In fact, the comparison is eerie.

Rome was founded in 753 B.C. with Romulus as the first king ruling over erratic and violent citizens characterized by Livy as “a rabble of vagrants, mostly runaways and refugees, unrestrained by the power of the throne.” Rome’s early days are shrouded in mystery and myth and mistakes involving the “god” Mars, who fathered Romulus and his twin brother Remus and left them to die after their birth. The twin babies, washed up on a riverbank, were suckled by a she-wolf, and Romulus became king of Rome and killed his brother.

Wow, from miraculous birth to marvelous childhood to a mighty king in one generation!

Interestingly, city guides in Rome propagate that myth as fact to gullible tourists. When I kindly challenged them and finally ridiculed their promotion of a silly legend, they became indignant as if I also asserted the earth is flat, or even worse, that the city of Rome was overrated and overpriced.

After casting off the shackles of the Monarchy with the overthrow of the last of Rome’s seven kings who were absolute dictators, the Monarchy was followed by a Republic in 509 B.C.

The new Roman Republic was the period when the city-state of Rome was a republican government (from 509 B.C. to 27 B.C.). The Romans had replaced their last king with elected magistrates, which lasted until 27 B.C. It was one of the world’s first examples of representative democracy.

National Geographic asserts, “The Republic began to engage in wars with its neighboring rivals, slowly eliminating threats to its superiority in the Mediterranean. By the first century B.C., the Roman Republic stood alone as the dominant power in the Mediterranean region.”

During the middle of the first century B.C., Rome was marked by civil wars and the dictatorship of Julius Caesar. Caesar asked the statesman Cicero to work with his dictatorship; however, Cicero refused being a republican and desiring a return to traditional republican government.

Cicero knew an authoritarian ruler, like Caesar, could bring stability, safety, and success to a nation, but dictatorship always results in loss of personal freedom.

Caesar (who never lost a war) defeated Pompey in a civil war and led the nation out of a Republic into a dictatorship until his assassination in 44 B.C. Thus, he played a significant role in the events that led to the ruin of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. Following Caesar’s death, his adopted son Octavian won some major battles (defeating Mark Antony and Cleopatra), and the Senate proclaimed him Emperor Augustus Caesar in 27 B.C., followed by an unprecedented 200 years of peace.

Then, it was downhill to the emperors who were morally corrupt, mentally incompetent, and murder prone—often using assassination as a standard political tool.

Cicero was, for his day, a principled Roman, famous for his oratory. He vigorously criticized Caesar, Mark Antony, and other politicians who thought the Republic was passé and constantly grabbed personal political power. Antony was often criticized by Cicero, and Cicero was finally assassinated while leaving for a sea voyage. Cicero’s hands, which had penned the famous harangues against Antony, were cut off, and he was beheaded. His hands and his head were nailed to the podium in the Roman Forum. Antony’s wife pulled out the dead orator’s tongue and repeatedly thrust a pin through it, letting all know what she thought of his powerful speaking.

Before Cicero was killed in 43 B.C., he declared, “Rome’s swollen population of unemployed immigrates from the country-side was a bonfire waiting to be lit.” Rome was constantly on the march taking new territories of people whose language, religion, personal habits, and general culture differed from Roman citizens. As the conquered territories were farther and farther distant from Rome, it became more difficult to control them.

The Republic was followed by the Roman Empire ruled by numerous incompetent, immoral, even incestuous Emperors and only five good ones under whom there was impressive success and growth from 96 A.D. to 180. A.D. Rome’s control rapidly expanded during this period—from the city’s immediate surroundings to control of the entire Mediterranean world. The period witnessed a considerable expansion of the Empire into northern Britain and east to Mesopotamia.

The great Mediterranean Sea became a Roman lake.

By the end of the third century, Rome was still a powerful empire, but all was not well below the surface. The foundations were cracking and crumbling, and dangerous ideas were invading the Empire. The cities were decreasing, and industry was declining, and agriculture was being destroyed by excessive taxation. Peasants could no longer make a living by farming.

