The problem of abortion is about more
than just abortions. The problem of child sacrifice is not just about the child
sacrifice in and of itself, but of a vast network of wickedness that has roots
in various apathies, envies, illicitly-covered sins, compromises, unconfessed
sins, fears, and more. Here’s why it’s crucial we understand this.
Scripture mentions the pagan ritual of “passing
your children through the fires of Molech”—a ritual of child sacrifice. Jeremiah
described a furnace built in the Valley of Hinnom, where Israelites adopted the
pagan practice of burning their children in sacrifice to Molech (Jer. 19:5; 32:35). Some of the more hard core ministries
have noted the parallel between this practice and abortion today. Some have
noted this for a long time.
It is almost impossible to imagine just
how far the culture had to have degraded in Israel to fall to the point of
public child sacrifice. This nation was supposed to have been a light unto the
world, a marvel to the surrounding pagan nations because it had God’s law.
Consider all the painstaking details of ceremonial law given to ensure a
visible and stark separation between them and the surrounding nations, all of
the righteous laws, all of the Psalms contrasting the greatness of Yaweh and
the futility of the false gods around them, all of the promises of positive sanctions,
peace, and wealth upon obedience. Even if we were to imagine a nominal, tepid,
and somewhat backslidden Israelite culture—one that could even be denounced by
a prophet as stiffnecked and rebellious—we could probably not imagine what in
the world could have happened in that culture to make it go so far as to engage
in child sacrifice to the worst and most disgusting and revolting, horrible and
detestable of all idols. How could this have happened?
There is an answer to that question,
but I am not sure we are ready to hear it.
The answer can only become
understandable to us once we quit focusing on the revolting aspect of the child
sacrifice itself, and focus on the vast network of wickednesses that allowed
something so polar-opposite of God’s law to come to pass. When we do that, the
parallels between then and now grow to even more uncomfortable proportions. It
will no longer be a mere analogy between murdering children needlessly then and
murdering children needlessly now. It will get much more personal than that for
all of us.
The Israelites did not start
sacrificing children over night. They were not faithful one day and then
suddenly idol worshippers the next. They were not doting on their children one
day then murdering them the next. This was a process that required social and
legal consent over time (though probably a shorter time than we would want to
realize) with a vast number of willing coconspirators.
How we got here
The decision to sacrifice the first
child probably took place in secret and against the law, and probably by a
small group of demonic, pagan-inspired radicals. The practice may have taken
place in secret for some time. Society would have probably rejected it had they
known. There were probably rumors spreading that such things were done in the
dark groves under the cover of darkness, but no one could prove it, and those
implicated denied it. Who would ever do such a thing in Israel, after all?
Then one day, one of the less orthodox
rabbis—not unorthodox, but the guy who always asked the weird questions
about the off-color and taboo subjects—asked the seemingly innocuous question
of why we hated this Baal character so much when the name simply meant “Lord” and
we call Yaweh “Lord” anyway. And why is “Molech” such a bad word since “Melech”
simply means “King” and we call Yaweh King anyway? It seems there’s really an
awful lot that we agree on with our surrounding neighbors. Why be such hostile
enemies over theological fine points when we could set those aside and get an
awful lot of business done together.
This argument seemed so sensible to so
many people that soon it became a new orthodoxy that “Baal” and “Molech” are
really no different than Yaweh, even if they just don’t have all the details of
the law. We still believe the details, they would say, but in reality, the vast
majority of public interaction and worldview was built only on a general belief
in “the Lord” and “the King”—some general notion of a divine being. The façade
of life before the face of God remained the same: people still said please and
thank you, you didn’t have to lock your doors at night, children respected
their parents, shopkeepers made honest change with equal weights, laborers gave
an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wages, and you could generally trust a
contractor to finish on time and within budget.
The best thing about this arrangement
was that, with the new generalized orthodoxy, business could expand into new
markets. Yes, they were technically pagan, but as long as the pleases and thank
yous continued, what was the problem? Business boomed so greatly and our young
men had such a continual supply of jobs that we did not worry about much. Times
are good. It seems, even, that by laying off the intense puritanism of our
forefathers, we’ve actually become more relevant to those around us and God is
blessing us for it. God has made even our enemies to be at peace with us!
