One great theologian writes:
There are approximately 224.5 million citizens of the United States who identify themselves as Christian in religious affiliation and belief. The great majority of these religious adherents express an apparent sincere faith that the Holy Bible is the inspired word of God, as was delivered through revelation to ancient prophets and apostles for the purpose of being written and preserved for the benefit of future generations. Most of these individuals don't question, or argue with, the authenticity of the theological doctrines delivered to mankind through these ancient writers. In fact, most, that is to say, approximately 90 percent, of church-going Christians believe in the account of man's creation by deity, as recorded in the Book of Genesis; and that flies in the face of popular scientific empiricism holding fast to agnostic Darwinian evolution.
Among the 224.5 million Americans who consider themselves Christian, there are, however, an ever-increasing percentage of them (now approximately 5-10 million) who subjectively regard certain portions of the Bible as fiction, or fantasy. Somehow, these people can selectively believe that God parted the Red Sea through the prophet Moses, as recorded in the Book of Exodus, to allow the Israelites to escape an angrily ominous Egyptian army, but choose not to believe that Jehovah of the Old Testament destroyed the cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, because of the unnatural sins and abominations committed by nearly 100 percent of the inhabitants of those ancient metropolitan areas. For reasons that most of these, so called, Christians cannot rationally explicate, the most vile moral sins, punishable by death during the Old Testament period, should be tolerated, accepted, and indulged in a 21st Century world, even though these sinful practices were also condemned in the 1st Century A.D. by the disciple of Jesus Christ who wrote the bulk of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, who, supposedly, spoke for Jesus Christ.
Now, as I've pointed out in previous essays, the practice of the organized Christian religion has, since the early demise of Jesus' twelve original apostles, been aptly comparable through the later centuries to a politically geared system fed by wealth and military power to almost the exclusion of godly purpose. The egregiously violent history of the Holy Roman Empire presents the secularization of Christianity in the religious wars and conflicts which, through the later centuries, displayed the greatest examples of man's inhumanity to man. During most of the 1st Century A.D., while under Jewish and Roman persecution in the Holy Land, and in other places in the world ruled by the Roman Empire, the overt practice of Christian faith by the called together bodies of believers (churches) was, however, generally dedicated to the Apostle James' proffered definition of "true" religion undefiled before God, which was to "visit widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world (sin)." After the last Apostle's death (or removal from the ministry) that is John the Devine, the expostulations and teachings of the Gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), Peter, James, Paul, and Jude were, more or less, codified into a doctrinal schema over the next two centuries. Though there were quite a few other inspired Christian writers of the 1st Century A.D. New Testament period, the current content of the Holy Bible was determined as cannon scripture almost 300 years after Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., through the dictates of a pragmatic Roman emperor, supposedly a convert to Christianity, Constantine the Great. Surprisingly though, those basic moral proscriptions, which had been considered doctrinal rules in the 1st Century and in millennia before, were proclaimed as sacred law by the collective ruling body of Christians comprising the newly acquired state religion of Rome.
These basic moral rules for all of mankind, the keys to the continuation of the family of man, are believed by most Christians to have been laid down by the God of the Old Testament for the Patriarchs as recorded by the Prophet Moses in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). Yet, these basic do's and don'ts, as found in the Bible, are as readily applicable to every human civilization that has ever existed, or will exist (Jewish, Christian, or non-Christian) throughout all the earth. What are some of these basic moral rules? You shouldn't lie, steal, cheat, lust, commit murder or inflict pain unnecessarily on other human beings, marry and, afterward, have an affair with another person's wife or husband, and covet the possessions of other people. You should, however, honor your father and mother. If the four purely Jewish doctrinal commandments are removed from the Ten Commandments (commandments 1-4), the six remaining commandments, if obeyed, would benefit any human civilization; for they comprise a code of human conduct that, if individually observed, would result in the maintenance of peace and tranquility within any society.
The systematic disregard for basic moral rules by human beings is the substrate of the inexorable sin, and the lawlessness that it breeds, that may slowly creep over time into any human society to destroy, and replace, incumbent morality with its insipid opposite. The old expression that morality cannot be politically legislated is quite true, and has been proven true again and again throughout history. Though morality does not, in and of itself, have to originate from religious doctrine, it must essentially precede the formation of man-made law; and nature's God has given certain natural laws unto man that are inherent to any lasting social system, which equate the fundamental rules of morality. For instance, it is inherently wrong in any human being's mind for something that belongs to that particular person to be stolen and used by another person. Or, it is inherently wrong in any human social system, primitive or advanced, for a person to lie, or bear false witness, against another person. Even if laws and rules have been established making stealing and lying allowable in certain social systems, alarms still go off in the individual person's mind when lying and stealing occur, telling that person that something is considerably wrong.