Travel was no longer safe. Under Caesar’s rule, he had produced peace, and “there are neither wars, nor battles, nor great robberies, nor piracies; but we may travel at all hours and sail from east to west,” according to Epictetus. That was no longer true, and the value of Roman citizenship was devalued since no one was safe and justice was only a word.

Outside Rome’s borders, vast numbers of barbarians had become more sophisticated in warfare and surged through the Empire, causing restless sleep in the Emperor’s palace. The Huns, in the 370s, invaded along the Danube River, driving the Germanic tribes into the Roman provinces. Rome was willing to accept that, but the desired controlled relocation of barbarians within the Empire’s borders ended as an invasion.

I’ve heard of that happening recently.

Small farmers of central Italy had been the foundation of Roman life but could not compete with imported grains from around the Black Sea. Therefore, they sold their land and moved to the city, and lived on welfare. They joined the mobs who demanded more bread and vicious contests and more exciting games. The government used public taxes and provided the mobs free grain at public events, including chariot races, gladiator contests, and mock naval battles.

Cicero wrote: “The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.” One Roman is recorded as saying: “Those who live at the expense of the public funds are more numerous than those who provide them.” That could not continue.

Rome was no longer Rome.

The civilization of a thousand years could see the handwriting on the wall: the brutal barbarians were at the gates of Rome, and collapse was imminent. In 410, Rome, the city of the Caesars, fell to the uncivilized, uneducated, uncouth Barbarians. With the collapse of Rome, a chill was felt through the civilized world.

If it could happen to mighty Rome, it could happen to any nation.

The Germanic clans 600 miles north of Rome did not want to destroy the Empire, but they were attracted to the “good life,” a consequence of civilization. Moreover, they liked the prestige and protection of Roman citizenship. Roman historian Tacitus in 98 B.C. was the first historian to mention Germanic tribes who were moving into southwestern Germany about the same time the Romans were conquering present-day Gaul—France, Switzerland, Belgium, and northern Italy.

Caesar defeated a barbarian clan in 70 B.C., making the Rhine River the boundary between Roman and German territory.

Some Germanic tribes lived outside Rome’s boundary and over the first few hundred years of the Christian era had been Romanized through trade and travel. As tribes prospered in their trade and made adjustments to their rugged lifestyle, they drew attention to the Huns who rode in from the Asian steppes. Roman citizenship looked very profitable to the German tribes since they would be protected by the greatest power on earth and the weather was much warmer, an advantage to farmers.

Rome was not opposed to taking the tribes into their Empire, and many Germans adapted well to the Roman Army. However, all immigrants had to assimilate. They were forbidden to live in cliques, perpetuating their old culture. They were dispersed throughout the Empire and had to become Romans, the price of citizenship.

Great, grand, and grandiose plan, but it didn’t work.

Bill Federer wrote, “Illegal immigrants poured across the Roman borders: Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, Anglos, Saxons, Alemanni, Thuringians, Rugians, Jutes, Picts, Burgundians, Lombards, Alans, Vandals, as well as African Berbers and Arab raiders.”

After a slow deterioration process, the Romans lost control of the immigration procedure during the Fifth Century. Defeated Persia (Iran) felt frisky and lively again and made sounds like a powerful nation. Rome sent its troops to put the Persians back in their place as a failed empire. The Germanic tribes were permitted into the Empire, but they continued their political and cultural identities. They did not assimilate, even uniting with other tribes to form armies within the Roman Empire!

Will and Ariel Durant wrote, “If Rome had not engulfed so many men of alien blood in so brief a time, if she had passed all these newcomers through her schools instead of her slums, if she had treated them as men with a hundred potential excellences, if she had occasionally closed her gates to let assimilation catch up with infiltration, she might have gained new racial and literary vitality from the infusion, and might have remained a Roman Rome, the voice and citadel of the West.”

