Jesus goes further than "lack of resistance", one of the reasons the people you call "collaborators" (they weren't) were so enraged by Jesus was by his appearance of active support for the "occupation" and him telling them to their face they deserved to have it all taken away from them and given to another people, as for example, in the Parable of the Vineyard.
Another reason they hated him is because Jesus associated with actual collaborators, like the tax collectors.
I am really baffled about how this can be twisted into comfort for people oppressed by occupying forces. Especially the part where he tells them Jerusalem is going to be destroyed and that they’ve earned it! Prophesying the destruction of the Temple and mass death and telling them they’ve earned it is comfort for other oppressed people?
> They thought of Jesus as one of them. Not as a Middle Eastern man.
The whole point is none of them think of Jesus as a man at all. Certainly not evangelicals. What do you mean by this?
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.
They think of Jesus as the Son of God, the Word made flesh and able to experience all the usual privations and sufferings of the mortal frame.
They do not see him as having some sort of racial consciousness or national provincialism…because God would naturally as the maker of all nations transcend that.
Evangelicals are typically the ones that go perhaps too far with that themselves. See for example the controversy over their proclivity for trans-racial adoptions.
Another reason they hated him is because Jesus associated with actual collaborators, like the tax collectors.
I am really baffled about how this can be twisted into comfort for people oppressed by occupying forces. Especially the part where he tells them Jerusalem is going to be destroyed and that they’ve earned it! Prophesying the destruction of the Temple and mass death and telling them they’ve earned it is comfort for other oppressed people?
> They thought of Jesus as one of them. Not as a Middle Eastern man.
The whole point is none of them think of Jesus as a man at all. Certainly not evangelicals. What do you mean by this?