I've chronicled my beef with the liberal church before. That's not the intent of this column. Instead, I'd like to show how modern-day progressive ideology is actually a death cult — similar in every respect to the ancient rites of Baal and Dagan worship. I will only use a recent action of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leadership, hijacked by progressives, to make the point.

In the 2008 presidential election, many Americans were shocked to learn that, as an Illinois state legislator, Barack Obama had opposed a bill that would require medical personnel to provide life-giving care to babies that had survived abortions. The legislation came up when nurses were ordered to put those babies aside and let them die without care or even hydration — a la Terri Schiavo. When Obama's radical position was revealed, it was so revolting to average Americans that they dismissed it as some kind of urban legend — as they did with his missing birth certificate.

But it was true.

Obama three times voted against legislation that would protect the lives of babies born despite attempts to kill them through abortions:

—2001 Senate Bill 1095, Born-Alive Infant Protection Act

—2002 Senate Bill 1662, Born-Alive Infant Protection Act: Obama's "no" vote in the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee. Similar legislation passed the U.S. Senate that same year 98-0.

—Obama returned in 2003 to oppose the bill once more in the Illinois Senate.

Fast forward to 2014 — just over a decade later. Now, infanticide is not only embraced by the radical president, who misrepresented his votes in Illinois time and time again, but now endorsed by the progressive Presbyterian Church's General Assembly.

Just last month, 78 percent of the PCUSA General Assembly struck down a resolution condemning the killing of babies born alive during abortions, as occurred with notorious abortionist Kermit Gosnell.

PCUSA calls itself a Christian church. But it is not. Back in the 1960s, it was infected with the zealous religion of progressivism. And that is its true faith now. It's part of the death cult.

Is there another way to interpret the fanatical and impassioned commitment to kill the most innocent human life at all costs, even when it has survived a traumatic first attempt on its life while still in the womb?

It takes a certain kind of fierce and satanic commitment to extinguish babies still clinging to life after the trauma of a botched abortion. But that's what progressivism is all about. Sometimes it still masks its determination with legalese, as Obama tried vainly to do more than a decade ago. But that's just window dressing. These people are committed to sacrificing babies in progressive rituals. There's no other way to say it accurately.

My point?

The death cult of progressivism is moving fast through the culture. Just 10 years ago, protecting the lives of babies born alive after abortion was an idea almost unanimously supported in the popular culture and the political establishment. Obama was on the fringe.

Today, mandatory destruction of those lives is not only widely embraced in the popular culture but is endorsed by the president of the United States and one of the largest churches in America, the PCUSA.

Progressivism is not only a death cult; it is a virus transforming our culture like a pandemic.

To find out more about Joseph Farah and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.