Assaulted by Molech at the March for Life

by Nicole Cooley

As part-time staff for the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), I knew Molech would appear at the March for Life (MFL) this year.  Marching with my oldest sons and pro-life friends from church, CBR’s latest MFL exhibit assaulted our eyes and our ears like nothing I’d ever experienced.

Unlike my CBR colleagues, I didn’t know what to expect.  I was unprepared for the horrific Molech exhibit, just like everybody else.  We had no idea what we were marching into.

Combined sign panels produced an image of a priest of Molech holding two screaming babies about to be placed in the outstretched, red hot arms and hands of the huge brass idol.  The image was 12 feet high and 24 feet wide.  I saw an aborted baby’s hand, blinked, and read the words, “Abortion is Child Sacrifice.”  Then, another larger-than-life portrait, this one depicting Satan. This image was 15 feet high.  My eyes looked away after a brief glance.  Meanwhile, my ears recoiled from the sound of babies crying from CBR’s speakers on both ends of the exhibit.

A short time later, CBR’s Maggie Egger interviewed me on camera.  She asked, “Is abortion child sacrifice?”  My answer flowed easily, recapping my personal history of rape and abortion, and for the first time making the connection, with my own words, that I had sacrificed my child in order to be healed from rape.  Believing a lie from my pastor who urged me to abort, I learned the hard way that abortion would not help me heal, but would compound the trauma and make healing infinitely more difficult.

In the days following the March, I rapidly struggled to make sense of it all.  Perhaps more so than most, because Facebook acquaintances demanded an explanation, one that I didn’t have at first. In the early hours of Sunday morning, God woke me with the thought, “You have now marched to the altar of Molech.”

After searching the Scripture for references to Molech, and finding an article by Gregg Cunningham on the topic of child sacrifice, I began to understand.  Had CBR not assaulted me, I doubt I would have ever done so otherwise.  Even with the fourteen revisions of Gregg’s article in my email archives, nothing had compelled me to dig further until the MFL.

As a result of marching to Molech, I now have a deeper understanding of abortion as Biblical child sacrifice.  I do not relish the path to this insight; I’m ashamed it took that much to make me want to really study Biblical child sacrifice for myself.  I previously knew about Biblical child sacrifice on an intellectual level.  Now my heart understood as well.

Consider this: Simon Sebag Montefiore, international best-selling author of the history text Jerusalem, says:

Most dreadful of all, … [Manasseh] encouraged the sacrifice of children at the roaster — the Tophet — in the Valley of Hinnom, south of the city [of Jerusalem].  Indeed “he made his own pass through the fire….”  Children were said to be taken there as priests beat drums to hide the shrieks of the victims from their parents.  (Vintage Books, 2011, p. 44)

Those of us who participated in the MFL this year have now seen Scripture revealed as plainly as possible.

God’s people in the Old Testament eventually tore down the altars to Molech at Tobeth (2 Kings 23:10).  It’s far past time for His people in the United States to do the same to our altars to Molech, most notably our largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.  Instead of trying to justify their existence through Planned Parenthood’s imaginary “good” services, it’s time to tear them down once and for all.  Eliminating over half a billion dollars in federal funding will be a great start towards that goal.

I’m told the MFL is supposed to be a celebration of life instead of a funeral for the lost.  The other side doesn’t fear our celebration of life.  They do fear our real mourning for the over 58 million lives lost to abortion, because that passion could mean their own demise.  Which view would motivate pro-life people more to make a difference in the coming year for life?

Nicole Cooley is a CBR Project Director and a FAB contributor.