Our Faustian Deal

Justo Gonzalez in his The Story ofChristianity says: 

 "Finally, the scheme of history that Eusebius [historian and contemporary of Constantine] developed led him to set aside or at least to postpone a fundamental theme of early Christian preaching:  the expectation of the full Reign of God.

 Although Eusebius does not go as far as to say so explicitly, in reading his works one receives the impression that now, with Constantine and his successors, the plan of God has been fulfilled.  No longer will Christians have to decide between serving the coming reign and serving the present one--which has become a representative and agent of the Reign of God.

Beyond the present political order, all that Christians are to hope for is their own personal transference into the heavenly kingdom.  Christian hope came to be relegated to the future life or to the distant future, and seemed to have little to do with the present world.  Religion tended to become a way to gain access to heaven, rather than to serve God in this life and the next.

The earlier notion, that in the resurrection of Christ the new age has dawned, and that by baptism and the Eucharist Christians become participants in it, was now abandoned, and Christian hope was now limited to the individual's life after death."


In one swift action, the Church relinquished any say about God's Kingdom on earth in exchange for absolute power over life after death. We have suffered ever since.

To be relevant in the 21st century, we must repudiate this deal the church made with the devil and proclaim that the Christian faith has almost nothing to say about life beyond the grave. The Christian Faith frees us to love and serve God - especially the poor and oppressed.