Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 753 | 'He Gets Us': The Good, the Bad & the Unbiblical

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Today we're discussing the 'He Gets Us' campaign, as promised! The $100 million advertising campaign seeks to promote Jesus and Christianity through TV spots in prime time, billboards, and social media feeds. These ads portray Jesus as a refugee, an activist, and an influencer, among other characteristics, and aim to communicate his relatability to modern problems (ultimately leading people to the "He Gets Us" site). Two of these ads ran in last night's Super Bowl and made big waves among Christians and non-Christians. One of the problems with the campaign is its claims about Jesus, which are not entirely accurate and/or are missing important context. The campaign does not align with any specific denomination or doctrine, but rather seeks to partner with churches and organizations who can use its resources for outreach. We discuss the major concerns of the campaign, but also highlight some of the good that can come from it. It's exciting to see a campaign like "He Gets Us" put big money behind helping people connect with Jesus, and we've already heard good stories of people hearing the gospel, but we can still remain wary of some of the campaign's messages that lack context and historical accuracy. --- Timecodes: (02:14) Super Bowl national anthem(s) & Rhianna (07:25) Super Bowl commercials (14:33) ‘He Gets Us & discernment  (18:42) About ‘He Gets Us’ (37:09) The bad & unbiblical (55:35) The good --- Today's Sponsors: Birch Gold — protect your future with gold. Text 'ALLIE' to 989898 for a free, zero obligation info kit on diversifying and protecting your savings with gold. My Patriot Supply — prepare yourself for anything with long-term emergency food storage. Save $200 off a Three-Month Emergency Food Kit (and free shipping) when you go to PrepareWithAllie.com. Reliefband — save 20% off plus free shipping at Reliefband.com when you use promo code 'ALLIE'! PublicSq. — download the PublicSq app from the App Store or Google Play, create a free account, and begin your search for freedom-loving businesses! --- Links: He Gets Us: https://hegetsus.com/en?gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=CjwKCAiAzp6eBhByEiwA_gGq5CqZ3EuYmWmMQnXrwl88iIKIOFVJUhT0ai7TSZol8OqAfr1gtAs5AxoCfbUQAvD_BwE Christianity Today: "$100M Ad Campaign Aims to Make Jesus the ‘Biggest Brand in Your City’" https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/march/he-gets-us-ad-campaign-branding-jesus-church-marketing.html Slate: "The Backstory to That Jesus Ad at the Super Bowl" https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/02/jesus-ad-superbowl-he-gets-us.html --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 698 | Aliens, Nephilim, Bigfoot & the Bible | Guest: Nate Henry & Luke Rodgers (Blurry Creatures) https://apple.co/3RSO7vr --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. The heat gets us ad campaign spent $20 million on Super Bowl advertisements. The campaign says are meant to point people to Jesus. So what is this campaign? What's it about?

Is it biblical? Should we as Christians be excited about it? We've got all of that and a little more today on this episode of Relatable. which is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use promo code Alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code Alley. Hey guys, welcome to relatable.

Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and that you enjoyed watching the Super Bowl if you watched the Super Bowl. You guys probably know I'm not that much of a sports fan. I watch it because my husband watches it. And so, you know, I try to be a supportive wife. but also those of you who are in my same stage of life, like the Super Bowl was in toddler dinner time and bedtime, you know, that segment of the day.

And so I didn't really have very much time to actually sit down and watch it. I actually wanted to look at and analyze all the ads. And I was really only able to watch like the past few minutes and some of the, or the last few minutes and some of the ads that I wanted to watch. But I did catch some clips. I caught some clips on social media of things like the National Anthem and things like that. And so before we get into all the He Kitsis stuff, we're going to play some of those moments. I was going for the Chiefs for literally no reason except for yesterday.

I sat next to someone at church who had a Chief's jersey on. And he said that he grew up in Kansas City. And I said, all right, now I have a personal connection to one of the teams. And so I will root for the Chiefs. And so I did. And there you go. They won. And so I guess I can say it was a great weekend for me. My team, the team that I am just a huge, committed fan to, fan of, won the Super Bowl last night. So I'm excited about that. A lot of people were excited about the national anthem that was played by Chris Stapleton before the game. There were actually two anthems played. There were two anthems played. There were two anthems played.

