It seems I owe the Trump administration in general, and Jeff Sessions in particular, an apology. You see, I had assumed that what Trump & Co. genuinely worshipped was Money—or, if you prefer Biblical language, Mammon. As in “you may serve God or Mammon, but not both.” And given the Trump kleptocracy…

But now I find there is another god which is also worshipped in the White House…at least by Jeff Sessions. To wit: Moloch.

You remember Moloch, don’t you? He was the Canaanite deity mentioned in the Old Testament in several places. Quite an impressive figure, really. He was, at least according to some reports, depicted as a great bronze statue, perhaps with horns, with a raging fire in its belly. He seems to have been quite widely worshipped, though not always under the same name or in quite the same form. He shows up as far away as Carthage where he is known as Baal Hammon. And, or so is hinted in the Bible, in several places he was a formidable rival to Yahweh.

So, all in all, quite a figure.

Oh, and one other thing.

He demanded and received the sacrifice of human children.

In my lost youth, in the 1960s and early 1970s, some historians speculated that this was not really the truth. Some of them said that it was only slander spread by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. But, no. It turns out to have really been the case. Archeologists keep finding, you see, children’s bones associated with Moloch/ Baal Hammon’s temples.

And it seems, too, that the Bible was, for once, quite accurate when it describes the techniques used at the sacrifices. It seems that, at least in some places, Moloch’s statues had outstretched hands…at an angle. Below the hands was a furnace…a raging fire. The live child, a baby, was placed on the hands…and allowed to roll forward. To fall. To the fire.

Horrible, of course. Or, anyway, I think so. I’m sure some cultural relativists out there would argue that it is not mine to judge other societies’ practices. Maybe they’re right.

But I don’t think so.

I think they’re wrong. Just as I think it is horribly, horrible wrong for this nation to be tearing families apart at the borders. And I think it is uniquely, grotesquely, chillingly terrible that not only are we separating children from their parents, but that the Trump Administration…or rather, abomination…has established special prisons for migrant children and toddlers.

And then, to top it all off, Jeff Sessions, that rodent-like obscenity, justifies it all by quoting the Bible.

Indeed, if one did not know a little history, if one was not familiar with Moloch, one would be confused. How is it possible, one would ask, that Sessions would cite the Bible, of all books, to justify such inhumanity?

But, of course, if you do know history, if you do know Moloch, then it all makes sense.

Here, in the bronze idol, in the fires, in the death of children…you have Sessions’ true and secret god.

In all its horror…

So let us rejoice. For now we understand.

And, also, we may foretell.

For we know that, in time, Sessions and his deity will meet.

When, in the fire and the bronze, he will receive precisely what he has given.