America has not learned from Rome’s many mistakes, and it is insane to expect a favorable result. Last week, the U.S. has absorbed over 15,000 Haitians of a different language, religion, personal habits, and race. This mass was added to the hundreds of thousands of others from Central American nations, plus an unknown number of Muslims whose religion demands they do not assimilate or cooperate with their new surroundings.

America’s politicians still do not understand that true Muslims can not and will not assimilate—they always dominate.

Many churches, like those today, had only a temporary influence on the dying Empire.

Richard A. Todd wrote in The Fall of the Roman Empire, “The church, while preaching against abuses, contributed to the decline by discouraging good Christians from holding public office.” And while we have some of that today, it seems the problem is not lack of Christians in office but lack of Christians in office with backbone.

The Fifth Century historian Salvian shockingly wrote, “For all the lurid Roman tales of their atrocities … the barbarians displayed … a good deal more fidelity to their wives.” He declared, “O Roman people be ashamed; be ashamed of your lives. Almost no cities are free of evil dens, are altogether free of impurities, except the cities in which the barbarians have begun to live. … Let nobody think otherwise, the vices of our bad lives have alone conquered us. … The Goths lie, but are chaste, the Franks lie, but are generous, the Saxons are savage in cruelty … but are admirable in chastity. … What hope can there be for the Romans when the barbarians are more pure than they?”

At that time, the “Christians” were quibbling over who was to be the supreme leader, what language would be used, the use of indulgences, Purgatory and Limbo, whether Jesus was human and divine; etc. While the various religious groups continued to win adherents, they made little impact on the direction of the Empire. It is agreed that the religious authority of the now developing Roman Catholic Church held the barbarians at bay for a while, which was only temporary.

I wish I had the talent of Gibbon to graphically write The Decline and Fall of the American Empire as a warning. I see no hope, and history gives no example of a nation, once on the slippery slope, ever recovering its greatness on its own.

Rome was an empire of legions and law devolving into luxury and license and became a hodgepodge of conquest and cruelty.

Personal virtue determines national values, and Rome permitted itself to become worse than Barbarians whose presence they welcomed.

America, are you listening?

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 20 books, the most recent, Reflections of a Lifetime Fundamentalist: No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets! The eBook is available at Amazon.com for $4.99. Other titles at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D., and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles and click here to support his work with a donation.)

Moreover, the Church owns several billion dollars’ worth of gold according to the United Nations World Magazine with a large portion of it stored as gold ingots at the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank with the remainder stockpiled in Swiss and British banks.

The Vatican is headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church and represents 1.2 billion people in 180 nations of the world. The Vatican is a two-and-a-half square mile complex on the Tiber River in Rome.

The Church’s real estate holdings are enormous in that they own local churches (220,000 worldwide), massive cathedrals (3,300 worldwide), and colleges (1,358 worldwide) along with monasteries and nunneries all over the globe. The Church has been squirrelling away billions of dollars of inheritance from the faithful that have been invested worldwide for hundreds of years .

Apart from the horded gold, thousands of church buildings, thousands of estates, they own thousands of art, books, sculpture, and relics that are impossible to even guess their value.

The Roman Catholic Church’s emphasis upon relics is an embarrassment to sane people. In 1881, The New York Times published an article condemning “the silly worship of relics” and recounted an amusing anecdote of two rival French monasteries that each possessed a head of John the Baptist! The monks, with amazing mental gymnastics, explained this uncomfortable detail by saying that the first skull belonged to John as a man while the smaller skull was from “when he was a boy.” Sure.

I saw one of John’s skulls in a mosque in Damascus although I’m not sure which skull it was! Not sure what Muslims are doing with John’s skull. He sure would pound them for having multiple wives since preaching against King Herod’s adultery with his brother’s wife was what got John beheaded.

