: a young single man made it His habit to stay at night at the house of two single young women, and no one in the society seemed to have any issue with it. This is Jesus, in Luke 10:38-42. Keep in mind, this was not a palace with many rooms. It was not a house in 20^thcentury America. It was a house in a village the 1^stcentury Israel; it probably didn’t even have rooms, and people slept in proximity that today would have been considered awkward, at the very least. We see the same free attitude to male-female relationships in Luke 7:36-39, the prostitute who was kissing Jesus’s feet in public. The Pharisees saw no problem with the behavior; their problem was that Jesus allowed a prostitute to touch Him in such an intimate way. To this we need to add the fact that Jesus was followed by a number of married women, and they used their wealth to support His ministry. In all respects, that society was much less patriarchal than ours today; and the relationships between men and women were considered equal to, and even more valuable than the relationships between men and men.

(Just as an interesting historical fact, the Reformed cultures of the 17^thand the 18^thcenturies encouraged such mingling of boys and girls rather than discourage it. They even had some practices that today would seem completely awkward and even improper to most Christians. One of them was “bundling”: a family would invite a boy who is a prospective date for their daughter, and would allow him to spend the night with her . . . bundled in a bag. Both youngsters would have their hands tied, and then their bodies would be bundled in bags, and then they would be left next to one another in bed, free to converse all night. The practice seems to have been common to the Reformed communities in Wales, Scotland, the Netherlands, South France, Central Germany, and the American colonies. And there is no historical evidence of it being ever abused. Boys considered it the highest honor to be bundled, and bragged about it. Friendship with girls was far more valuable than friendship with other boys. And those cultures never developed sodomy, until the patriarchalism of the Enlightenment hit them. While I think such practices went a bit too far, and while I won’t recommend them to any Christian family, they still show us the importance these Reformed Christians attributed to developing men-women relationships and friendship from an early age.)

To summarize: patriarchy, by its very nature as a power religion, begets sodomy. Always. And it doesn’t matter if you want to add a label “Biblical” to it. And the only solution to sodomy is true egalitarianism: equalize the social status of women to that of men, and make boys value fellowship with women more tan they value relationship with other boys. And do it within the framework of the Dominion Covenant, of the family as the final goal and state of life for every young man, and the family as having the purpose of conquering the world, a man and his woman.

The book I will assign for reading this week is The Pink Swastika, by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams. It is difficult for us today to imagine that such a masculine, power-oriented ideology like Nazism could have anything to do with sodomy. We were taught that the Nazis persecuted sodomites. This book will shatter than impression. The Nazis were much more given over to sodomy than most people today realize. The book may give you more insight into the psychology of sodomy than you might have bargained for. But it is necessary, if you want to understand the problem.

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