We were pretty great, but then we
looked and saw that the followers of Chemosh and Moloch and Baal still had
something we didn’t. They had tremendous national greatness and unity. They had
large powerful armies to defend their borders, and they had powerful leaders
with a command presence to lead them. We looked at ourselves and saw scattered
individualism, smallness, division, and relative disunity in comparison. Even
if we had a unity of law under it all, we didn’t seem to have the same pride
and outward unity that seems to define greatness. Weren’t we supposed to
be the light of the world? Why, then, did these other nations look so much more
glorious? We’d better catch up.
So, to our expansion into pagan
markets, we added pagan forms of unity and symbols of greatness. We accepted
the pagan structures of greatness. We built a comparable army. In fact, we
built an even greater one—the greatest one on earth, ever. I mean it was huge.
We did it to catch up; but some stated this is doing it because it was
necessary, to protect ourselves from tyranny and terror.
We learned how to fund these great
things, too. We learned to borrow money from future generations, and pay back
the debt to society through future taxation. After all, this was for our
children, so we were willing to levy several years of taxes that would affect
them, too. This was for their benefit, so they would not mind a small, you
know, sacrifice.
At first, we even called our taxes “offerings,”
because we were happy to give for such great things. Later, when people pretty
much resigned themselves to the obligatory nature of it, we called them “taxes.”
This word simply means “touchings”—as in handling this for the purposes of
assessment. The old guys said property and privacy were sacred, but we realized
it was more important to have greatness and security, so we allowed the
government to handle, assess, and take other people’s property. Giving up a
little privacy in the process is a very small, well, sacrifice, in
comparison. After all, what have you got to hide?
These little sacrifices on our part and
on our children’s part we began to see as demands from our leaders, but we also
saw them as necessary. At first, we merely tolerated them. But when we realized
their virtue, we argued on their behalf and demanded them ourselves.
There remained some opposition to this.
Some demanded what they called “principle.” They spoke of the literal law of
God. We made clear to the people that God had obviously blessed our nation like
this. Just look at it. Did they really want to give up all these modern
conveniences and national security to return to virtual anarchy? We had shown
how true liberty was achieved: through relaxing things a bit and getting along
with the other gods out there. When we quit being so self-righteous and
radical, we could actually learn from our neighbors, and we are much better for
it. We are now like the other nations. Whoever opposed this was soon
marginalized. It’s hard to imagine they were one time the vast majority. They
are now fringe radicals.
Back in the old days, we had fringe
radicals sacrificing in the dark woods. Today, there only a few people who
oppose our sacrifices for the Lord and the security he provides through these
forms. Today, they are the radicals.
But we don’t literally sacrifice, do
we? Well, not that much. At first, it was just in battle. We sent our sons to
fight in battle for our security, and greatness, too, I have to admit. But
these are necessary sacrifices. With these sacrifices, Moloch was well pleased.
They were sacrifices of a willing heart, and brave souls. From these very
examples, our pride and assurance in the safety of our nation come. Freedom
ain’t free. Sometimes, you have to sacrifice, and that means, sometimes other
people have to die. Moloch gives, and Moloch takes away. Blessed be the name of
the Lord, the King.
The more we began to understand him,
the more the blessings given by our Lord and King seemed so dependent upon our
obedience to him. We obey him, he gives to us. So, we realized we needed to
formalize our worship. After all, we used to have formal worship in old times,
remember? We’d just gotten away from it. So, why should we not have formal
worship reinstated in our new greatness? Yes, we might need to tweak a few
things, but this was for our nation and our children.
We realized the original radicals had
been right all along. They were now the majority. The King had been so great to
us. To him we owed everything. To him we had even pledged our futures and our
children. While it seemed uncomfortable to many people still, most were at
least willing to trust our most elite leaders as they sacrificed—yes, a child.