One expert whose work was financed by National Geographic said, “There are about eight or nine skulls of John the Baptist out there. He added with a massive understatement, “They can’t be all John the Baptist.” Even this simple Baptist preacher can understand that!

A church in St. Omer boasted of having the lance that pierced His side; some manna that dropped from Heaven to feed the Jews; Aaron’s rod; and the original stone Ten Commandments! Three different churches in France boasted of the complete corpse of Mary Magdalen and five different French churches boasted of the relic of Christ’s circumcision! One cathedral boasts of having some hairs of the Lord’s beard and the left arm of John the Baptist while other monasteries claim to have the right arm. If some enterprising monks got to work, they might be able to put John back together again.

Calvin wrote of His Holy Blood that was “exhibited in more than a hundred places.” That is not only relic worship but blasphemy. But each item would sell at a premium and if they sold everything quickly, they could always “discover” more relics.

In Bethlehem they claim to have a drop of Mary’s milk and a 17th century painting shows a statue of Mary holding baby Jesus as she squirts milk into the mouth of a male worshipper standing below! Great shot!

During the mid-fourth century, Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 315-386) wrote that “already the whole world is filled with fragments of the wood of the Cross.” More than forty shrouds of Jesus exist, so the story goes. Exeter Cathedral displayed parts of the candle that the angel of the Lord used to light the tomb of Jesus and fragments of the bush from which God spoke to Moses! I seem to remember the words of P. T. Barnum that are most appropriate here.

The Roman Catholic Church is the wealthiest corporation in the world. Nothing compares to it yet it was allegedly started by Jesus Christ. So, the former carpenter, turned itinerate preacher, is the source for the wealthiest institution on earth? Doesn’t pass the smell test.

We are expected to believe that Christ lived and died poor and passed on to Peter and future popes the office that permitted them to wear gold embroidered silk robes and possess wealth and treasures unknown and have a mansion with 1100 rooms!

Francis, it’s time to make history, secular and religious, by having the biggest and richest yard sale in history at St. Peter’s Square and at the same time clean out your closets of those relics that are only gathering dust. Sell everything. Christ was the poorest of the poor and your church is the richest of the rich. Get poor again and gain a little credibility. On with the yard sale! I’ll see you in St. Peter’s Square.

Next, I hope to attend a yard sale sponsored by some of the super-rich television evangelists with the proceeds going to poor non-Catholics. Get ready Benny, Trinity, Morris, Kenneth, Creflo, Joel, and Paula.

I’ll not hold my breath since I don’t look good in blue and I don’t trust the televangelists any more than I trust Francis!

(Boys’ new book, The God Haters, will be published in hardback on Oct. 21 by Barbwire Books and on Amazon.com as an eBook.)

No, I have not apostatized nor have I joined the “rush to Rome” as have some Anglicans, Lutherans, Evangelical groups, and Mennonites. However, I find myself agreeing with the pope about bad church music. One headline screamed, “Pope to purge the Vatican of modern music.” It is not bad music because it is modern but because it is “atrocious” especially in Italy, including the Vatican. Benedict wants a return to “traditional sacred music.”

I’m concerned with the atrocious music in many Bible-preaching churches that have deserted traditional hymns and Gospel songs. The Christ-honoring hymns have been replaced with twangy, ear-assaulting, mediocre, non-memorable chorus that are usually without meaning.

The Pope has already started “cleaning house” by no longer using “rotating” choirs from all over the world to sing in St. Peter’s. Well, one does not have to be too bright to know that it is difficult to know what you are going to get with a different choir each week.

Some musicians have already been sacked by Pope Benedict and have been replaced by men “closer to his heart.” Others are expected to go. Well, the Top Honcho has the right to have people around him that reflect his philosophy, doctrine, etc.

The International Church Music Review recently criticized the St. Peter’s choir, saying: “The singers wanted to overshout each other, they were frequently out of tune, the sound uneven, the conducting without any artistic power, the organ and organ playing like in a second-rank country parish church.” Sounds as if they are describing the music in some independent Baptist churches where singers often sing without any preparation—and it shows!

