Rome had a strange smell near the end of its empire. Historians don’t really talk about that part. They write about military campaigns and collapsing currencies and corrupt emperors with grapes hanging from their fingers while boys danced in silk before them.

But I always wonder about the smell. Sweat baked into stone streets. Rotting figs in the alleyways. Smoke from pagan altars curling through open windows while the empire slowly dissolved into moral anarchy.

People still bought bread and merchants still haggled over fish prices. Mothers still carried water jars through crowded streets while while senators argued over bathhouse taxes and imported peacock meat inside marble chambers already spiritually hollowed out like termite-eaten beams painted gold.

That’s how judgment comes on a civilization. Quietly at first. Not with lightning bolts cracking the sky and striking everyone within a half mile dead. God simply lets people become what they insist on becoming.

He removes His restraining hand and says, in essence, “Fine. Have it your way.”

And once that happens, the moral descent is not dramatic at first. It’s weirdly normal. And that’s the creepy part. Everybody keeps mowing their lawns and posting vacation photos while the foundations liquefy beneath their feet.

I look at this image—two grown men grinning at the camera while holding a baby girl deliberately severed from her mother through “surrogacy”—and I feel like I’m staring at Romans 1 developed into a photograph.

Not just sin.
Judgment!

A civilization handed over. A people so upside-down and backwards they can no longer distinguish between love and theft, compassion and exploitation, family and emotional cosplay.

And what’s horrifying is how ordinary it all feels now. That’s the tell. That’s the blinking red warning light hanging over the entire country. Nobody gasps anymore. Nobody stops scrolling. Pics like this float through social media like just another harmless family snapshot between football highlights and chili recipes.

“Aw, congratulations!”
“Beautiful family!”
“Love wins!”

Meanwhile a child has been intentionally deprived of the most primal relationship God designed into creation itself—mother and child—and the culture responds with heart emojis like drunken Romans cheering in the Coliseum while somebody gets fed to lions.

Just think about that little girl years from now. Somewhere buried deep inside every human being is that question, “where do I come from?” “Who carried me?” “Who held me first?” And this culture’s answer is basically a contractual invoice and a shrug.

Some woman somewhere carried her, nourished her with her own body, felt her kicking against her ribs at 2 a.m., probably cried after surrendering her, and now two men pose for Instagram applause while calling themselves “new dads.” The whole thing feels spiritually sticky… like walking through heavy humidity right before a tornado hits.

And the churches, good grief. Most of them drift along half-conscious, sedated on leadership podcasts and coffee-shop theology while the moral architecture of the nation caves inward like a sinkhole swallowing a subdivision. Romans 1 sits in their Bibles gathering dust while pastors ramble about tithing and being a better, more submissive husband.

And even worse, some even ramble about making “the LGBTQ community” feel “safe” in church. Safe for what exactly? For rebellion? For the industrial commodification of children? For womb-rental marketplaces where babies are acquired like custom furniture?

Some people act like this garbage only exists in disconnected little compartments. Drag queen story hours over here. Child “transitions” over there. Surrogacy over there. Pornography everywhere. A blessing of freedom. Blah blah blah. 🤮

But no. It’s one sewer system feeding the same polluted river. One civilization-wide revolt against the created order. One giant middle finger raised toward Heaven while everybody pretends they’re being compassionate and enlightened.

And man, the language people use. “Journey.” “Family building.” “Gestational carrier.” Corporate HR jargon for moral horror. They talk about mothers the way Amazon talks about warehouse logistics. Remove enough humanity from the vocabulary and eventually people stop noticing the blood on the floor.

That’s how civilizations anesthetize themselves before collapse. Euphemism first. Madness second. Ruin third.

I honestly think American churches underestimate what it means when Scripture says God “gave them over.” That phrase should terrify people. It means God stops restraining the insane horror concocted in fallen, rebellious hearts.

He lets cultures marinate in the consequences of their own lusts until they become incapable of recognizing obvious evil.

Men smiling while displaying a motherless baby becomes inspirational. Pastors ignoring it becomes compassionate.

Anybody objecting becomes the villain.

Everything flips upside down and suddenly the sane people are treated like unstable radicals for noticing the water level in the lower cabins of the Titanic are rising… quickly.

And still the machinery churns forward. Fertility clinics running like human factories. Lawyers drafting contracts. Social media influencers posting baby reveals. Politicians babbling about equality. Denominations waving rainbow flags while quoting fragments of Jesus completely detached from the rest of Scripture. Everybody participating in the ritual. Everybody playing along.

Meanwhile that little girl just sits there in the middle of it all—tiny fingers, flower bow, wide eyes—completely unaware she has become a symbol of a civilization under judgment.

She didn’t choose any of this. She didn’t ask to become the product of an industry built around adult desire. But there she is anyway, held up before the digital crowd like a trophy while America keeps sleepwalking through Romans 1 pretending nothing strange is happening.

That’s the part I just can’t shake. The stillness of it all. The uncanny normalcy. The way the culture just keeps buzzing along while the moral ceiling caves in overhead.

Ancient Israel had prophets tearing their garments, collapsing face-first in the dirt, lying on their sides baking barley cakes on the flames of human excrement. But America has influencers posting surrogate baby announcements with soft piano music in the background.

It’s the exact same rebellion. Just a different soundtrack.