There were two anthems played last night. So I'm going to play you some of Chris Stapletons. But let me say there was also what is considered a black national anthem at the Super Bowl last night. And this song is Lift Every Voice and Sing. So this song was not written as a black national anthem. It's just like a gospel hymn, typically sung in traditionally black churches kind of throughout its history. But it has now been elevated to the point of being. the black national anthem. That's what it's been deemed now. And so apparently we had to have a separate

anthem that was sung before our national anthem. It should just go without saying, I said this on Instagram, that we should not have two anthems for people with one kind of melanin count and people with other kinds of melanin counts. Like there's nothing good or productive or redemptive that comes from that where the United States of America, all of our good, our bad, or ugly. in our history. That's a shared history and that all falls under one flag, one constitution, and one national anthem, one God who created us all equal. And so if we really want unity, like if you really want the reconciliation that social justice people say that they want, like if we really want to come together and see our shared humanity, see that we're all made

in the image of God, you don't have two separate anthems. It's just silly. All it does, is cause bitterness and division and resentment and simply segregates us even more. We were going in a good direction with all of this. And then over the past few years is the academic theories that drive racial division have gone down to the masses and have manifested itself and things like public school curriculum and two separate anthems, things have just gotten a lot worse. Things have gotten a lot worse. And this absolutely doesn't help it.

Now, the lady who sang it, Cheryl Lee Rout, She's an actress. She did a beautiful job. She's beautiful. She has a wonderful voice. So it has nothing to do with her performance. I'm sure. I mean, I saw some of it.

It was lovely. It was great. And all of that. But it's just unnecessary. Not just unnecessary, but completely counterproductive. Okay. So here's a clip of Chris Stapleton singing the national anthem.

And then you'll see the Eagles head coach crying as well as an Eagles player crying, which makes me. cry when I see this. So here it is. Love it. Guys, something about grown tough men crying for love of country. I'm sure it's also just like the surreal moment of realizing that you are in the Super Bowl, which is a big deal and worth crying over. But that was just, that was really sweet. You should go listen to all of Chris Stapleton's rendition, his singing of the national anthem. I think it was really unique and it was really good. Other noteworthy things, the halftime show, Rihanna. I mean, honestly, there's not really that much to comment on there. She was dressed in red. And then you've got

like the marshmallow men who are, or I think women too. You couldn't really tell dancing around her. I thought the dancing was kind of like funny. I don't know why. It just kind of made me giggle a little bit. And she appeared to be pregnant, although everyone was so quick to say on social media that she was pregnant and I was like guys she just had a baby she had a baby last May so I was like this could just be postpartum like you'd be looking like you're five months pregnant for a long time after you have a baby or at least I did and so I was like I'm not so sure that she's pregnant but she did apparently her representative confirmed after that she is in fact pregnant and so she showed her baby bump some people are upset that she apparently like grabbed her crotch and things I didn't

see that I didn't even watch the whole thing I maybe watched like two minutes of it. She played the hits. It always surprises me how much I, how many like mainstream pop songs I know without ever deliberately listening to them. But I was like, yeah, I know all these songs. I mean, some of them came out when I was like in high school and college. And so I probably listened to them back then. But I mean, I guess it was a good performance. She didn't really dance that much, which if you're pregnant, I don't know how far along she is. I don't really blame her. That would be difficult to do. I mean, I guess I thought it was a fine performance. I don't. A lot of people are like up in arms that it was so inappropriate.

I felt like it was at least what I saw was very mild compared to a lot of their performances that we see. So there was that. And then there were some commercials that people like there, apparently according to my research document here, this is not according to my own assessment of these ads since I didn't watch all of them. There weren't very many woke ones. I did see a Disney ad.

where they tried to make it seem like Disney is still this, you know, upstanding family-friendly company. When we know that's not true, I noticed that they didn't include any clips from the Proud Family reboot and the Disney commercial. I wonder why. That's so weird. Like I also didn't see any clips of Disney employees protesting the law in Florida that bans talking about changing your genitalia to kindergarten. through third graders. That's so weird. So weird that they didn't include that. But, okay, so there were a few ads that people were talking about. So my producer included the Sarah McLaughlin ad. And I didn't think it was funny. But she thought it was funny. And I bet a lot of people thought it was funny. So it's

probably just my humor. I just didn't laugh at it. But you might laugh at it. So I'm going to play you 30 seconds of this ad because maybe you'll get a kick out of it. The Bush Guide, Cold and Smooth Survival Skills. Three things are required in the great outdoors. Food. Drink. And shelter. Hello. I'm Sarah McLaughlin. For just dollars a day, you can help helpless animals find shelter. Wrong shelter, Sarah. Also, that's a wolf. Head for the mountains. Okay. I mean, I get it. Sarah McLaughlin, she used to do those commercials and everything, but I just, they don't, like, it didn't really go, together with the Bush

light product. It didn't really just, it didn't make any sense. Okay. Here's a commercial that I saw that I think that everyone in the world had the same reaction. Who sat on the remote? Who did this?

