During the first few centuries after Christ’s earthly ministry, the early church was spreading quickly and radically changing culture. Their devotion and faithfulness offer a message of challenge and hope to modern-day Christians.
Pliny the Younger (AD 61/62 – after AD 111), a prominent political figure during the time of the Roman Empire, holding offices like governor of Bithynia and Pontus, wrote a famous letter to Trajan, emperor of Rome from AD 98 to 117, requesting advice on how to deal with the vast spread of Christianity and its threat to the Empire. Pliny described a method he used to determine if those suspected of being a Christian were guilty:
I interrogated them whether they were Christians. If they confessed it, I repeated the question a second and third time, adding the threat of capital punishment. If they still preserved, I ordered them to be led off to execution. For whatever the nature of their belief might be, I could at least feel no doubt that stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy deserved punishment. (Epistles 10.96)
Trajan replied to him with his advice in Christian identification and punishment:
When they are denounced and found guilty, they must be punished; with the restriction, however, that when an individual denies that he is a Christian, and gives proof of it, i.e. by adorning our gods, he shall be pardoned on the ground of repentance, even though he may have formerly incurred suspicion. (Epistles 10.97)
Pagan political leaders agreed that an adequate test if a suspected Christian was a Christian was to see if they adorned other gods.
Christian commitment went so far as to affect the local economy. For example, Acts 19 describes a situation in southern Ephesus where riots broke out because the silversmith’s business of selling images of gods was severely impacted by the spread of Christianity.
Christians today should ask themselves: “What businesses are crafting and promoting the gods of today? Are these industries suffering or thriving from Christian buying power?”
At this time, Christians were also heavily influencing the entertainment industry. Everyone in the Roman Empire wanted to travel to the Colosseum at least once in their lifetime. The Colosseum hosted violent events, including the well-known gladiator fights and public executions. The culture was so entertained by violence that some studies suggest half a million people and one million animals died inside the Colosseum during its 350-400 years of operation (which does not even include the death count in the other 230 amphitheaters across the empire). It is reasonable to assume that for the early Church, changes in a violent culture marked by a vast, death-marked industry would seem impossible to change.
However, during the 5th and 6th centuries, things changed. Due to various factors —including economic and military decline, and “natural” events like fires, lightning, and earthquakes—the Colosseum declined, and the games ceased. As the culture became more influenced by Christianity, the demand decreased for violent entertainment. In fact, during the 16th century, the place that once held shouts for death was replaced by songs of worship, as the church built a small chapel there to honor martyrs and host services.
History has proven that cultures can shift; violence can cease, and individual choices of believers can impact entire empires. The same thing can happen today.
Today, the culture is adorned by the god of autonomy. “Freedom” has been redefined as the ability to do whatever one wants whenever one wants to do it, rather than the ability to do what one ought to do for the benefit of others. While this god takes on many forms, one of the most prominent is the worship cry: “My body;, my choice!”
An estimated 1.126 million deaths by abortion took place in the U.S. in 2025 alone. The death of half a million over the span of 400 years at the Roman Colosseum, while terrible, pales in comparison to the culture of death at hand today. With chemical abortion pills on the rise (killing children, polluting our water, and available on demand without even visiting a doctor), the church needs to love, support, and encourage a culture that comes alongside expecting mothers now more than ever. Our leaders are standing for the sanctity of human life and advocating for policies like Moms.gov that give expecting mothers information about the life-giving resources available near them.
Until the day arrives when the places that once held shouts of death are replaced by songs of worship, Concerned Women for America leaders are committed to pray, educate, and advocate for a culture of life that does not support death-marked industries that adorn the gods of today.
