Of course they think of him as a man. According to the doctrine, he was supposedly God in human form. He was here as a man. Artistically, he's always presented in a male physical body. What else would they think of him?
In a nation frequently obsessed with race, the racial identity of Jesus as it's presented matters. I'm not sure why that's controversial to you.
As is the identification of the oppressed and downtrodden with Jesus. That's common enough to be cliche. Maybe it's correct or incorrect, depending on how you look at the old stories, but it's done so often that it's strange to me that someone else would find it strange.
Of course, the oppressors have also frequently used Jesus. So I guess the one thing we can agree on is that the gospels are quite flexible.
In a nation frequently obsessed with race, the racial identity of Jesus as it's presented matters. I'm not sure why that's controversial to you.
As is the identification of the oppressed and downtrodden with Jesus. That's common enough to be cliche. Maybe it's correct or incorrect, depending on how you look at the old stories, but it's done so often that it's strange to me that someone else would find it strange.
Of course, the oppressors have also frequently used Jesus. So I guess the one thing we can agree on is that the gospels are quite flexible.