Mgr Valentin Miserachs Grau, the director of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, which trains church musicians, said, “How far we are from the true spirit of sacred music. How can we stand it that such a wave of inconsistent, arrogant and ridiculous profanities have so easily gained a stamp of approval in our celebrations?” The director added: “Due to general ignorance, especially in sectors of the clergy, there exists music which is devoid of sanctity, true art and universality.”

The Pope hopes to solve the problem with a return to the Gregorian chant although that is not much of an improvement, in my opinion, but my opinion will not be considered by the Pope. He wants to use music by 17th century composers, etc., in St. Peter’s and his reformation musical message has gone out to all Catholic Churches.

Damian Thompson, editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald opined: “The next generation of choir directors have been charged by the Pope with the task of reintroducing beautiful music into church. If they succeed, then at long last the pews may begin to fill up again.” But that won’t happen without a major battle and while the Pope can control the music at St. Peter’s, he cannot control it in thousands of churches worldwide. He will have a major fight on his hands since many music directors in Catholic churches are highly paid and some musicians write and publish their own music so it is in their self-interest to stay with the music that produces additional income for them.

Damian Thompson, declared, “There’s something troubling about diocesan composer-liturgists advising churches to use liturgical material in which they themselves have a commercial interest. This already happens a lot in America, where the coziness of the relationship between dioceses and composers is little short of scandalous.”

Thompson reports that music composers attended a summer school for Catholic musicians “who may not know how to write music, but they hold the right ‘progressive’ (c. 1968) political views and are fluent in the vocabulary of ethnic sensitivity and ‘empowerment.’ ” It seems they ended their summer sessions last year by producing an outdoor performance of “dancing, drumming and singing in African that ‘Satan has had it.’” Sure sorry I missed that. Evidently, Satan did also.

Thompson, dripping with justified sarcasm said of much of the Catholic Church music: “There are few more terrifying sounds than the fumbled guitar chords that herald a Gospel number sung by arthritic Christian hippies.” Wish I had said that.

So Catholic Churches have major problems with music as do many evangelical and fundamental churches although the generational perpetrators are reversed. In Catholic Churches, the bad guys are older, more mature, well ensconced musicians who are supported by rebellious priests. They won’t surrender without a fight.

In Bible-oriented churches, the perpetrators are usually young men who like trendy, light music that compares to Kumbaya. Often the lyrics don’t offend but neither do they teach, inspire, or motivate us to godliness. But what is lost in value they make up for it in volume. As Rick Warren says of his church music, “It is loud, very loud.” Scuttlebutt says that sometimes it is so loud, it breaks street lights a block away!

Music is not an end in itself. It is preparatory to the preaching of God’s Word. If the music detracts from that or does not enhance that end, then it is out of place. It may be all right in other environments but not in a worship service.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Eph, 5:19, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Then in Col 3:16, he wrote, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Note that the music should be Scriptural (if not actual Bible verses then at least Biblical in content); melodious (that would eliminate about half of modern music); and admonishing.

Evangelical and fundamental churches have come a long way baby–in the wrong direction. We are being led into the swamps of this world by the pied pipers of second-class music, often followed by feel-good messages.

I’m with the Pope. Let’s have a musical reformation.

In the following years, Christians were persecuted and butchered throughout the Roman Empire, especially in Rome itself. But wild men in Rome (one of them being a state-certified nut) hated Jews as well. As happened often in their history, Jews in Judah were dominated by Rome and gave the Roman authorities more problems than the other provinces. They rebelled in Jerusalem in 70 A.D., resulting in over a million Jews slain, the Second Temple and all homes destroyed, and the remaining living scattered.

