Prayers to Moloch: No Prayers Can Wash Away the Blood of the Victims of Gun Violence

“All gods demand sacrifices.” Hannibal Lecter

Moloch was a god of child sacrifice written about in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, the Jewish scriptures, and by other ancient writings. There are 8 passages dealing with Moloch in the Masoretic text. Most occur in Leviticus but one from the period before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian’s is in the book of Jeremiah.

“And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to set apart their sons and their daughters unto Moloch; which I commanded them not, neither came it into My mind, that they should do this abomination; to cause Judah to sin.” Jeremiah 32:35

Unlike the ancients we have devised another means of sacrificing children and men of every race and creed to our Moloch, the gun, more specifically, the AR-15, the semi-automatic “civilian” version of the military’s seductively designed M16 series of rifles. Those weapons were adopted by the military in the early part of the Vietnam War and along with the carbine version, the M4 remain the staple of personal weapons used in every military service, as well as with militaries around the world.

Me in 1983

During my long military service it was often my personal weapon, until I became a Chaplain. But, even as a chaplain I continued to familiarize with it when assigned to combat arms units, and when I served with US Advisors to the Iraq Army and security forces in the badlands of the remote parts of Al Anbar Province during the 2007-2008 surge, just in case.

I like the weapon, but it is a weapon of war designed with one purpose, to kill large numbers of people efficiently inflicting maximum damage on the human body. It has no business in the hands of any civilian, even a responsible gun owner.

As a major medical center trauma and surgery department chaplain, I saw the immense damage done to people by them and other high powered weapons. However, the damage caused by the .223 caliber bullets fired by these weapons create a magnitude of destruction far greater than most weapons commonly available to people at relatively low prices. The Washington Post article in the link below shows what that damage does to the human body.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/

There are now frequently give away with other major purchases or even raffles, some by churches.

In 1994, they and other high powered assault weapons were banned by Congress. But in 2004 President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress allowed the legislation to lapse, giving way to the NRA and gun lobby, thus beginning the hyper-militarization of the American public. This happened in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th 2001, and the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I remember those days, many Americans were overcome by a bloodlust motivated by fear, and revenge. However, at no time were more than 1% of Americans serving in the military, instead, millions of people lured by the propaganda of the Gun industry and lobby. In the years since it has become the weapon of choice for many Americans, and many states have so loosened their gun laws that almost anyone can purchase one, including the mentally-ill.

They are carefully market to appeal to wide variety of people, men, women, minorities, and even children. There are specially designed smaller working models of the real thing for children, allegedly to introduce them to the “shooting sports”, but when children are also able to access highly realistic digital games where they can play characters who use such weapons to kill, what are we endorsing? I would say that we are sacrificing them on our modern altar to Moloch. We are teaching them that the lives of others have no meaning. Likewise, some parents also immerse them in violent racist and religious intolerance. I cannot imagine the monsters that we are cultivating, but then is that anything new? Dylann Roof. Adam Lanza. James Holmes. Jared Loughner. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Salvador Ramos, Payton S. Gendron, Ethan Crumbley, Colin Jeffrey "CJ" Haynie, John Timothy Earnest, and Nikolas Cruz, just to name a few.

Of course there are the politicians who empower such death and destruction by saying that “nothing can be done” as they resist any efforts to restrict the availability of these weapons of war by lowering the age that they can be purchased, loosening restrictions on who can purchase them, and taking millions of dollars from the NRA, other groups, and lobbyists from the gun industry.

Likewise, many of these politicians are now trying to get the AR-15 named the official gun of the United States. I wish that I was not kidding. Many now sport pins on their ties or lapels that depict an AR-15, and posing for Christmas photos which their family members, including minor children holding AR-15s. Sadly all too many of these men and women are firm believers in the cause of Christian Nationalism and theocracy.

In the early 1970s, Barry McGuire who had gained fame with the song Eve of Destruction, wrote a song as a Christian call Don’t Blame God for the Sins of America. One verse and the chorus is printed below.

And we got million dollar churches
But nobody's on their knees
Well, there's so many selfish people
Just doing what they please
You know we're sending people to the moon
We got a TV set in every room
Well, just to watch a world that's dying
From starvation and disease

So don't blame God
For the sins of America
America has fallen
From the ways of the Lord
Now, don't blame God
For the sins of America
Living for the dollar
She'll be dying by the sword
Yeah, dying by the sword

It truly is a sobering song. I just wish that the Christian purveyors of gun rights over human lives, who prove by their words and deeds that they are the basest liars when they claim to be pro-life, would actually hear those words rather than use banal repetition of their favorite phrase whenever people commit massacres using AR-15s and other weapons of destruction “thoughts and prayers.” In my opinion they can stuff their prayers in a sack, because they are only used as an excuse to throw the responsibility for these massacres on God in order to excuse their inaction.

How many more need to die?