The (Spiritual) Second Coming: Can we overcome the world?

I once spoke with a young woman who had been badly traumatized in life.  She understandably had a jaded feeling about the ability of Christianity to change humanity.  We look at two similar stories in the Gospels, about the "Second Coming", or the "Parousia" in Greek.  We look at this from the perspective of a spiritual, not a physical, second coming - and what this could mean for those of us who still believe that people could transform this world before Jesus comes again.