I agree Andrew.  For me the central theme of the NT is Jesus’ definition of the KOG as his vision for social and economic justice.  Declaring Jesus as "king" means accepting his message as our rule.  When we do this we declare a rebellion against the oppresive domination systems in power.  That message is the reason those systems killed him.  It means pledging allegiance to the spirit of compassion over the spirit of patriotism, the spirit of justice over the spirit of competition, the spirit of non-violence over violence, the spirit of generosity over the spirit of commercialism.

As far as the second coming, I don’t really get as excited about this as Andrew.  I see it simply as a description of what happens to Empires that are out of control.  I believe it acurately describes what happend in AD70 and it also describes what has happened to countless empires in our history since then. It will continue to happen to empires in our future.  They always grow too big, powerful, and corrupt then they tumble. The point underneath these metaphors is that we need to find our place both spiritually and politically in the process of helping empires tumble.  The most difficult task for us is that we must recognize when our own community has become a dangerous empire.