The sudden collapse of the Roman Empire occurred in a single generation and was not so much the result of invasions by their enemies, but the result of moral decay and internal corruption. Similar-and ominous-patterns are emerging in America, and the emasculation and elimination of the Christian cross is one of the most significant symbols of that cultural decay.Historian Will Durant summed up the fall of Rome in these words: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars." Substitute just one word in that last sentence-and the result is chilling: The essential causes of America's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.We see all of these forces straining the fabric of our society today. But none is more destructive to America's soul than the decline of her morals and her spiritual life.Many Muslim leaders are convinced that the decline and fall of the West shall be the result of the inevitable failure of Christianity. As Christianity disintegrates, they say, it will create a spiritual vacuum in the West-and their extreme brand of Islam will rush in to fill that void. They believe that Western civilization will become so decadent that, like the Roman Empire, America will collapse like a house of cards. Just as the Vandals and Visigoths sacked a weak and dispirited Rome in the fifth century A.D., the Islamists of the 21st century are waiting for the Christian West to collapse so they can move in unopposed.When the Crosses Are Gone is a clarion call for all Christians (and all Americans) to stay vigilant in their fight for liberty.