The remaining opposition to this (today’s radicals—the real, obvious
radicals) seemed like wild-eyed, irrational bigots when they loudly and wildly
protested this act as “murder.” Wow! They could not see that everything depended
upon this. It was the true foundation of our wealth and protection. We could
not continue without acknowledging this. Yes, it could seem extreme, but life
without it was even worse.
So once the few remaining radicals had
lost mainstream credibility, the vast majority of our comfortable middle class
accepted the practice as part of our society and part of our freedom. Even if
they opposed the practice themselves, they accepted that it was the parents’ choice
whether to literally offer their child or not.
And the truth is, even several of the
most prominent radical opponents got sucked into the system. I should tell you
how they became so compromised in the system that their objections were
hypocritical.
Back when the nation was borrowing its
first sacrifices to fund it greatness, a decision was made to supplement the
learning of the least privileged. We opened special academies for the poor. But
several neglected this charitable service still. So, we passed another law that
required them to attend. It didn’t make sense to allow children to grow up
ignorant of what made us so great and powerful. The original free
people—today’s wild-eyed radicals—educated their children in Bible and the old
ways. But when this system opened, demanded attendance from all, and looked
free, virtually everyone began to used it. Yes, it was a demand. Yes, it was
technically a “loss” of freedom. But for greatness and security, the sacrifice
was worth it. In certain circumstances, as we had learned from our Lord, making
other people to sacrifice together, for the greater good, was itself a good
thing.
At first there was little objection.
The public schools still taught about God, heaven and hell, the Bible,
morality, and all the traditional ways. It just also incorporated the ideas of
what really had made us a nation on a hill. Over the years, our Lord and King
took on the new, proper meanings, and we gradually corrected the social
consciousness to match our national greatness. Today, the rightness of this
glory is so obvious, and so convenient, that virtually everyone sends their
children to be educated by Molech. It’s such a small and willing sacrifice,
it’s hardly even a sacrifice at all. In fact, it’s a blessing!
And so it came about that, to this day,
the vast majority of people give their children to Molech. Anyone who objected
to the more devout sacrifices made by more devoted people had virtually no
argument to stand on. They dared not oppose Molech. They liked Molech’s
education. They liked Molech’s army. They demanded Molech’s taxes. They
justified the debts to Molech. They benefited from—depended upon—the greatness
of the society Molech created. How could they then retain any credibility in
denying the legitimacy of worshipping Molech?
The obvious hypocrisy of it was
resolved in one of three ways. They either sold out and defended the system as
at least virtuous to some acceptable degree, or they lost credibility
altogether in public, or they just learned to be quiet and not challenge the
system.
They especially learned to be quiet
when their children got involved. Or even sooner. It was clear their children
made love with the rest of society, and with each other. These children had
little problem bringing their own children to sacrifice to Molech. The radical
parents may have objected, and this may have caused them to act in secret, but
the kids did it anyway. The parents learned to show some sensitivity to this
particular sin: they kept quiet about it after the fact. Likewise, some older
women had engaged in it as well, and now sat in the assemblies of these radicals.
How could these preachers rail against something as murder when they would
offend all these women and daughters?
So, the radical preachers made their
own sacrifice to Molech, too. Their sacrifice was their silence. One priest to
Molech once even said that the silences of the Bible preachers on all this
stuff was the loudest praise Molech ever received.
And so sacrifices went on.
And that’s how it happened.
To put it succinctly, we compromised a
little, and a little compromise led to another, and a few compromises grow into
corruption. We corrupted our worship. We corrupted our education. We corrupted
our debt. We corrupted our defense. We corrupted our law. We corrupted our
justice. We corrupted ourselves. And we killed our children as the ultimate justification
of it.
And everyone who had a finger in it,
from the very first and smallest compromise, bears some of the guilt.
Confronting the Molech Industry
Today we bear the guilt, and we suffer
the inconsistencies, and they are legion. With all of this, however, we can see
that abortion is merely the tip of a vast conspiracy of our own lusts, fears,
and hypocrisies. The vast majority of Christians would decry the anti-child
mentality of the liberal agents of the child sacrificers; but they will then
turn right around and hand their own children over to those same agents of
Molech for their education. Abortion is Molech worship; but Molech worship is
more than just abortion. It is a comprehensive worldview that even most
Christians are consumed with. You can’t stay consumed while criticizing
abortion. It’s hypocritical.
