Hello- I read this article on the Denison Forum, which is a website and religious site I follow- The Denson Forum has great insite into what is going on and relates it to the teaching from the Bible- Give it a try,, It is good, practical and logical- Please review the article below and give it a thought or two !!! I firmly concur with this comparison- America is is Chaos and part of the reason is we have turned our back on God,, there will be consequenses !!!

Cultural edifices aside, there is an even more urgent parallel between Rome and America, one to which Christians need to respond with passion today.

“The fall of an empire and the fate of America”

I have long been fascinated by the ancient Greco-Roman world. I’ve led more than forty study tours to various parts of the Roman Empire and did my doctorate in philosophy of religion with special emphasis on ancient philosophy.

I was especially interested some years ago in Cullen Murphy’s Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Here are similarities he notes between their empire and our nation:

• Both built the most powerful military in their world, by far (America invests as much in military expenditures as the next ten nations combined).
• The Roman road system, stretching some fifty-three thousand miles, was about the length of the US interstate system.
• The Roman Empire and its Mediterranean Sea would fit neatly inside America’s lower forty-eight states.
• Both cherish a glorious past and embrace a Manifest Destiny. Rome claimed to be an imperium sine fine (empire without end), while America’s dollar bill proclaims us to be a novus ordo (new order).

Of course, dissimilarities are conspicuous as well:

• Rome never left the Iron Age; America has evolved from the agricultural to the industrial era to the Information Age.
• Slaves made up half of the Empire (some emperors owned twenty thousand or more), while America eventually rejected slavery.
• Rome had no middle class; the middle class is America’s core sociological fact.
• As noted earlier, Rome was never remotely as democratic as America.

“If it is female, cast it out”

Here’s the intersection that I believe especially deserves our notice and response: the parallel between abortion today and infanticide in ancient Rome.

Folk remedies and herbs such as silphium and pennyroyal were used as abortifacients in the ancient world. However, unwanted pregnancies were much more often resolved by abandoning the children after birth.

In a fascinating and troubling article on abortion and the “repaganizing” of our culture, Louise Perry quotes the anthropologist David F. Lancy, who describes the “far more common pattern”: “Among the ancient Greeks and Romans sickly, unattractive, or unwanted infants were ‘exposed’ or otherwise eliminated.” For example, we have a letterfrom a Roman soldier named Hilarion to his pregnant wife Alis in 1 BC: “Above all, if you bear a child and it is male, let it be; if it is female, cast it out” with the trash.

As I noted yesterday, infanticide is the logical extension of reasoning for abortion: no unwanted children should be born (or allowed to live), mothers should make birth (or parenting) decisions in light of their circumstances, and society has no right to tell mothers whether or not to choose abortion (or infanticide).

Perry cites Princeton University bioethicist Peter Singer as recognizing the logical parallels between the two: “Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time,” he explains. “So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living.” In Perry’s view, the decline of Christian influence in our culture is escalating such a paganized rejection of the value of life.

“All this wealth has been laid waste”

Ancient Canaanites often worshiped their god Molech through child sacrifice. The Lord sternly prohibited such atrocities: “There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering” (Deuteronomy 18:10). When the Jewish people rejected his command and “slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering by fire,” God destroyed their nation in judgment (Ezekiel 16:21).

As we have seen, Rome likewise endorsed and practiced the wholesale killing of preborn and newborn children. Theirs was the most powerful and wealthy empire the world had ever seen (cf. Revelation 18:16), but when God’s judgment came, “in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste” (v. 17). This text is in God’s word as a warning to all who would follow.

Are we listening?

I hope we all set up and listen,,, that is the only way anything will change !!!

God Bless Your Day !!!!