Pursuit of a neo-Malthusian vision eventually turns into worship of Molech, says Jordan Ballor in this week’s Acton Commentary.

The latest Marvel blockbuster,Avengers: Infinity War, has opened to popular acclaim and record-breaking box office numbers. It is truly a spectacle, and one that expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into uncharted territory. But amid the special effects and the glamor, the plot that drives the action is an old one, and no pelling because of its antiquity. Thanos, the Mad Titan, pursues absolute power in the form of the Infinity Gauntlet, which houses six gems whose origins lie beyond the creation of the cosmos. Thanos initially pursues this power not for its own sake but rather out of a well-intentioned but deeply misguided sense of limits of economic growth. What we find in the course of the film, however, is that the single-minded pursuit of such a pure ideological agenda always requires sacrifice.

The full text of the essay can be found here.