Overall this is an excellent book, with an important message, aiming at distinguishing the Kingdom of God from the Kingdom of this World. As Gregory explains in so many ways, Christians (and people of other religions too) unfortunately are rarely as "spiritual" as they think they are, and end up overlaying religious themes upon worldly projects.
One of the main shortcomings of this book, is one that involves lack of a certain understanding about the reality of evil in this world, which at the time of the books' publication in 2005, relatively few of us would have had insight into.
Gregory suggests at one point that there may have been more evil in Jesus' time, than there is now. But of late, specifically in the last 2 years from 2020 to 2022, more and more people are awakening to the reality of a Global Crime Syndicate, which some call the Cabal, which controls the whole world via its criminal banking cartel called the Central Bank and Federal Reserve, which has infiltrated every government in the world, and runs virtually every institution, from banking, to education, to the medical industry, all law enforcement, all the courts, major corporations, the MSM, social media, Big Tech -- everything. This crime syndicate, perhaps centered in the WEF, profits from child sex trafficking, facilitated by thousands of miles of underground tunnels, and by drug smuggling. There are indications (eg, Georgia Guidestones) that they had a goal of perpetrating genocide on 95% of the world population, and making abject slaves of the rest. However, there are forces of good which have fortunately intervened and are working to stop this horror show.
In light of such a horrific and depraved evil having virtually taken over the world, I'd say that this is not the time to encourage folks to turn away from the world towards the Kingdom of God. Ironically, this horror show may assist in making the distinction between the Kingdom of the World and the Kingdom of God become more clear, because as the truth is revealed about what has gone on not just for decades, but for centuries as this evil group has worked to control the world, we'll hopefully gain a clearer understanding about how ostensibly Christian people and groups who lost sight of God's kingdom, were more easily coopted and manipulated by these Satanic elites.
For instance, on pg 109 Gregory quotes President George W Bush stating that America was on a holy "crusade" against (Islamic) evildoers. What Bush said here will look quite different when people discover that Bush was allegedly a leader in the Global Crime Syndicate, and he was allegedly behind the massacre of thousands of Americans on 9/11. So if this proves true, this will be viewed as an instance of Satanic people literally using Christian themes to manipulate "Christians" who don't know any better.
There's another way that Christians can be manipulated by the Satanic Global Crime Syndicate, which apparently Gregory himself has been manipulated into, without realizing this. And this shows up in Gregory's repeated focus on racism and oppression of minorities, eg pg 120 where he references "white dominated power structures" and on pg 121 attributes anti-racism work to Jesus, which was not there. Pg 123 Gregory complains about differences between white and non-white neighborhoods or schools, pg 125 he says "what would happen if the white kingdom people chose to reverse the white dominance of American culture and...placed themselves in service to nonwhites?" And on the same page he references the "ugly racism" of American culture.
First of all, by fixating on this one perceived (actually, imaginary) "political" issue of racism, white dominance, Gregory is doing exactly what his entire book is counseling us against doing, which is asserting that any one political view is more "Christian" than some other view, and advocating for his political view.
But even more importantly, these "racism" themes and themes of "white dominance" are the very talking points of the Global Crime Syndicate. These views issue from the destructive and false ideologies they have intentionally seeded in our universities and culture, in order to propagate the lie that racism is a very serious problem in our nation, when it is not, and thus divide us and pit us against one another, while simultaneously distracting us from THEIR crimes...such as the crimes of the Federal Reserve System, their enormous involvement in child sex trafficking, drug smuggling, the corruption and infiltration of the entire government and all institutions, etc.
Finally, Gregory raises good points about how Christians far too often arrogantly judge people even outside their own faith, pg 158-159 he points out that the Apostle Paul spoke to pagans using pagan references not Christian ones. But as many of us have no doubt seen, too many Christians go about doing things like hitting non-Christian people over the head with the Ten Commandments, people for whom these things are not even a part of their religion. It's extremely rude to try to condemn people for not following something that isn't even part of their religion, as well as arrogant to assume that other religions don't have their own moral codes.
Gregory would do better to develop a deeper understanding of the complexity of human psychology -- for instance, in advocating that we imitate Christ's love, he expresses regret that more Christians wouldn't be welcoming to prostitutes and other sinners as Jesus was. But this reveals an unfortunate naivette. People can be quite loving and welcoming, but love isn't enough. Jesus wasn't only far more loving than we were, he was also far more wise. So, imagine a prostitute or drug addict, or mentally ill person coming to a Christian gathering, and coming in intoxicated, and then starting to behave in a way that was inappropriate and made others uncomfortable. For instance, in using profanities, or engaging in bizarre behavior. No one should be so naive as to think that when people are drawn to Christian community, they suddenly lose all their dysfunctional or misguided behavior. So what will people do when they find this in their midst? "Being loving" is not enough, you have to have good boundaries, you need wisdom, you need skill in working with people.
And this brings me to another theme --- which is that the goal of embodying Christ like love, and following the Great Commandments -- is something that is likely a lot more complex and involved than many may realize. And that in order for this love to be impactful and have effect in this world, we may need to grow and develop in several other ways, which are not mentioned in this book, but pertain to overall human psychological and spiritual growth.
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