# Data Over Dogma — Moloch, Mormons, and Mike Lee **Summary.** One Data Over Dogma release (Dan McClellan + Dan Beecher) in two formats: a focused YouTube rebuttal ("Abortion Is NOT Child Sacrifice") and the full podcast episode ("Moloch, Mormons, and Mike Lee"). The hosts dismantle Senator Mike Lee's "altar to Moloch" meme equating abortion with child sacrifice, then turn to a second fight — the Pentagon's spat over whether Latter-day Saints count as Christian — to argue that policing religious boundaries is social power-work, not theology. (Source: [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/Abortion Is NOT Child Sacrifice|Abortion Is NOT Child Sacrifice]]) --- ## Segment 1 — The Moloch / child-sacrifice rebuttal **1. The category objection.** Lee's meme (a Grok-animated burning-altar image, captioned "James Talarico will put you first on the altar to Moloch") functions as a dog whistle: abortion = child sacrifice → abortion supporters = evil. The hosts' first move is a category distinction — abortion happens *before* birth, child sacrifice *after* — so the equation collapses two different kinds of being. > [!quote] > "abortion takes place before birth, child sacrifice takes place after birth. There's a big difference between those two things." **2. Fetus-as-property in the law.** Beecher reads Exodus 21–22: accidental destruction of a fetus is recompensed by a fine paid *to the husband*, while the injured mother's death is a capital matter — differential legal-moral status, the fetus treated as property rather than a full person. > [!note] Scholarly caution (flagged on the source itself) > The Exodus 21:22–25 reading is contested. Some translations and interpreters read the passage as protecting fetal life. The wiki records the hosts' reading as one position, not settled consensus — and the source's own notes flag it as such. **3. "Moloch" was never a deity.** The hosts argue MLK is most plausibly a common noun for a *molk* sacrifice-type, not a god — supported by Punic inscriptions from Carthage describing a *molk* offering to Baal alongside infant remains. The apparent deity in 1 Kings 11:7 ("Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites") is read as a textual corruption: 11:5 names the Ammonite god as Milcom, the final *mem* dropped off MLK, and the Septuagint reads "their king." The hosts self-flag the vowel reconstruction as "a very very educated guess." **4. The reversal — Israel's own God and child sacrifice.** Beecher contends child-sacrifice themes sit at the center of the tradition: Jesus as offspring-sacrifice, the Akedah (Genesis 22, with later Jewish traditions reading Isaac as actually sacrificed and restored), the Exodus firstborn of Egypt, and Exodus 22:29–30 ("the firstborn of your sons you shall give to me") read as an early sacrifice command later renegotiated via redemption payment or priesthood dedication (Exodus 13, 34; Numbers). His logic: you don't write "sacrifice them, just kidding" unless the underlying stratum once said "sacrifice them." He concedes there's no data that child sacrifice was actually practiced in Israel. **5. The wedge-issue history.** The hosts attribute the modern abortion-as-defining-evil stance to a late-1970s/early-1980s political construction (Falwell, Weyrich), originally tied to defending segregated universities' funding. They argue opponents also resist the things that reduce abortion — comprehensive sex education, contraception, women's healthcare — so the issue functions as identity marker and electoral wedge, not a sincere reduction goal. > [!quote] > "If they were serious about abortion… they would call the pill an abortion prevention pill. But they're not serious about any of these things. They're serious about having a wedge issue. And getting elected." --- ## Segment 2 — "Who counts as a Christian?" The episode's second half covers the Pentagon's chaplain-list spat: an initial list filed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in its *own* category, not under "Christian." After LDS senators (Lee, Stewart) protested, the Pentagon re-released the list having simply *removed* the "Christian" super-category — never affirming Mormons as Christian. > [!note] Second format — focused standalone clip (synced 2026-06-24) > Data Over Dogma later published this same segment as a focused YouTube video, **"The Pentagon Decided Mormons Aren't Christian"** ([icUMTjSKtGQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icUMTjSKtGQ)), the boundary-policing companion to the "Abortion Is NOT Child Sacrifice" clip from Segment 1. It is the same recorded conversation, so it is filed here by meaning rather than as a separate page. The clip carries fuller detail than the podcast summary captured; that material is folded into the points below. (Source: [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/The Pentagon Decided Mormons Aren't Christian|The Pentagon Decided Mormons Aren't Christian]]) **The mechanics.** The chaplaincy codes are a practical tool — a chaplain needs to know whether to offer Catholic last rites or call a rabbi. Hegseth's office cut ~210–220 denomination codes to 31 "categories." The original list nested groups under "Christian-" (Christian-Methodist, Christian-Catholic, even Christian-Jehovah's Witness) but listed the LDS Church on its own, without the prefix. The re-release stripped "Christian" from everyone. Unitarian Universalists, atheists, pagans, and Wiccans were dropped entirely; agnostics were kept (which the hosts read as a pointed snub). Hegseth's pastor is Doug Wilson, who holds that Mormons aren't Christian — named (as "some people have pointed out," not established fact) as a possible vector for the framing. **The boundary thesis.