Christ, the perfect sidekick
Although the people don't mean to do so, the reverend in town quickly realizes very quickly that his community has slipped into an unhealthy habit of coming to their own conclusions (typically conclusions that protect them from change), and then attaching Jesus's name to it. In this way, Jesus becomes their perfect sidekick, because they can take whatever position the want, and then they can find Bible verses to cherrypick so that their opinion seems holy and considered, when really it isn't.
Christ, the hero
Reverend Henry Maxwell sees the dysfunction in his church (and his community which is predominantly Christian), and he immediately asks the community the famous, painfully trite question: "WWJD?" The value of this (admittedly unartistic) invocation is that it positions the community as followers again. By remembering that they are supposed to form their ideas after Jesus's example (instead of making Jesus the sidekick to their own agendas), they are forced to reconcile their opinions to the actual character of Jesus.
The ostracized
Jack Manning is an ostracized member of this community, left at the fringes because clearly, he has seen some painful and dangerous sides of life. The community feels he might be a threat somehow, but Maxwell guides the community to realize their role as Christians is to be with the disenfranchised and ostracized, because Jesus hung out with orphans and widows, as well as sinners and the outcast. Manning is a symbol for the outcast, and notice, his name includes "Man" as if to suggest the community needs to accept "people" in general.
Hypocrisy through symbols
The novel remembers that the Christian church (especially in Maxwell's neck of the woods) struggled to accept Black people, often citing the scriptures to defend their hateful opinions about minorities. Also, they don't accept the newcomer, and they enforce opinions through shame. These form a motif pointing toward hypocrisy. Hypocrisy means that they use their religion to do what the religion forbids. In this case, the Christian scriptures repeat over and over again that people are people, regardless of gender or race.
Love and fear
The novel is a portrait of a community struggling to cross the schism between fearful living and love. The question about "What Would Jesus Do?" is clearly one with a simple answer. He would love others well. Would he be ruled by fear and anxiety? Clearly not. The Christian faith uses Jesus's self-sacrifice as a metaphor for love, because he died for people who did not deserve it, and no one had more to fear than Jesus did facing the cross, but that didn't stop him. They are called on to love.
