Recently, as I sat with a group of local pastors, the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident and the issue of same-sex marriage sparked a conversation about the moral decline in the United States of America. We were all appalled at these things and, of course, very concerned. As the conversation concluded the comment was made , “America is just like the Roman Empire.” The implication of the comment, as I took it, was that the eventual destruction of our nation is inevitable. I sat there and remembered similar comments made by one of my grade school teachers many years ago. I felt a distant sense of dread and fear.

After the gathering concluded, I began to remember the Christian history of our nation. In the 1980's I was privileged to have access to a great deal of training on the Christian History of the United States, things that the teachers in my public school experience either didn’t know or didn’t teach. I began to feel a certain sobriety because I had almost allowed the comment, “American is just like Rome,” to go unchallenged in my heart. Even if we know the truth, we have to keep our guard up at all times because we are constantly being bombarded with ideas and concepts that can subtly work their way into our minds and become a part of our thinking. 

Though it must be brief, the purpose of this article is to simply state, “The United States of America is NOT like Rome and it need not suffer the same fate.” Our nation, though it has its faults, is quite different from Rome. The history of  Rome’s beginnings is somewhat sketchy, but its practice reveals its deepest character. Rome was a conquering empire with a mission of bringing the whole world under one dominion and one bondage. Its method was to conquer, occupy and oppress. In short, Rome was founded on, existed in, and promoted a pagan humanistic world view. 

Rome emerged, during a famine, a famine of hearing the Word of God. God’s people, Israel, had for the most part, drifted away from Him and had become ineffective in bringing the principles of Godliness to bear upon the world. The United States, on the other hand, was founded during a time of great Christian revivals by Christian people who desired to see one nation under God. Many of those early pilgrims saw the North American continent as a new world, as a kind of  “spiritual Israel,” a place where God’s law under the New Covenant in Christ would flourish and influence the whole world. Benjamin Franklin said,  “He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.” George Washington said, “True religion offers government its surest support. It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

Unlike Rome, the United States has not been a conquering nation. Though we have conquered, we have not sought to bring the nations we have conquered under bondage, but we have rebuilt them and sought to give them the principles of liberty. This nation has been, and continues to be, a nation that exports freedom and offers help to nations in need. Though the United States has its problems, for which we should be concerned, we were founded as a Christian nation. Though Christianity had an impact on Rome, Rome was never a Christian nation, even though the Emperor Constantine declared it so after his acceptance of Christianity in 312 A.D.

So, let’s guard our hearts against a cyclical world view. God’s world view is linear, not cyclical. History does not necessarily have to repeat itself. Rome did not fall due to an natural cycle of life and death; it was God’s judgment. God orchestrated the fall of Rome to facilitate His plan for the world at that point in history. Nor should we embrace a cyclical world view in terms of God’s judgement, as though repentance and revival for a nation is impossible. A cyclical world view neutralizes the influence of thousands and thousands of Christians by giving them a  “why polish brass on a sinking ship” mentality. 

I love our nation and so does God. I do not know the future of our nation, but I know its past. I also know that He offers us a future and a hope, not an endless cycle of hopelessness. He has a purpose for us that ends in victory. Therefore, let’s take a stand for and multiply righteousness. Because, “When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases; But the righteous will see their fall (Proverbs 29:16).