This thangka is beautiful! And very suitable for Tibetans who are Christians. It is a combination of culture and religion.
I visited the Institute of World Religions in Berkeley, USA. It is a church building converted into a monastery. Inside the building, it looks like a modern monastery with an altar. But the traditional christian stained glass is replaced with a stained glass image of Buddha. It is so beautiful! Here are the pictures.
To me, it doesn't matter how our depiction of buddha or jesus are. Whether it should be in a certain way. As long as our faith and belive is strong, it can come in any way you want.
As to the depiction of enlightened being or holy man, I think this will always goes hand in hand with the culture of the country when the deity is being worshipped. After all, it is just a depiction, the esscense is retained.
We tend to get too uptight with how things should be, but living in the fast digital lane, traditional ways of how deities should be depicted wil inevitably be adjusted to suit the time and new culture of the mind sets of the people.
For instance, I like modern altar and am not a great fan of the traditional Tibetan altar, but that does not make me less as a practitioner nor what the buddhas on my simple altar represent. Likewise, with Jesus Christ depicted in a beautiful brocaded traditional thangka, does not make Jesus less a saint.
Infact, with all these inter-religious/cultural depiction of buddhas/saints, perhaps unnecessary boundaries between religions can be erased with the skillful means of these artists.