About 60 years later, the Roman Empire scattered the Jewish people all over the known world–again, following the rebellion of Bar Kakhba (declared by some to be the Messiah) in 132-135. A. D. There was enormous bloodshed on both sides. Bar Kakhba led 100,000 men and he expected God to intervene on their behalf. Rome’s best general Julius Severusled commanded his troops consisting of half the Roman Army, and three times the troops used by Titus in 70 A.D.! Rome never doubted the outcome, although it cost them dearly.
In that war (known as the last of the Jewish-Roman Wars), 585,000 Jews were killed, and 50 fortified towns and 985 villages razed. The Romans “went on killing until their horses were submerged in blood to their nostrils” according to the Jerusalem Talmud. (A slight exaggeration!) All Jews and Christians (even though Christians did not support the revolt) were barred from Jerusalem, and were spread over the land, especially in Galilee.

The Jews revolted when they discovered Emperor Hadrian’s decision to build a pagan temple to Jupiter although he had promised to build a Jewish Temple upon the foundations of the Second Temple. Hadrian antagonized the Jews further by changing the cities’ name and “Ploughing up the Temple.” Then Hadrian abolished the rite of circumcision considering it a mutilation. Hadrian forgot the first rule of diplomacy: use religion, don’t fight it. Hadrian was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Hadrian continued to make stupid decisions by deciding that Judaism was the cause of all his troubles and outlawed the Torah and the Hebrew calendar. Then he butchered Hebrew scholars, a tactic that all tyrants have always used: kill all the intellectuals. He installed two statues upon the Temple Mount, one of himself and one of Jupiter. His coup de grâce was to rename the nation after their ancient enemies–the Philistines: Judea was now “Palaestina.” That is where the modern “Palestinians” get their “credentials,” to be called, “Palestinians.” They did not rightly get the name from living thousands of years in the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Jews, without a Temple and with many of their scholars exterminated and others exiled from their land, spread all over the known world building synagogues for their teaching and worship. The majority of the Jewish population of Judea was killed, exiled, or sold into slavery. Others had settled in various parts of Judah.

How does a nation survive 2000 years of persecutions, prosecutions, and pogroms? Jews are very familiar with boycotts and banishments. They know firsthand about gossip, ghettos, and the grave. There is no human explanation how they became such a successful nation. They are indestructible because of God’s plan, provision, protection, and preservation. It does help to know the right Person.

Israel–the Jews–don’t always do the right thing as shown in their criminal attack upon the USS Liberty when it was attacked in international waters. Israeli forces on June 8, 1967, killed 34 Americans and wounded another 174. The Israelis knew it was an American ship and nine hours after that information was received, they proceeded with their attack as the American flag waved over the top of the mast. The cover-up persists to this day.

I do not slavishly defend everything Israel does. In fact, I hold them accountable as I do all nations. It would be dishonest not to do so. They have over-reacted at times and some of their first years, they did some very wrong things–such as bombing the King David Hotel on July 22, 1946, killing 92 British, Arabs, and Jews and wounding 46 others. There had been many false bomb threats called in and when the real warning call was made, the British officials and hotel staff rebuffed it. A British official retorted, “We don’t take orders from Jews.”

Before Jew-haters crank up their computers (before turning on their brains) to correct me, I admit that some of the world’s more repulsive, repugnant, and reprehensible people have been and are Jews. Some of the most despised, deranged, dangerous people on earth have been Jews. There, that should satisfy the haters. Of course, my statement is true, but that only proves that we are a fallen race consisting of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Lenin (rumored to be Jewish), Sigmund Freud, Adolf Eichmann, Bernard Madoff, George Soros, are among the “ugly” in my opinion.

Of all Nobel Prize winners, at least 20% were Jews, although Jews make up less than .2% of the world’s population! Moreover, America’s greatest comedians were and are Jewish. Americans have laughed at Jewish comedians for a hundred years, but the mistreatment of Jews for thousands of years is not funny.

And I can assure you that God is not laughing.