Poor Jesus. As if centuries of fantasies, falsehoods and fancies weren’t insult enough, now comes “He Gets Us” - easily the slickest, most disingenuous Jesus-themed ad campaign to garner national attention.
First aired in March 2022, the ever evolving He Gets Us series has since become a public relations phenomenon via electronic billboards, online pitches, merchandising and prime sporting events including Super Bowl LVII. (The latter at $10 million per pop.)
At its millennial- and Gen Z-targeted core, He Gets Us seeks to convince us Jesus understands the human experience from the inside out. He too knows suffering, rebuke and marginalization. He too believes in compassion and justice. He’s been there. He gets us.
If the army of people that brought this campaign to fruition had no ends save reintroducing this historical Jesus to the skeptical masses, progressives would be rejoicing in the streets: Hail a media ready, deconstructed, relatable, liberation-gospel Jesus freed from the grip of Republican demagoguery and beamed straight into our Sunday afternoon Rokus! Surely miracles do abound.
But He Gets Us is far from a liberal miracle on high: In reality its artistic Christian fundamentalism courtesy of some of the richest, most theologically, politically and socially conservative private entities in these United States.
Mastheaded by hard-right, multibillionaire Hobby Lobby CEO David Green, He Gets Us is the media tip of a byzantine network of Christian extremists: HAVEN (primary creators and marketers); Lerma (secondary marketers); The Servant Foundation (main nonprofit funding source); The Signatry (secondary nonprofit funding source) and; He Gets Us, the media centerpiece with hundreds of support staff to make it all happen.
The result is a suite of ads at once visually stellar and linguistically smart. Music and voiceovers are carefully synched with each theme. Graphics are simple and clean. Nothing is wasted inside Jesus Gets Us.
What is wasted inside the campaign is truth: David (and spouse Barbara) Green have a long history of spearheading and funding conservative causes, including the landmark Supreme Court ruling exempting Hobby Lobby from providing some safe forms of contraception in its health care plan; The Servant Foundation has granted millions to the Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the most virulent anti-gay legal offices in the conservative portfolio; He Gets Us representatives describe the underlying theology as “scripturally accurate” yet draw on some of the most unreliable, most misappropriated passages found anywhere in the Hebrew and Christian texts.
Given the campaign’s yawning gap between words and deeds, those at the helm of He Gets Us would be better off wondering if we get Jesus, not the other way around.
No research yet exists to show if unaffiliated and uninterested millennials and Zs are buying what the hypocrites at He Gets Us are selling, but progressive pastor and scholar Kevin Young doesn’t think such obvious sleaze will register: “Young people are digital natives who understand the difference between slick marketing and authenticity … mega spending on marketing is seen as money that could have been used funding community programs and advocacy for the oppressed – such as refugees, LGBTQ+ individuals and abortion rights – and the poor.”
Don Rollins is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister in Jackson, Ohio. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2023
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