Yo’annid and John

So I was thinking about the book of Revelation today in New Testament discussion group, a good place to think about these things I suspect, and realized something I had realized before. There are a lot of similarities between how we perceive Islam and how the Romans probably perceived Christianity.
Case in point, John was stuck on Patmos “on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” I read this to mean he was stuck there because he testified about Jesus and the government exiled him there. Likewise Islamic extremists have been “exiled” to Guantanamo Bay.
Likewise I am guessing there are some similarities between how Christianity perceived Rome and how some Radical Islamists perceive America.
America could be seen as Rome. Both Rome and America have unprecedented power.
While our military might has limits we can enforce a “Pax America” in a very deadly and real way.
Free trade and television has expanded American influence and culture all around the known world. Some aspects of our culture offend the religious sensibilities both abroad and at home.
On a good day we can dictate political policy to world leaders, or at least influence them greatly. Many world leaders are western educated, which may make it seem like we have seduced the elites of the world.
The status quo of global trade sometimes (often?) benefits America and other rich countries at the expense of poorer countries. Poor workers in other countries end up not working to build things they can own and use, but instead they are building widgets out of their countries natural resources for a salary that does not allow them to buy said widget in order to send the widget overseas to some rich westerner they will never meet.
Now I’m not saying America is Rome. I’m definitely not saying violence of any kind is a proper response to economic alienation, political domination, having one’s culture and/or religion offended, or feeling overwhelmed by the might of another country, and by that justifying terrorism. What I am saying is that the types of feelings these situations evoke might have been felt by early Christians.
Peace,
Chris