Jesus was not a Political Revolutionary

Hans Küng on the fact that the kingdom of God cannot be made into a program of political and social action:

It has been observed that Che Guevara, the Cuban guerrilla, bore a remarkable facial resemblance to the conventional picture of Jesus. But, apart from this, is it so surprising that Jesus has exercised an influence on many revolutionaries right up to Camilo Torres, the Colombian priest-revolutionary? And there can be no doubt that the Jesus of the Gospels is not the sweet, gentle Jesus of an earlier or later Romanticism nor a solid ecclesiastical Christ. There is nothing in Him of the prudent diplomat or the churchman ready for compromise and determined to maintain a balance. The Gospels present us with an obviously clear-sighted, resolute, unswerving, and–if necessary–also pugnacious and aggressive and always fearless Jesus. He had come in fact to cast fire on earth (Luke 12:49). There was to be no fear of those who can kill the body but can do no more than this (Luke 12:4). The time was at hand when swords would be needed, a time of the greatest distress and danger (Luke 22:35-38). Nevertheless, we cannot make Jesus a guerrilla fighter, a rebel, a political agitator and revolutionary or turn His message of God’s kingdom into a program of politico-social action, unless we distort and reinterpret all the Gospel accounts…

—On Being a Christian, pp. 186-187