Ben Grimm, known as The Thing from Marvel’s The Fantastic Four, had a famous catch phrase, “Its Clobberin’ time” when it was time to take care of business. Colby Martin has decided to take care of his business of justifying homosexuality in the Christian religion as “unclobbering” time using modern theological practices to dismiss verses that condemn homosexuality.
Mr. Martin started his journey of discovery, which he wrote about in his book “Unclobber” and on his website with psychedelic mushrooms, and has continued his journey with divorce from his wife of 19 years to explore the homosexual lifestyle. Although some Christians may not realize it, Mr. Martin’s shift in morality is not just common but is consuming Western Christianity in a wave of LGBT jihad often known as progressive Christianity.
In this blog post, we will examine one of the sets of verses these Christian homosexual advocates “unclobber” to try to show that homosexuality is created by God, along with heterosexuality, and since God only cares about love, homosexual love is at least as valid as heterosexual love. These advocates write that if you believe scripture actually condemns certain sexual practices, even among consenting adults, it means you are actually a hater whose Christianity should be questioned.
The “misunderstood” verses
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Gen. 2:21-25
There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.
Deut. 23:17
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Jude 1:6-7
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Lev. 18:22, 20:13
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Rom. 1:26-8
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Cor. 6:9-10
Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;
1 Tim 1:9-10
And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door. But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
Gen 19:1-11
The story of the two angels who came to visit Lot in Sodom in Genesis 19 is probably as famous as the story of David and Goliath and the prodigal son. One of the Christian rainbow jihad’s websites, BelieveOutLoud.com, has an article by Rev. Mark Sandlin entitled “Clobbering ‘Biblical’ Gay Bashing that is subtitled “Christianity and ‘Biblical’ hatefulness” that summarizes a lot of Mr. Colby’s “unclobbering” points.
Mr. Sandlin’s eisegesis of Genesis 19 points out that hospitality was a very big deal in biblical times, which it definitely was. He writes, “To get a sense of how important hospitality was, when the men of the town say they want to force themselves (most likely sexually) on Lot’s guest, Lot actually offers up his daughters instead.” Notice that Mr. Sandlin writes the Sodomites most likely wanted to sexually abuse the angels rather than state the obvious, that the men of Sodom wanted to anally rape these two strangers. Why else would Lot offer his daughters? Mr. Sandlin’s bias will not even allow him to state the obvious truth of what the Sodomites want in Genesis 19. He goes on to write,
“In the end, the men of the town did not get what they wanted. They wanted to exert their dominance of the guests. They wanted to humiliate them, as warriors after conquering a foe might do in those days, sexually putting another male into the position of a woman (who after all was thought of as property, as weak, and as soft and therefore less than a man).”
Mr. Sandlin presents no evidence that ancient warriors anally raped their male foes to treat them as women but does insert his negative views of “the patriarchy” in the world, both 3 millennia ago and today. I did an extensive search and found many, many instances of ancient warriors, and sadly even of the “warriors” today on October 7th, 2023 in Israel, raping the women of the conquered as a weapon of war. Mr. Sandlin’s hypothesis about raping males to show dominance, although rare, has apparently happened. Mr. Sandlin maintains that the inhabitants of Sodom wanted to rape these two strangers not because of homosexual urges, but because they wanted to show who was in charge. A gang of dozens or even hundreds of men wanted to show two strange men they were in charge by raping them? Yet many of Mr. Sandlin’s readers will think, “That makes sense,” when of course it does not. Dozens or hundreds of men in a riot will be the ones who are in charge and they did not need to show they were in charge by carrying raping two strangers. The Sodomites did not want to violate the strangers sexually according to Mr. Sandlin, but wanted to be inhospitable to them by violating them sexually. That is seriously his hypothesis. He goes on to write,
“The sin is not about being gay. It is not about non-straight sexual orientation. The sin of Sodom was lacking hospitality, not being just, bullying, hating strangers, and not caring for those marginalized. Funny, they are all things Churches (and individuals for that matter) sorely need to keep in mind and be better at practicing when it comes to how we do or do not welcome LGBTQ folk into our lives. After all, in today’s society, who is more marginalized, more bullied, more treated like a ‘stranger,’ than them?”
The LGBTQ folks that Mr. Sandlin believes are marginalized have actually become a group outside of Lot’s house demanding that those who disagree with them and their lifestyle be punished. Thus in Mr. Sandlin’s world, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah should have us embrace sodomy and homosexuality rather than reject it. Mr. Sandlin approaches the bible with a preconceived notion, as all Christians do. Mr. Sandlin lets his reader know what that notion is when he writes, “A person whose sexual orientation is homosexual, or bi-sexual, or queer can no more separate themselves from their sexuality than a heterosexual person can.” Just as Mr. Colby wrote on page 130 of Unclobbering, “Today, we know that homosexuality is a sexual orientation from birth.” So Mr. Colby and Mr. Sandlin already believe that homosexuality and homosexual sex is perfectly normal and loving and actually even created by God. Mr. Sandlin’s eisegesis of Genesis 19 is his attempt to explain the actions of the mob in Sodom while “knowing” it could not be related to homosexuality, which was created by God in his worldview. Mr. Sandlin’s and Mr. Martin’s belief is we need to take the idea of our modern social justice paradigm and imprint it into a middle eastern society of 3 and a half millennia ago to explain sodomy. Even though that paradigm is by and large rejected in the Middle East today. They teach we must accept that God created homosexuality and thus the scripture must be viewed through that prism.
You may be asking yourself what about the fact that God created humans as man and woman and God’s first command to them was to be fruitful and reproduce when they became one flesh. Therefore God obviously did not make Adam and Eve homosexual, but we are to believe He did make their descendants homosexual knowing they could not fulfill this first command of God? How does Mr. Sandlin answer this question? “Let me just say right off the top, three of the verses that are sometimes considered clobber verses have nothing to do with the question of homosexuality. Putting Genesis 2:21-25, Deuteronomy 23:17, and Jude 1:6-7 in the category of anti-gay verses is nothing more than an attempt to beef up the number of verses that are supposedly “against” homosexuality. They have nothing to do with it. So, I am simply going to ignore them. If someone attempts to use them as proof of the “abomination” of homosexuality, I suggest you simply ignore them as well.”
Thus the “unclobberers” have a preconceived notion. The Bible is about love and not being unjust. The role of procreation, being fruitful and multiplying, really has nothing to do with love according to the unclobbering folks. And anyone who brings this up should simply be ignored. Is it any wonder that while bars and marijuana sellers were allowed to stay open during Covid-19, churches closed without complaint because the government said a very bad flu required such closures? And that the vast majority of Christian churches simply complied? After all, we would not want to be unloving as defined by the government.
I have known Christians who have the gift of discerning spirits. I do not have that gift. But I truly believe that if you are a Christian with the indwelling of the holy spirit reading the entirety Mr. Sandlin’s article will activate the holy spirit in you as it did in me. So if you can stomach the completely illogical arguments to justify a pre-conceived viewpoint, as Mr. Sandlin does, I suggest you read the entirety of his eisegesis.