'”John Dominic Crossan asserts,

… did not mean for Jesus, as it could for others, the imminent apocalyptic intervention of God to set right a world taken over by evil and injustice. It meant the presence of God’s kingdom here and now in the reciprocity of open eating and open healing, in lives, that is, of radical egalitarianism on both the socioeconomic (eating) and the religio-poltical (healing) levels.”

The Kingdom, for Jesus, means BOTH 'the presence of God’s kingdom here and now in the reciprocity of open eating and open healing, in lives,' AND t'he imminent apocalyptic intervention of God [[n Jesus] to set right a world taken over by evil and injustice.' 'You can't have one without the other,' as the song says.

Crossan is just as guilty as Dan Brown of perpetrating another gospel which is no gospel, BAD news, in fact, the dysanggelion of a Great Moral Teacher who died and went to heaven– too bad!– but is essentially powerless to save, another of 'the idols of the heathen.

We Christians hold that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, of the same jealous LORD God of Israel, the Christ who took on our flesh, died for our sin, and of the world, and rose again the third day for our life, not ours alone, but of the whole time-space continuum. In fact we know he's Christ because of his Resurrection as the Firstfruits of the general resurrection.

“Radical egalitarianism” in a kingdom? Jesus said 'Did you see what I just did?
you call me “Teacher” and “Lord” [YHWH], and you're right to do so, but I just washed your feet. So you ought to wash each others' feet.'

And 'Whoever wants to be great among you, let him be the slave of all of you.' But God in Christ will be– and is, here and now– King, the Absolute Constitutional Monarch of an actual realized earthly kingdom: the 'redeeming factor,' as it were, is that anyone who makes it into the final Kingdom will be– is, here and now– a child of the King. Glory!

I deeply sympathize with Crossan; he's a great dal nearer the Kingdom than is Brown. But I 'm afraid they both are afflicted with Attitude– the contemporary term for 'original sin.' 'I'll do it MY way!'

A last comment: God doesn't talk anywhere about 'social justice.' He just talks about Justice, for the widows and orphans, the poor and oppressed, the stranger in the land.

Examine yourself, César, whether you're in the Faith.

'Glassdarkly,' how can you say you love God if you don't love your neighbor? You demonstrate that you love God, that is, that you are intimately related to God in Christ, by loving your neighbor. God's Justice is integral with his Salvation, with the very Character of God himself.

<3, TV2

'”John Dominic Crossan asserts,

… did not mean for Jesus, as it could for others, the imminent apocalyptic intervention of God to set right a world taken over by evil and injustice. It meant the presence of God’s kingdom here and now in the reciprocity of open eating and open healing, in lives, that is, of radical egalitarianism on both the socioeconomic (eating) and the religio-poltical (healing) levels.”

The Kingdom, for Jesus, means BOTH 'the presence of God’s kingdom here and now in the reciprocity of open eating and open healing, in lives,' AND t'he imminent apocalyptic intervention of God [[n Jesus] to set right a world taken over by evil and injustice.' 'You can't have one without the other,' as the song says.

Crossan is just as guilty as Dan Brown of perpetrating another gospel which is no gospel, BAD news, in fact, the dysanggelion of a Great Moral Teacher who died and went to heaven– too bad!– but is essentially powerless to save, another of 'the idols of the heathen.

We Christians hold that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, of the same jealous LORD God of Israel, the Christ who took on our flesh, died for our sin, and of the world, and rose again the third day for our life, not ours alone, but of the whole time-space continuum. In fact we know he's Christ because of his Resurrection as the Firstfruits of the general resurrection.

“Radical egalitarianism” in a kingdom? Jesus said 'Did you see what I just did?
you call me “Teacher” and “Lord” [YHWH], and you're right to do so, but I just washed your feet. So you ought to wash each others' feet.'

And 'Whoever wants to be great among you, let him be the slave of all of you.' But God in Christ will be– and is, here and now– King, the Absolute Constitutional Monarch of an actual realized earthly kingdom: the 'redeeming factor,' as it were, is that anyone who makes it into the final Kingdom will be– is, here and now– a child of the King. Glory!

I deeply sympathize with Crossan; he's a great dal nearer the Kingdom than is Brown. But I 'm afraid they both are afflicted with Attitude– the contemporary term for 'original sin.' 'I'll do it MY way!'

A last comment: God doesn't talk anywhere about 'social justice.' He just talks about Justice, for the widows and orphans, the poor and oppressed, the stranger in the land.

Examine yourself, César, whether you're in the Faith.

'Glassdarkly,' how can you say you love God if you don't love your neighbor? You demonstrate that you love God, that is, that you are intimately related to God in Christ, by loving your neighbor. God's Justice is integral with his Salvation, with the very Character of God himself.

<3, TV2

If we are truly pious we are compelled to let go of everything and not have anything between us and our relationships with our fellowman. Clearly this requires that we have complete confidence that we are always in the arms of our Heavenly Father no matter where our search for him takes us.

But, more to the point, while it is clear that our theology has us in two very different places–which is fine, and a wholesale response could only be done as a bad-faith reading of your post–I have two quibbles of my own.

First, Jesus was very concerned with personal piety and holiness, clearly demonstrated by his close relationship to John the Baptizer. For Christians today, the beauty in Jesus' message is that God has accepted our individual selves despite our sins against Him. (This is what attracted me to Christianity in the first place.)

Social change is a symptom of a changed life, not necessarily an ends to a means. It is the wonderful inversion of the Kingdom, as you noted, that gives this message power among the poor and downtrodden, something for which we both can rejoice, but something that can be done regardless of one's personal faith.

Second, while artistic depictions of Jesus may have never placed him alone, Biblical depictions certainly did. He frequently spent time on the mountainside by himself in prayer, and to say that he was always with people diminishes very important aspects and disciplines that are imperative in the Christian life.

That aside, it seems clear to me that while his mission was directed at the poor in amazing ways, he was not always crying out for social justice, but rather befriending all sorts of people and modeling what a relationship with God can look like, even for the poor, but more generally for everyone who acknowledged their poverty in more than monetary or social contexts.

Finally, and very generally, I think we need to be careful not to tip a holistic understanding of Jesus and his mission in any certain direction. While I appreciate this site for much of its advocacy, especially as it relates to the poor, I do caution us on emphasizing certain aspects of our faith more than others, especially in pieces that compare different Christian faith traditions.