Thinking about God, child sacrifice, and the bargains we make to belong...

 I’ve been thinking about child sacrifice this week. What triggered this topic was a key term we discussed in one of my sociology classes: patriarchal bargain. Basically, this is when people make excuses to justify or act to maintain a harmful system (in this case, patriarchy) even when they are aware of the costs, because it is also a system that benefits them in some ways. In class, we were discussing some examples of patriarchal bargains. And then something clicked in my mind. We make these types of bargains in other settings as well. I've made these bargains when I’ve been silent about my convictions to maintain belonging in certain communities.

So, child sacrifice. Most of us would consider it peak evil to sacrifice an innocent child. Indeed, growing up in the church I remember being taught that one thing that differentiated the God of Israel, the God in the Bible, was that He valued life, protected the innocent, and created the Law (the rulebook at the center of the Old Testament scriptures) to separate his people (the Israelites) from other nations in the world at that time – pagan nations with abhorrent practices like child sacrifice.

But did the God of the Old Testament actually direct his people away from this practice? At minimum, this is less-than clear when we take a look at some of the texts in the Bible. The first that comes to mind is the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22), when God tells Abraham to take Isaac, his promised son, to a mountain, and to sacrifice him there. At the last minute, God provides a ram instead, and, shew, God DOESN’T promote child sacrifice. Or at least God allows Abraham to avoid it. But I have always been taught that this was a “test of faith” designed by God to see if Abraham really trusted God to keep his promise of a great nation (which it was assumed would come through Isaac). If it was a test, then passing it implies Abraham had to be willing in his heart of hearts to make the sacrifice and God had to know that Abraham intended to follow through. Even though child sacrifice didn’t happen in this story, doesn’t the entire design of the test imply the Old Testament authors were writing about a God who they believed would ordain child sacrifice in some situations? Particularly if it is pursued as a means prove one’s dedication to and trust in God above all else?

In the very next book of the Bible (Exodus 12), God sends an Angel of Death through Egypt as a final plague in an escalating tug of war with Pharaoh over the Israelite people’s freedom. It’s startling because the text says God hardened Pharaoh's heart against freeing the Israelites and then sent an Angel of Death to kill all first born living things (children, adults, and animals) across Egypt. In the midst of such great loss, Pharaoh and other Egyptians essentially pay the Israelites to leave town.

Another challenging Old Testament text around child sacrifice is the story of Jephthah’s daughter (Judges 11). She loses her life after “the Spirit of the Lord was upon” her military-commander father and he makes an ill-fated vow to sacrifice whoever comes out to meet him when he returns home after victory. It is his daughter, and he follows through, with her apparent consent.

These are just three of the stories that seem to conflict with a God who is against child sacrifice. Can we choose not to grapple deeply with these stories by using some mental gymnastics and doctrinal stretching? Certainly. It’s common for those of us who engage with the Bible to choose some passages to stake our lives and communities on and others to brush over without looking too closely. It would be impossible to live faithfully to every word when the original authors and the eventual compilers (who stitched the Bible in its current form together several hundred years after Jesus) allowed so many tensons, complexities, and even blatant contradictions to remain in the text. Not to mention we are living in an entirely different time and cultural context than the one in which the Bible was written.

I was raised to do the gymnastics, ignore the hard questions these texts raise, and even to avoid the grief and horror that I now believe they demand. In fact, I learned many of these stories when I was a child. These days, I have plenty of friends from different or non-religious and cultural backgrounds who would read these stories with their eyes popping out of their heads. THIS GOD SAID WHAT? THIS GOD DID WHAT? AND EVERYONE WENT ALONG WITH IT? AND YOU WANT TO BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE AND FOLLOW THIS GOD?

Now, let me be clear. I do not actually think the God of the universe supports child sacrifice. I think the God who orchestrated life in so many forms (from the smallest cell to the largest mammal, from blades of grass to live oak trees) does abhor death. The life and ministry of Jesus, described in the New Testament of the Bible, demonstrates an ethos of life. Jesus tells his followers that he is from God and that seeing him is seeing God (John 14). Jesus seeks out oppressed people on the margins of society. Jesus touches and heals lepers and many others who are considered unclean and untouchable according to Jewish law. Jesus brings at least two children back to life, literally reversing death. Jesus teaches about a God who cares for the lilies of the field and the birds and who counts feathers and hairs on our heads. A God who is a good parent who gives good gifts to their children. Jesus pushes back on the Law’s eye-for-an-eye philosophy, saying instead that we should love our enemies, turn the other cheek, pray for those who persecute us, and give more than what is unjustly demanded. Is this a God who would promote child sacrifice? Not in my reckoning.

