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A television program that concentrates on religious news (News Odyssey),
recently presented a segment that dealt with the growing occurrence of child
sacrifice in India. It reported that in rural areas of the country, this had
become enough of a problem that several human rights groups have been called in
to investigate the disappearance of children. It is feared they are being
kidnapped in order to be sacrificed.
The newscast did not link this report of child sacrifice to the fact that
animal sacrifice is an everyday fact of life in rural Indian villages. Neither
was this connection made by the team of educators who are going about the
countryside, trying to educate their people away from sacrificial worship. A
spokesman for these educators said "We strongly condemn these acts of human
sacrifice." (Emphasis added.)
But it is not a coincidence that the sacrifice of young children is being
carried out in a country where animal sacrifice is still an acceptable form of
religious worship. And it is not only in rural areas that sacrificial worship is
practiced. In the vast city of Calcutta, where worship of the goddess Kali is
widespread, animal sacrifice is a common occurrence.
This belief in a deity who can be persuaded to provide good things for
people—or dissuaded from doing bad things to them—if living creatures are killed
on its altar, is a form of worship that is still supported by various religions.
And even Christianity, which never sacrificed animals, supports this practice in
retrospect. It maintains that the slaughter of animals was a legitimate form of
worship, instituted by God.
Not surprisingly, the Bible shows that our Judeo-Christian heritage includes
a history of child sacrifice. As long as the slaughter of animals is considered
a godly form of worship, there will always be those who see human sacrifice as a
reasonable alternative. If the killing of an animal earns great merit, than the
murder of a child will be even more efficacious.
It is this kind of thinking that is leading to child sacrifice in India
today, just as did in Palestine, in the past. The Bible is replete with
references to the sacrifice of children. It was a continuing problem among the
Jewish people, for whom animal sacrifice was a central act of worship.
The Bible is filled with euphemisms that obscure its own references to human
sacrifice. It tells of the "false worship" among the Hebrews, who were
worshipping Molech or Chemosh. And for the most part, the modern reader equates
this false worship with some kind of veneration, or adoration, of foreign gods.
But the false worship that was denounced by the prophets also had to do with
human sacrifice.
Although there is no record of King Solomon sacrificing his own children, the
Bible does report that he built altars to the gods who demanded such worship.
"And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord...then did Solomon build a high
place for Chemosh and for Molech. And likewise did he for all his strange wives
which burnt incense and sacrificed to their gods. (I Kings,11: 7,8)
 Human
sacrifices were burnt on the altars built by King Solomon
So while the priests were burning animal sacrifices at the great Temple built
by Solomon, there were others who were offering human sacrifices "on the
mountain east of Jerusalem" on the altars which the King had built for himself
and his wives.
Solomon reigned circa 961-922 B.C., And from the time that the Jerusalem
Temple became the center of unending animal sacrifices, the Hebrew people were
also plagued by the incidence of child sacrifice among them. It continued for
centuries, and the Bible reports that there were Kings of Judah who not only
made human sacrifices, they slaughtered their own children. The scriptures name
King Ahaz and King Manasseh as having sacrificed their sons.
The many biblical references to Topheth and to the Valley of Hinnom as places
where the Israelites worshipped false gods, are also references to the sacrifice
of children that went on there. These human sacrifices were burnt offerings, in
imitation of the animals who were offered as burnt sacrifices (called
holocausts) at the Jerusalem Temple .
The Latter Prophets, who condemned the sacrifice of animals, understood that
the slaughter of any being—human or animal—was an abomination. In the book of
Micah, no distinction is made between the evils of animal sacrifice and the
evils of human sacrifice.
"With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the
Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I
offer my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my
soul"? (Micah 6:6,7)
The Prophet went on to say that the lord demanded mercy and justice, not
sacrifice. "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord
require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your
God."(Micah 6:8) Centuries later, Jesus repeated this message to his followers:
"I will have mercy, not sacrifice." (Matthew l9:13; 12:7) Micah was prophesying
to his people in the eighth century, B.C., and his ministry continued during the
reign of three separate Kings of Judah. Their behavior makes it apparent that
they ignored the Prophet. One of those who came to the throne during that time
was Ahaz, who sacrificed his own son. A generation later Manasseh, who also
slaughtered his son, ascended the throne. He ruled for 55 years, and during that
time the king and the people continued their ritual murder of children and
animals.
The Prophets warned that sacrificial worship would
bring disaster
Other prophets like Isaiah, Amos, and Jeremiah, had warned that the slaughter
of either children or animals, in the name of God, would bring disaster to the
nation. But the Hebrew people continued their sacrifices until they were
compelled to stop by outside forces. In 586 B.C., the Babylonians captured
Jerusalem and burned the Temple to the ground. The Jewish people were exiled to
Babylon.
But a few generations later, when the people returned from their Babylonian
captivity, sacrificial worship was reinstated. It was still going on during the
time of Jesus but several decades after his death, animal sacrifice was, again,
forcibly ended.
This time it was the Temple built by Herod that was destroyed. And this time
it was the Roman Army that defeated the Jewish people.
The Temple has never been rebuilt, so sacrifice has never been resumed in
Jerusalem. But in spite of the prophetic warnings against animal sacrifice, and
in spite of the disasters that came upon the people who refused to give up this
violent worship, both Christianity and Judaism uphold the slaughter of animals
as having been a legitimate form of worship.
Both religions claim that the God who breathed His Spirit into all creatures,
commanded men to murder His animals. They claim that the Lord of all creation
was pleased by the sacrificial worship in which frenzied animals were murdered
in the name of God, and their blood poured, by the bucketsful, on the altars of
their Creator.
Just as human sacrifices were a counterpart to animal sacrifices in ancient
Israel, this relationship continues in modern India. And those educators who are
trying to eradicate the ritual slaughter of children need to understand that as
long as they condemn only human sacrifice—implying that the sacrifice of animals
is an acceptable and godly form of worship—the problem will continue. There will
always be those who think that if the ritual murder of a lamb is pleasing to
their god, then the slaughter of a child will be even more pleasing. #
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