"He Gets Us” is spending upwards of a billion dollars on an advertising campaign to expose millions of people, including those who tuned in to the 2023 Super Bowl, to Jesus. Is the attempt to win over the world with a modernized version of Christ succeeding?
The first commercial flipped through a series of black-and-white photos of children helping others in need. The 30-second clip ended with the tagline, “Jesus didn’t want us to act like adults,” referencing Christ’s teaching about childlike faith in Matthew 18.
When I first began seeing the ads, I wondered what the intent and message were.
Is the billion-dollar budget actually reaching people with the message of the Gospel?
Be informed, not misled.
I get it.
I'm not questioning the motive of the investors. I've been told David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby, is one of them, and he has certainly shown himself to be all-in in his giving to the Lord's work.
He and Hobby Lobby have never blinked when faced with opposition to his biblical beliefs when some other Christian-owned companies have caved.
He has stood strong for marriage, life, and other biblical values.
USA Today reported in 2022: "Hobby Lobby founder David Green announced through an Oct. 21 op-ed at Fox News that he's giving up his company and that he 'chose God' over wealth."
Green credited his faith and higher power as the "true source" of his success, noting that "God was the true owner of my business," and felt that passing the company down to his children and grandchildren would've been the wrong move.
"As an owner, there are certain rights and responsibilities, including the right to sell the company and keep the profits for yourself and your family," Green wrote. "As our company grew, that idea began to bother me more and more. Well-meaning attorneys and accountants advised me to simply pass ownership down to my children and grandchildren. It didn’t seem fair to me that I might change or even ruin the future of grandchildren who had not even been born yet.
He said, "When I realized that I was just a steward, it was easy to give away my ownership."
His net worth is $14 billion, according to Forbes.
Green said, "Wealth can be a curse and, in most cases, if you drill down on it, wealth is a curse in terms of marriage, children, and things of that nature. So we’re stewarding our company and, therefore, our children come to work, and they get what they earn."
As you know, Hobby Lobby has often been intermeshed with national religious news over the last few decades under Green, most recently during the pandemic in 2020 when he opted to leave stores open during COVID-19 risk because everything was "in God's control."
He has also taken a strong biblical stand for Life and for marriage.
So---he's a good man who is committed to doing the Lord's work and the Lord's will.
I will assume the other "He Gets Us" investors mean well.
If so, I get their motives.
What about the method?
Jordon Boyd, in an article published in The Federalist last year just after the Super Super Bowl, wrote, "'He Gets Us'" is spending upwards of a billion dollars on an advertising campaign to expose millions of people, including those who tuned in to the Super Bowl, to Jesus. But its attempt to win over the world with a modernized version of Christ failed to endear some of those it sought to engage."
She said, "Instead of transforming the life of Jesus to fit our culture, let’s tell the full story of Jesus — offensive and glorious as it is — to the watching world and see how it transforms them."
Jordon flipped through a series of black-and-white photos of children helping others in need from last year's campaign. The 30-second clip ended with the tagline “Jesus didn’t want us to act like adults,” referencing Christ’s teaching about childlike faith in Matthew 18.
The other ads were essentially the same, i.e., “If I could see the world through the eyes of a child, what a wonderful world this would be,” the song narrated.
This year's Super Bowl ads were similar.
What I don't get.
According to USA Today, "The 'He Gets Us' website says, 'Let us be clear in our opinion. Jesus loves gay people and Jesus loves trans people. The LGBTQ+ community, like all people, is invited to explore the story of Jesus'."
USA Today continues: "In 2023, Hobby Lobby founder David Green told talk show host Glenn Beck that his family was helping fund the Super Bowl 57 ads."
Green and Hobby Lobby won a significant victory in 2014 when the Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby and other “closely held corporations” could continue to deny providing health insurance coverage for some or all forms of birth control based on religious objections. The ruling affected more than 60 million American workers.
These commercials offer the vaguest and most inoffensive and uncontroversial picture of Jesus possible, even to people who already have a distaste for Christianity. In fact, they are part of a larger campaign known for making radical comparisons between Jesus and the U.S. border crisis, which is harnessed by corrupt cartels for profit and bold conflations of Jesus and his disciples with groups who roam the streets today, “challenging authority” and “making a lot of people uneasy,” in an attempt to appeal to current culture.
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| Graphic from the "He Gets Us" website. |
"He Gets Us" was born out of the idea that the Christians of today are not good enough at marketing Jesus. After all, an alarming number of Americans are abandoning the church.
Takeaway
Anyone who reads his Bible knows our society will never welcome the Good News with open arms. That’s because the Gospel, in its truest form, is offensive to the world. It announces unequivocally that every person is a sinner who deserves death and that even the so-called good works we do are tainted by self-interest and are filthy in the eyes of a holy God. It tells of a loving Father who gave up his only Son Jesus to live a perfect life and die the most brutal death imaginable as a sacrifice for the same sort of people who murdered Him. It proclaims that this Jesus miraculously rose from the grave, and it demands that anyone who follows Him must lay down his own comfort and desires and even his very life every single day.
Nothing about this offensive message conforms to our culture. In fact, the written Word of God demands that we “do not conform to the pattern of this world.”
There is nothing wrong with bringing Jesus to the masses — it’s what we’re commanded to do — but we have to do it well.
Jesus wasn’t “only human after all,” as the song in the first He Gets Us campaign suggested. He was fully human and fully God, and Scripture tells us it’s only because of this glorious truth that Jesus was qualified to be our Savior.
Jesus’ mission from God to die for the sins of the world cannot be reduced to a few choice words he said. We care about what Jesus said, but we can’t separate that from what He did. Jesus didn’t just preach love your neighbor or love your enemies or have childlike faith. He rebuked sin, cast out demons, and promised eternal life for those who repent.
That alone is great news that doesn’t need editorializing or tweaking or watering down. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.”
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.