American Moloch

Why are Americans so Willing to Sacrifice the Life of Someone Else?

Image by Jason McBride a collage of licensed images from Canva

Sacrifice used to be a public virtue in America.

Americans of various creeds and spiritual traditions used to make common cause in the notion that the sacrifice of something you wanted, or even needed, for a higher good was the noblest act one could make in both spiritual and civic life.

We have taken the idea of sacrifice and polluted it with greed. We have desecrated the word to mean an investment, a way to get even more of what you want later. Worst of all, we have abandoned the idea of making a personal sacrifice and replaced it with hero worship.

It’s a dangerous thing to be a hero in America. Being a hero means the society is willing to trade your life for their comfort, whether or not you consent to the exchange.

We have created an American Moloch.

When I was nine years old, a zealous substitute Sunday school teacher preached to a confused group of suburban kids about the dangers of idol worship and taught us about the cult of Moloch and child sacrifice.

In the Old Testament, Moloch, sometimes also referred to as Baal, is described as a false and foreign god that the Israelites were forbidden to worship. Moloch was singled out among all myriad…