Most Christians today would explicitly point to the loving-parent-God presented in the New Testament Gospels (the stories of Jesus) as the best representation of who God truly is and who we follow. But at least implicitly, the God who uses child sacrifice as a faith-test (Genesis), sends an Angel of Death to murder innocent foreign children (Exodus), and who cares more about honoring vows than preserving life (Judges) is still present in some of our systems of belief and the practices that support those systems.

Now I want to circle back to the beginning of this essay. Patriarchal bargaining. Or other forms of bargaining to maintain systems that are costly to some and beneficial to others. Child sacrifice. Most Christians today would adamantly argue against child sacrifice and any implication that the God of the Bible sanctions it. We can find ways to not take the texts I describe above at face value and to focus on other lessons and ideas in those stories. BUT. But. In the United States and globally, countless Christian parents throw our children out of our households, excommunicating them from our families and wider communities, when they come out as gay or transgender. Christians who are elected officials are working hard in legislatures across America to pass laws that criminalize gender affirming care for transgender kids, ban books with positive representations of LGBTQ people, restrict teachers from discussing anything related to the LGBTQ community in schools, and outlaw drag shows and other public or celebratory expressions of LGBTQ identities.

When pressed to defend these kinds of actions, Christians often point to the importance of “loving the sinner but hating the sin.” We may admit to regretting the rupturing of families and lives, but many of us believe it is “necessary” in order to not compromise our faith and beliefs. It is clear to me, then, that many of us DO in fact take some of those texts in the Old Testament at face value and believe in a God who would ordain child sacrifice in some situations (if it is pursued as a means prove our dedication to and trust in God above all else). 

Is this sound reasoning and good teaching? When Jesus warns about “false prophets” and wolves in sheep’s clothing, he tells a parable about a tree that produces good or bad fruit. “…every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:17-20, NRSV). Look at the fruit (what grows from the teaching), he is saying. The fruit of the way the Christian community, and the wider society often influenced by certain Christian beliefs, treats LGBTQ young people is rotten. It is death. It could be argued, in fact, that these practices and policies are a form of child sacrifice that is widely supported in our communities and churches.

According to a large research survey conducted in 2022, in the past year, nearly 20% (that’s ONE IN FIVE) LGBTQ kids attempted suicide and many others considered it. “LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers,” and some estimate that “45% of LGBTQ youth serious considered attempting suicide in the past year.” The risk is elevated to as much as 7 times more likely for transgender youth. The data does not support the idea that these youth are at higher risk because of who they are. They are at higher risk because of how we respond to them and treat them. Youth who are supported and affirmed by family members and other significant adults, and who have access to affirming spaces (such as schools), report significantly lower rates of attempting suicide.

Imagine if our beliefs in a lifegiving God who abhors child sacrifice and goes out of his way to reverse death (hello, resurrection) extended to these kids, and imagine if we used our privilege and political power in the United States to establish policies that protected them and to create a culture that celebrated and affirmed them? If only…

The conclusion and the reality? I would like to say that I was never part of a community that sponsored child sacrifice explicitly or implicitly. But for many years I attended churches whose doctrines and practices did just that. And even though I didn’t agree, I endorsed them with my silence. I knew that to be openly affirming would be to lose my membership in those communities and all of the benefits that came with it. I also deeply love many of the people in those communities (this is still true) and it was hard for me to imagine experiencing a rupture in these relationships (literally what LGBTQ kids constantly face). Eventually, I couldn’t cope with the internal tension I was experiencing between what I knew to be true and right and what my silence was communicating. I knew I was a hypocrite, and I was also in ministry, supposedly representing Christ to young people. Including LGBTQ youth.

I decided I didn’t ever want a single kid in my ministry to wonder whether or not I would reject them if I really knew them. I wanted to be able to be outspoken in my support and affirmation and to be able to loudly proclaim every child’s belovedness. Beloved, just as they are. Beloved, from the beginning. Beloved by God who is a good parent even when human parents and institutions and soccer coaches get things very wrong. Worthy of abundant life and a necessary contributor to our families and communities, including to churches. Without their gifts and their light, God’s Kingdom, the body of Christ, is not complete. 

I spoke up and exited (and was exiled from) multiple communities. While I found myself in what some might call a “spiritual wilderness,” I wasn’t alone. God is present, and I am surrounded by many incredible people who are wounded and yet still wrestling with God and the Bible. I am a member of an affirming church community that truly invites everyone to God’s table, and I am a sibling to people who bear the scars of attempted child sacrifice. I regret that I was not brave enough to enter the wilderness sooner. And I am sorry to those who my silence and complicity hurt. Please forgive me. Forgive us.