** McClellan, a Latter-day Saint and scholar of religious identity, argues no institution can adjudicate who is "really" Christian: self-identification is the most important factor, radiating out to others. Appeals to the Nicene Creed are historically contingent — they would un-Christian everyone before Nicaea, "all the way down to Peter, James, and John," plus every later Unitarian. Deification, often cited to exclude Mormons, was itself part of ancient Christianity and Orthodox tradition (though he cautions against reading Patristic deification as proto-Mormonism — the subject of his first published paper). **Authority is real but bounded.** McClellan's sharpest move: institutional authority over identity exists, but only over a body's own members. "Doug Wilson is in charge of Doug Wilson" — he can decide who belongs to *his* church; the LDS president can decide who belongs to *that* church; and that is the limit. No person or coalition governs the boundaries of the whole category. The only being with universal authority "we ain't heard from in 2,000 years." **Power, not theology.** Both hosts read the exclusion as power-maintenance: the right will take LDS votes (one of its most reliable blocs) while refusing full inclusion — "they hate you." McClellan frames the online fight as costly signaling and "credibility-enhancing displays," people signaling their standing inside a shared identity ("we don't like them"). The label, he argues, is a "social club that has value" — a status game, not a life-altering fact. **The scriptural turn.** Following Jesus is at minimum a necessary condition of being Christian, the hosts argue, and Jesus taught radical inclusion. Mark 9 has Jesus rebuke disciples for trying to stop an outsider acting in his name: "anyone who gives you a cup of water… because you belong to Christ will not lose their reward." Hence the closing bit — a Christian is just someone who'll give you a cup of water — a jab at gatekeeping-as-religion. > [!quote] > "There is nobody and there is no combination of people who is in charge of the boundaries of Christianity." > [!quote] > "I think it's problematic when the majority of the things that you're doing in exercising your religion is trying to clarify who you don't like and who doesn't belong… You don't find that in the Sermon on the Mount." --- ## Analysis for this wiki The fifth [[Dan McClellan]] / Data Over Dogma source, and the wiki's first on the **abortion-as-child-sacrifice rhetoric**. It strengthens two standing threads. For [[Christian Nationalism]]: this is a second primary source (after [[readwise-monte-mader-christian-nationalism|Readwise — Inside Christian Nationalism with Monte Mader (Data Over Dogma)]]) showing the movement's biblical claims operating as boundary-markers rather than exegesis. The "Moloch" meme is a textbook case of bad history weaponized for political identity — the same pattern McClellan documents in his "Feminism Has Satanic Roots" rebuttal already in the wiki. > [!contradiction] Christian-nationalist proof-texting vs. historical-critical reading > **Religious-right position:** "Do not give your offspring to Moloch" (Leviticus 18:21; 2 Kings 23:10) names a real demon-god of child sacrifice; abortion is its modern altar; therefore abortion supporters worship evil. > **Hosts' position:** no deity named Moloch existed; the term is a sacrifice-type noun; the Hebrew Bible's own law treats a fetus as property, not a person; and the same scriptures preserve child-sacrifice commands aimed at Israel's God. The equation collapses a textual distinction the Bible itself draws. > Both cite the same verses. The disagreement is hermeneutical and political, not about which texts are authoritative. > [!note] Tradition > Academic / critical scholarship engaging right-wing political theology. Arguments run from philology (MLK reconstruction), comparative epigraphy (Punic *molk* inscriptions), source-stratification (covenant code as earliest law), and the sociology of religious identity — not a confessional position. The hosts' overt left-political framing is noted on the source: it can blunt the persuasive reach of an otherwise-textual argument, and several claims (the Exodus 21 reading, the vowel reconstruction) are self-flagged as contested or "educated guesses." > [!question] Open question > The "who counts as a Christian" / self-identification material is the wiki's first sustained treatment of **religious-boundary policing** as a power practice. It connects to the NAR gatekeeping already tracked (apostolic authority deciding who is "in covenant"). Worth a `concepts/` page on boundary-marking, or fold into [[Christian Nationalism]] until a second source lands? > **Update 2026-06-25:** the standalone clip folded in above is the *same* conversation, not an independent second source — so the concept-page threshold is not yet met. The argument is now well-developed on this page (bounded institutional authority, self-identification default, Mark 9 inclusion, social-club power read). A genuinely independent treatment (or Courtney's go-ahead) would tip it into its own `concepts/religious-boundary-policing.md`.