It’s no wonder why our compromised
institutions flee, and even attack, the overt naming of the Molech industry for
what it is. They refuse to call it “child sacrifice,” “Molech worship,” or certainly
not anything like “Molech industry.” Again, it’s no wonder. The moment you call
out an industry, that same moment you draw awareness to the fact that
this thing stretches into far more venues than just the local abortion clinic.
You have now said the problem is institutional and culture-wide. And
once you say something like that, people will naturally expect you to lay out
and explain all the tentacles of such a beast. It becomes incumbent upon you to
be honest about its furthest reaches.
This creates a real problem, because
the church and some of her professing members will be exposed for their connections
to it in various ways, not the least of which is the fact that many women and
daughters sitting in evangelical churches today have had abortions, and the
church leadership does not want to offend anyone, or cause them to feel shame
or reproach. They may leave the church along with their supportive husbands.
Or, they may stay and collectively demand the pastor or elder to leave. They
may demand a change in theology or terminology to accommodate a gentler
coddling of their past as not murder or even sin, but as, well, let’s just not
talk about that and think about nice things to come. Christians want to be
known as loyal and devoted, but not that kind of radical.
Such a pastor also has a family to
feed, and getting fired from a church—especially for “sowing discord,” “contumacy,”
or “divisive preaching”—would not only end his employment but make him
virtually unemployable at any equivalent church from then on. So, he stays
quiet, and says in a more benign, general way that he is “pro-life,” and “opposes
abortion absolutely,” but there’s no need to explore all those divisive
tentacles again. Let’s focus on the real enemy—the liberals—and not “wound our
own” or “attack the sheep.”
And we will certainly not explore
those alleged agents of Molech known in the public schools, government, law,
etc. We have a lot of those on the church rolls, too.
In this new silence, with virtuous,
moral, loyal, patriotic, and pro-life clothes on it, the minister now has
submitted himself and his own children to the Molech industry’s power. He has
placed his own children under the shadow of Molech’s wings for refuge and
providence. Sure, he has not sacrificed his children literally to the idol;
there is no blood atonement there on his part; but there is a “perfect
submission, all is at rest” here. He is not standing directly under the idol
and praising it, but he is standing in its long shadow and keeping his witness
darkened because of it. Sacrifice to the Molech industry comes in a number of
ways. Obedience has been rendered to Molech, and another pulpit so becomes an
arm of the Molech industry.
Such preachers and Christians may not
even feel conscious guilt and shame at their “silence” about all the tentacles
of Molech and their submission to him. They may honestly believe they are doing
the right thing. They may feel justified in their participation in Molech’s
taxes, debts, army, education, and silence on certain issues, and they may feel
righteous indignation at anyone who would accuse them.
They may even engage in apologetics
against “syncretism” and even against “Molech” himself. But they are complicit
in the vast majority of Molech’s kingdom while they do. In Molech, they live
and move and have their being. They sacrifice to him, they praise his
righteousness, and they fear his judgments. In most areas of life, they seek
first the kingdom of Molech, and expect all these things to be added unto them.
They then become the foremost critics
of us wild-eyed radicals who demand a return to God’s law without Molech,
Baal, Ashteroth, or Chemosh in all areas of life. They lead crusades
against us and kick us out of their churches. They strain at a demand for law
and liberty, and find all kinds of “legitimate” ways to call us radicals,
rebels, anarchists, despisers of authority, etc. In the end, they must stamp us
out; but in stamping us out, they are exalting the religion of Molech, and
worshiping him. They sacrifice their time, money, energy, conscience, and whole
lives to him in these ways.
This is why the whole industry must be
abolished. Abortion is not just an act, as murderous as it is. Abortion is the
bloody, gruesome tip of the iceberg of a whole bloody, murderous, thieving,
lying, stealing, destroying, adulterous, and idolatrous worldview. All of it is
connected. All must be replaced with godliness.
