The irony of community
The community is both homogenous and diverse at the same time. Also, they have a sense for who "belongs" and who doesn't belong. This is a serious issue, because they think the community is one thing, but in reality it has become the kind of community that Jesus himself decries. Their sense of community seems like a good thing, but it makes them prone to view the world as an "us vs. them" equation, to no avail.
Comfort and safety
A lot of people in this novel feel comfortable with the status quo. They feel a coziness in the Christian faith that prevents them from accepting change. That's ironic, because it means that the order and safety that love has brought in their community is actually making them less likely to accept others. They have mistaken the cult-ish aspects of religion for the real thrust of the faith. To "protect the community," they resist the very people the community was supposed to be serving.
Christian history
The history of the Christian church comes under scrutiny. Given that the gospels' opinion of Jesus is pretty specific and clear, one should think that the history of the church should be basically an expression of Jesus's universal love, his willingness to believe his own point of view, and his openness to accepting those who are different from him, but ironically (the book notes), that isn't exactly what the church is prone to do. The church struggles even in this novel to actually embody the theology they all tacitly accept.
Jesus's ironic example
Jesus is mythically considered the pinnacle depiction of holiness, but he didn't concern himself with "cleanliness" as religious people so often do. Instead of removing himself from sinful people, he did life with them. In the gospels, Jesus is infamous in his community, because he doesn't spend time with the religious elite. He hangs out with people that no one else wants to talk to. In this story, Jack Manning is such a person, so the community struggles to accept him, although the example is clear.
The scriptures and irony
The writer invokes an irony from the scriptures regarding the gospel accounts of Jesus's life. The easy way to do religion is the Pharisee's way of religion where the dogmas and guidelines of a faith are used to govern people according to one's own opinion. The gospels offer a portrait of Jesus as the ultimate rejection of that point of view. The irony between Jesus and this community is that the community proclaims Jesus as their sole influence and authority, while becoming the community Jesus specifically rejected. Maxwell manages to awaken their opinion in a loving manner.
