Human sacrifice
Speaking Out
by Ernest D. MartinPrint Article Email to a Friend
We hear a lot about the ultimate sacrifices made for our freedoms. It’s commonly assumed that the price for our freedoms is soldiers giving their lives for the country. It’s sad to hear how many U.S. military personnel have died in the current war. Add the casualties resulting from resorting to military engagements in the past. However, it should be clear that wars are not won by dying but by killing.
Neither the original nor the revised line of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” are in touch with reality. Changing from “as he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free” to “let us live to make men free” still avoids the grim military business of “let us kill to make men free.” The sacrifice of lives must also take into account the lives of the “enemy” people and the euphemistically labeled “collateral damage.” All these are sacrificed for named and unnamed leadership goals under the rubric of national security.
Alongside this commonly confused perspective of sacrifice, there is another way to consider warfare. When political and military leaders send recruits into what they know is harm’s way, they are thereby choosing to sacrifice the lives of the soldiers. Beyond body count, the sacrifice includes ongoing effects in physical and mental well-being and marital and family stress. Why this sacrifice of human lives? Outside any criteria for a just war, the motives of political and military leaders for engaging in war seem to have to do with ideological ambitions and corporate greed.
Decisions to sacrifice human lives stems from the myth of redemptive violence. The notion that violence can be stopped with violence, that the end justifies the means, has been the stance of Christendom ever since Constantine merged church and state. Islam holds the same view.
Diplomatic efforts, if pursued, have had some success. But the prevailing opinion of political leaders and many Christians is that the way of Jesus is too idealistic and impractical in the real world. How many resonate with David W. Shenk saying, “How I wish I could meet Osama bin Laden and embrace him and tell him that I am an ambassador of the King who loves him. I would invite him to repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation” (Journeys of the Muslim Nation and the Christian Church, Herald Press, 2003)?
I see no essential difference between this intentional human sacrifice in war and the practice of votive human sacrifice in some Near Eastern pagan religions that also crept into ancient Israel. The prophets of God denounced this practice in the strongest of terms, as an abomination. As the prophet Jeremiah charged, the kings and officials built high places in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, adjoining Jerusalem, for the people to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molek, the detestable god of the Ammonites. (Is the Pentagon the modern equivalent of Molek?) It was not that Israel had intended to abandon Yahweh. They attempted to syncretize worship of Molek into worship of their covenant God. Similarly today, God-talk and Christian profession are held along with the sacrifice of the younger generation. In the language of ancient Israel’s shameful behavior, it’s putting “children through the fire.” To what God-honoring ends?
Another glaring example of human sacrifice is the sacrifice of yet-to-be-born babies to the gods of convenience and hedonism. These casualties far outnumber the casualties of war. Human life becomes expendable when creature comfort values and self-interest become the determinative devotions of life.
The prophet Micah, in the eighth century B.C., heard questions raised about what kind of sacrifices would satisfy God, and he responded with a timeless answer. Reread Micah 6:6-8 and listen for what intersects with wrongful sacrifices today. The disgraceful sacrifices of human life in our world are not learned from Micah—and certainly not from Jesus.
We hear of instances of soldiers intentionally falling on an explosive to save comrades. Risking life and losing life for the benefit of another follows the example of Jesus’ sacrificial love. But initiating, supporting and participating in human sacrifice for advancing personal, ideological and economic goals is God-rejecting idolatry. Kyrie eleison.
Ernest D. Martin, Columbiana, Ohio, is a retired pastor and writer.
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Ernest D. Martin, Columbiana, Ohio, is a retired pastor and writer.
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