I like to consider the basic social and religious similarities between the ancient metropolitan areas of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the current day metropolitan areas of San Francisco and Houston. You see, something went very wrong in those ancient cities that, over time, made Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament, very angry with their inhabitants. According to the ancient record, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had been established and growing for, probably, hundreds of years before the Prophet Abraham was told by God, in Genesis 18:20-21, that, "Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me; and if not, I will know." So, according to the Bible three men (angels) were sent by God to Abraham, and then, later, to Sodom and Gomorrah, in order to determine the sinfulness of the two cities, and whether the cities' sinful inhabitants should be destroyed.
The necessary task of any sincerely inquiring mind is now to determine the type of human sins that had so severely angered God to the point of destroying two populous cities. The biblical record is quite clear that mankind had been permitted their free mortal agency to choose whether to follow the moral rules of God or the dictates of evil. It is good to remember that, according to Moses' earlier record in Genesis, God had previously destroyed all of the inhabitants of the earth, with the exception of Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives, with a great flood, and had, somehow, repopulated the earth through Noah's seed. Some Biblical historians venture guesses that, probably, a thousand-or-more years passed between the time of the great deluge and that of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Of course, the cities of Houston and San Francisco have grown to their vast metropolitan population sizes in less than 200 years, which is much less than the time in which Sodom and Gomorrah grew to be heinously corrupted.
What could have developed, over time, in Sodom and Gomorrah that caused an angry God, according to Genesis 19:24, to "rain brimstone and fire from heaven upon the two cities, overthrowing them, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground." Was it their lying, cheating, stealing, coveting, murdering, ordinary adultery, or dishonoring parents that really ticked-off the God of heaven and earth? Or was it something much more severely sinful? Certainly, if a person claiming to be a Christian can believe that God caused rain to fall from the heavens to flood, and destroy, the entire earth with water, why can't that same person believe that two ancient cities became so sinful that God caused fire and brimstone to rain down upon them from the same heaven? Perhaps it was when God's angels were in the city of Sodom attempting to evacuate the four only righteous inhabitants of the city (Lot, his wife, and his two daughters), and the men of Sodom, young and old, surrounded Lot's house, demanding that the angels be brought out to them for some vile purpose that Lot greatly feared. Perhaps then the Lord God almighty was more than certain that he should destroy the cities. Moreover, Abraham pleaded with God, as recorded in Genesis 18:23-33, to spare the cities if only ten righteous people could be found there; but God, in his omniscience, knew that there weren't ten righteous people in all the thousands, if not millions, of the inhabitants of both cities. What could all of these people have done to warrant such a horrible death?
After a great deal of study into these matters, I have come to a hearty conclusion that human acceptance and toleration of abhorrent sin and immoral practices, even if the people accepting and tolerating the sin and immorality do not, themselves, indulge in the immoral practices, has, throughout human history, been despised by God. What do the people living in Houston and San Francisco have in common with the ancient people of Sodom and Gomorrah? Do they, as did their ancient brethren and sisters, accept and tolerate heinous immorality? Do you suppose that the great majority of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah thought it politically correct to accept and tolerate the commission of vile immoral acts? Were, perhaps, civil laws enacted by the cities' politicians, and endorsed by the majority of the residents, allowing the practice of these abominations? As I have aforementioned, these acts must have been something much more vile than lying, murdering, and stealing; for there were other cities at that time besides Sodom and Gomorrah, and all of them had their basic social problems emanating from lying, stealing, and murder. But only Sodom and Gomorrah became vile enough to destroy. Of course, this biblical record, and the New Testament admonitions of the Apostle Paul, may be regarded as fictional fantasy by millions of, so called, Christians in a 21st Century world. But it is quite interesting that most of these same Christians also believe that Jesus is eventually returning to the earth, as a thief in the night, to judge and rain vengeance on the human beings, the living and the dead, who have not chosen to follow the basic moral rules of God. This is a sobering thought, that the God and father of Jesus Christ has revealed through ancient scripture that he is reserving judgment of his children until the very end of time, which is a totally different way than he dealt with man anciently. Essentially, God has given the modern Christian world two opportunities through free mortal agency. These apparent options are: 1) enough time to change its evil ways, or 2) enough time and rope to hang itself. Though far from being morally and spiritually perfect, I am quite satisfied with my choice to honor, obey, and sustain the basic moral rules that God established when he created the earth and commanded men and women to multiply and replenish it. And though I can only speak for myself, the ancient words of the Prophet Joshua, found in Exodus 24:15, mean a great deal to me. He said, "And if you be unwilling to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
