When Arianna Salerno first moved to Washington, DC, in 2022 to go to the Catholic University, she did not see many people wearing cross chains. But in the past year she says that she has noticed an increase in jewelry every time she takes the metro, and they are now regularly present at Capitol Hill, where she has held several internships.
As a millenniums old symbol of Christian faith, the cross seems somewhat immune to trendiness. But cross chains and pendants have been in vogue earlier and can be again because some feel more comfortable to embrace their faith and seek community with others.
On red carpets, on social media, during protests through high -ranking Democrats and in the White House, chains with cross hangers with renewed prevalence appear. Chappell Roan wore an oversize in September to the MTV Video Music Awards, and a dangled from the neck of Sabrina Carpenter in the video clip for her single “Please Please please”. The trendy online store Ssense sells them in nearly 50 variations, and regular jewelers such as Kendra Scott and Zales have countless designs.
Recently, the cross chains have been flashing several times a week on cable news screens, hung between the collarbones of Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary of the White House and attorney -general Pam Bondi.
Mrs Bondi, 59, wrote in a statement that her chains are an expression of her ‘strong Christian’ education: “My faith is very important to me,” she said. “It’s what spends me every day.”
Tiktok shared young Christian women the meaning behind their own cross chains and say that they help to cultivate a sense of connectedness and connection with others.
Sage Mills, a student at the University of Oklahoma who posted videos about her cross chain, said that seeing women in the government as Mrs. Leavitt and Mrs. Bondi gives me a good feeling. It gives me the feeling that God is most important to people who rule our world. “
The cross, a symbol that is the most associated with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, came to the fore for the first time during the Roman Empire when it was an instrument of Massamarteling, said Robert Covolo, a theologian and associated pastor at Christ Church Sierra Madre near Los Angeles. By the 4th century, Mr Covolo said that Christians began to use the cross as an emblem of their religion. Not long after, the cross became a central point for daily jewelry. Cross -jewelry dating as early as the 5th century are common in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Referring to the original use of the original, Mr. Covolo said that the cross was a “symbol of the Roman Empire that claimed his power with impunity.”
In the course of the centuries, the cross evolved as a signpost of the moral compass that one shares with fellow Christians and a kind of Talisman with deeply personal meaning. “They have an official meaning, but people give their own meaning, where symbols really get their power,” said Mr. Covolo, 58, who published a book about the link between Christianity and Fashion in 2020.
Many still bear that of them as a simple explanation of their faith and as an expression of community with other believers. About 62 percent of American adults identify as a Christian, according to a research research research in February. The annual religious landscape survey of the group also showed that the Christian population of the country was stabilized after decades of deterioration.
“It is the easiest way to know that I have shared beliefs with people,” said Mrs. Mills, 20, who received her cross chain as a gift to celebrate her rebaptism last year.
When Breanna Anderson, a specialist on social media in Orem, Utah, visited Jerusalem in 2022, she bought her first cross chain, although the cross is not a common symbol for her religious conviction, the church of Jesus Christ of the saints of the last days. “Although it is not a symbol of the church, it can be a symbol of dedication to Jesus Christ and believe in Him,” she said.
The chains had become more popular with younger congregants of her church, and in wider ‘Utah culture’, Mrs. Anderson, 26, added.
This cultural meaning can be more difficult to define, since the symbol now seems to vary in interpretation between geography, church connections and even – to a growing extent – political value systems.
The Trump government has welcomed religion in the west wing with the creation of a new office in the White House. In recent months, predecessors with Christian nationalist beliefs have been invited several times to the White House.
In a sense, cross chains have become the jewelry of choice that is most associated with President Trump’s second administration.
Mrs Bondi has several cross chains, but usually appears at official events in a diamond-set version bought in Mavilo, a jewelry store in Tampa, FLA.
Mrs. Leavitt, the press secretary of the White House, has often worn a large crotch pendant in press briefings. But Mrs. Leavitt is not the first press secretary to wear a cross: Kayleigh Mcenany, a press secretary during the first term of Mr. Trump, one also wore one.
In an e -mail, Mrs. Leavitt, 27, called the Cross chain “The perfect accessory for every outfit”, adding that it carries the cross “because it serves as a reminder of the power that can only be found by faith.”
The portable religious symbol has surfaced elsewhere in the government. This weekend, representative Hakeem Jeffries from New York, the Tophuisdemocrat, wore a large Silvertone Cross-Hang chain to organize a sit-in protest against the GOP budget on the stairs of the Capitol with Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey. Mr. Jeffries was raised in Brooklyn and in his youth he was a usher in the Cornerstone Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Some Christians regard the visible integration of Christianity and the government as a natural progression of the foundation values of America – and the cross chain as a sign of pride and resilience.
Daisy Rogers, 25, a mother-home mother and volleyball coach in Gilbert, Ariz., Said the nation “was founded on Christian values and I don’t believe there is a divorce. I think it should stay that way.”
Mrs. Rogers, also a member of the church of Jesus Christ of the saints of the last days, began to wear a cross chain about a year ago as a way to convey her faith in dealing with others. Although Mrs. Rogers said that she feels that Christians can sometimes be experienced as weak, seeing women in the government as Mrs Leavitt is “excellent examples of how you can be strong and Christian at the same time,” she said.
Riley White, a maker of content and Personal Trainer in Birmingham, Ala., Being started to wear a cross chain two years ago as a way to “share Christian values and love” and compared it with an engagement ring.
Mrs White, 24, said she recently felt uncertainty when she sees cross chains worn by political figureheads in the news. “I like to see the cross worn by people who have Christian values and who treat people how the Bible tells us,” said Mrs. White. “It can be difficult to see people wear a cross and hear how they talk about people in a way that does not necessarily correspond to Christian values.”
Lucy Collins, a university teacher at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, which provides courses in philosophy, fashion theory and ethics, said that although cross chains are often worn apolitic, their appearance in the political atmosphere in the United States has consequences for party politics.
“The cross itself is not a complicated symbol, it clearly represents Christianity,” said Mrs. Collins. But unlike the simplicity of the cross, she added: “At the moment, Christianity is much more complicated.”
