Wednesday Word . . . Sacrifices at the Altar of Molech
On Monday I was in Sheridan for a hospital visit. The good news is that the necessary procedure was a success and the patient should make a full recovery.
While I was waiting for them to come out of recovery and be allowed to visit, the news channel in the waiting room was reporting on yet another school shooting in Madison, WI, at Abundant Life Christian School. The latest report is that at least five people were killed in the attack.
Once again we are reminded that we, as a society, value the unrestricted freedom to obtain firearms over the lives of children and teachers. Once again we, as a society, are told to not politicize gun violence. Once again we do nothing more than send empty truckloads of “thoughts and prayers.” We are reminded that schools based in a Christian curriculum, where daily prayers are offered, where chapel worship is offered weekly (if not daily), and where the Ten Commandments probably hang on the walls, are not immune from gun violence. And once again we are reminded that our willingness to sacrifice children on the altar of the Second Amendment is a price we must pay for our personal freedoms.
In the Hebrew Scriptures there are several references to Molech (or Moloch) as a pagan deity requiring child sacrifice. Other scholars have proposed that the name wasn’t a deity, but a verb signifying the act of child sacrifice. But whether a deity or a verb, what is clear is that God demands an end to child sacrifice. We first get a glimpse of this in the story of the binding of Isaac (Gen. 22), and then with specific commandments of God to end the practice.
After yet another school shooting, when will we decide to listen to God and end the practice of sacrificing children on our own modern altar of Molech?
May God grant us forgiveness of our sins,
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