After over three hundred years of sporadic, state-sponsored persecutions of Christians, most of whom were the peripheral and the poor, the Roman emperor Constantine credited his military victory over his rival Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge to the Christian God. Tradition says that on the evening of October 27, the night before the battle, Constantine had a vision of a cross emblazoned on the setting sun, and the Greek letters XP, the first two Greek letters of “Christ,” superimposed on it. Constantine either saw or heard the phrase, often rendered in Latin, “In Hoc Signo Vinces”—”With this sign, you shall conquer.” Constantine, who was a pagan at the time, put the symbol on his solders’ shields, thus transforming a sacred symbol of innocent, redemptive, suffering love into a talisman of violent, hate-filled, military conquest. God is saying to the church leaders, repent and stop using sacred offices and symbols of holiness and sacrifice as instrument of comfort, control, and career conquest.