In my Aug. 14 piece about how the American Bible Society is shamelessly mocking God and Christians, I reported that on their front window was a poster of a scantily-clad woman wearing a gold, diamond-studded cross necklace that hung down over a tattoo reading, “Hot & Sexy.”

Wearing cross necklaces is obviously very trendy these days. In a recent BBC news-feature segment, a fashion journalist was quoted saying, “I think we’re in the era of ‘pick and mix’ religion now, particularly with celebrities. So when you see girls like Catherine Zeta Jones, Liza Minnelli and Renee Zellweger wearing the crucifix, I don’t think it’s purely secular. Y’know they’ve probably just borrowed that little bit from Catholicism and I do think they look on it as a talisman; as a protective force.”

This superstitious belief that a cross necklace can ward off evil and protect its wearers dates all the way back to Emperor Constantine in the 4^th Century.

I found this out just this month in reading the fascinating book, “The Apostasy of the Christian Church,” written by R. Dawson Barlow, a long-time missionary in China.

It turns out the cross necklace has everything to do with the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church!

Dawson writes:

“Most every child in Western culture who has been casually exposed to the history of Western civilization has heard the story of Constantine’s dramatic and supposed ‘conversion.’

“The evening before the decisive battle against Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge, a convenient “miracle” happened (a ‘miracle?’), which seemed to ascribe divine favor to Constantine’s military conquests. Constantine, as the story goes, saw a vision (our advice for many years has been to watch those ‘folks’ who have ‘visions,’ and carefully avoid them—they will lie about other things also!).

“As with most legends, the details of this ‘vision’ grew as the years passed and were embellished many times over. A fifth century historian, Socrates Scholasticus, wrote a description of that vision, which is nothing short of a spell-binding drama! But the most grandiose account of the event is supplied by Solozom:

“In the middle of his perplexity, he (Constantine) saw a vision of the sign of the cross shining in the heavens. He was amazed by this sight, but some holy angels who were standing nearby exclaimed: ‘O Constantine! By this sign, CONQUER!’ and it is said that Christ Himself also appeared to him and showed him how to construct one like it. . . (so he) sent for some skilled workmen, and ordered them to make the standard the Romans called the labarum, converting it into the shape of the cross, and adorning it with gold and precious stones. . . IT IS ALSO ASSERTED THAT NO SOLDIER WHO CARRIED THIS STANDARD EVER FELL FROM ANY DARK CALAMITY SUCH AS IS WANT TO BEFALL SOLDIERS IN WAR, OR WAS WOUNDED, OR TAKEN PRISONER. . .” (Emphasis mine.)

“Because of the widespread acceptance of the ‘legend,’ it became a common practice for the generally superstitious masses to wear a cross of precious metal around their necks as a good luck charm. It was considered a good insurance policy to possess mystical powers to keep one from harm and evil.

“Throughout the regions of China in scored of Buddhist temples, I have seen many such like ‘trinkets’ which claim to give those lucky enough to buy them good luck, and their children for generations. And the similar story goes around the world in most every culture.

“Constantine himself ascribed his victory over Maxentius to the quasi-magical powers of the ‘saving symbol’ (i.e. the cross) under which his troops fell at Milvian Bridge, but the question as to whether or not he himself, was even now convinced of the truth of Christianity and accepted it as his personal religion remains unanswered.” (The Life of Constantine, pg. 112)

Of Constantine’s tremendous role in apostatizing the Christian church, Dawson writes:

“To Constantine, the ‘Supreme God’ was APOLLO, the SUN god, not Christ the SON of God. It was Constantine’s fascination with Apollo that played such a key role in his ‘contribution’ to the strangling grip of the apostasy.

“Constantine saw in the Christian religion a deep-seated morality and a strong, moral work ethic which he thought could cement the Roman Empire together. This ultimately led him to issue the famed ‘Edict of Milan.’ This Edict promised protection and peace to Christians. Eventually, this led to his declaration that Christianity was to be the ‘State Religion.’

“The ‘Edict of Milan’ allowed the floodgates to welcome into the ‘Christian’ community multitudes of Romans, who were baptized as Christians. Temples, originally dedicated to the Roman gods, were, in time, ‘rededicated’ as ‘Christian’ basilicas and, in many cases, the priests of those temples were baptized and remained as ‘Christian’ priests officiating in the same temples.

“Never had the Christian church seen such phenomenal growth. But this growth was not healthy. It brought into the ‘Christian’ community a plethora of pagan traditions, heathen practices and filled its ranks with “baptized” heathens.

“Becoming a ‘Christian ceased to be a matter of believing the gospel of Christ, and evolved into a wise political move for people who wanted to improve their chances of cultural/political advancements. Simply put, being a Christian became an ‘in’ thing.

“It was during this period that scores of non-biblical and scores of anti-biblical doctrines and practices were introduced into Christendom (e.g. prayers for the dead, veneration of angels and dead believers, later promoted to the status of saints, etc.).

“This was the historical period when the implementation of graven images crept into the Christian ‘religion.’ Originally those images were found in the pagan, heathen temples that were later ‘Christianized.’ All this, I remind you once more, was in spite of the biblical prohibition in the Ten Commandments.”