When Pagan Practices Are Praised in the Classroom, Christians Must Speak Up
Recently, a history teacher from Littleton, Colorado, went viral for praising the way the Incas, her favorite empire, sacrificed children. She also reprimanded “white education” for wrongly teaching generations of Americans that the practice was bad. I’m not making this up.
After noting that human sacrifice was common within most ancient civilizations, the teacher clarified that the Incan version offered victims from the upper class because they were closer to the gods. Also, the Incas drugged children before leaving them to die of exposure on top of a mountain. Objections to this cultural practice, she continued, are primarily due to a white perspective, which focuses on the negative aspects of great civilizations while ignoring their wonderful accomplishments.
Defending child sacrifice is the ultimate expression of cultural relativism. In this view, all cultures are equally valid, except white cultures that judge others. To paraphrase a former colleague, there is no difference between cultures that love their neighbors and cultures that eat their neighbors.
Of course, this teacher’s innovative defense of the Incas misses a few important points. First, children as young as four were sacrificed. Even if they could consent at that age, does that make it any less horrific? But of course, they cannot. The teacher fails to mention evidence of a 4- to 5-year-old child who was tied up before being buried alive. The simplest explanation for drugging the young victims is minimizing resistance ...not kindness.
To that point, is there any scenario in which drugging a child and leaving her to die could be considered kind, even if that were the intent? Just as inconvenient to this narrative are the Incan sacrificial victims found who died from strangulation, suffocation, and being stabbed in the back.
The most important motivator for this Incan practice is that it was considered an honor for a child to be chosen for sacrifice. So, children were frequently “volunteered” by parents in order to curry favor with the emperor. Children were offered when an Incan emperor died, on the birth of his heir, at times of crisis to lure the gods to their side, and for other ceremonial occasions.
Another aspect of this conversation neglected by the teacher is what changed? Why is this kind of child sacrifice today universally viewed as abhorrent? The answer is Christianity.
Believing that every human being is made in the image of God, Christians from the earliest centuries argued for the inherent dignity of the marginalized in society, especially women, slaves, and children. Christians in Rome opposed the practice of infanticide, rescuing unwanted infants who were left to die and raising them as full members of the Christian community. They also opposed abortion.
Thus, the defense of children became a feature of Christian witness throughout history. For example, in the nineteenth century, missionary Mary Slessor was known for rescuing twins who had been left to die. The tribal people of Nigeria believed one twin was always a child of a demon. Her actions ended that deadly practice.
To be clear, sacrificing children continues to be one of the most consistent features of this fallen world. Today, aborted children are the victims of our wrong ideas about sexuality and the meaning of life. Most embryos created during the process of in vitro fertilization are deemed to be “excess” and left to die in freezers or medical experiments. Children are taught to be confused about who they are and thus become experiments of medical sterilization and surgical mutilation, and victims of the latest religious hysteria of adults. Christians who oppose these practices today are in good company within church history.
As the Western world detaches from its Christian foundations, we should expect that more children will be devalued and harmed in more ways. A consistent feature of pagan societies is for children to be in danger. We should expect the same as a society repaganizes.
On the other hand, a consistent feature of Christians within a pagan society is that they worked to protect and defend children. This remains the calling of the Church today.
Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/Maskot
Published Date: August 27, 2025
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