Here's that. Welcome back to Super Bowl 57. So far, Greg, the game going like you expected. Yeah, and so far these teams, they've really seen. LOL. So if you're listening to this, it looks like you're watching. Looks like you're watching the Super Bowl and that it, like, you exited the app that you were watching it on and it went to the Tobe app. And then you started

watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith. When I saw it go to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, like I knew it wasn't something that my husband was doing because I was like, we would never watch that. You would never do that. You wouldn't change from the Super Bowl. And so I figured out that it was a commercial, but I think everyone at the same time had the same reaction. So that's kind of funny. And here's one that I have not, even as I'm saying this, I have not watched this yet, but I heard people talking about it. This is a commercial with Ben Affleck. Welcome to Duncan, a new special. Duncan Run, medium or large coffee, get a donut for an incremental dollar.

Like, how can it be this inexpensive and good? I was going to have to just give you 10 munchkins. You look a little lost. One second, I'm trying to find the bagels. Do I look familiar? Oh. Should I be in it or you want to use the self-portrait? What are you doing here?

I'm asking me if I'm like... Is this what you do when you say you're going to work all day? I got to go, guys. Grab me a glaze. Okay, that was funny. That was cute. So that was Ben Affleck working out of Dunkin' Donuts. And I guess he's from Boston, right?

He donned his Boston accent for the commercial. And he is handing out coffees or he is the cashier giving coffees to people. And at one point, he asked someone, do I look familiar? to honestly look candid and the guy was like, no. And then Jay Lowe, who was now his wife, drives up and then asks, what the heck are you doing? So that was cute. That was funny. All right. That's all we got to for the highlight portion of the podcast. And now we're going to get into the he gets us stuff. Okay. The moment that you've all been waiting for, the thing that you guys have been asking me about, I've already shared some preliminary thoughts. I shared it on Charlie Kirk's

podcast and I shared some a couple weeks ago just saying kind of how I feel about it. And actually, after I did that, the PR company that represents that He Gittsus campaign reached out to me and said, hey, we would love to set up a call with you. And I was excited about that. I was like, all right. I will talk to one of the guys who is a part of He Gitsa, who I guess helps kind of run the show. And I will kind of get some clarity about their heart behind this.

and kind of what they're doing to lead people to Christ. And I thought that that would be a really great setup for me to talk about this, because then I would have kind of a personal interaction to go off of. And I had been waiting to officially talk about it until I had that personal conversation. But unfortunately, they canceled the phone call. And I'm not ascribing to them any malice or anything like that. It was right before the Super Bowl. So I'm sure that they were just busy.

They didn't have time to have the conversation. That's fine. So, but just so you know, there was an effort to, have this, you know, talk to them personally, and unfortunately it fell through. But we've done a lot of research on this. We've been working on this for a long time. So I have a lot to say. I have a lot to say about the He Gets Us campaign that I think that you're going to appreciate. Maybe you won't agree with all of it, but I do think that you're going to appreciate the perspective that we offer. Hey, this is Steve Deist. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues

facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular.

This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. All right. So before we get into the background if he gets us, because that's how I'm going to set this up. I'm going to talk about the background, all of the research, who is that we have, who is behind it,

who is funding it. And then we're going to talk about some of the criticism that it's gotten from the left. We're going to get into all the details of it. And then I'm going to give my analysis and assessment. But before we get into any of it, let me address. First, those who are upset, that I have any disagreements at all with this, that I am at all critical about any aspect of this campaign. Because there are people who are frustrated with those who have any issue with the he gets

us ads. They'll throw out the word Pharisee or legalistic or rules based or whatever. They'll condemn you in some way. They'll lash out and anger at anyone who dare critique this campaign because they'll say things like, why don't you, why don't you want people just hearing and talking about Jesus? Can't we all just get along as Christians? Can't we just be happy that Jesus is being promoted in the Super Bowl? Isn't that just such a big deal? And shouldn't you just applaud that? I've noticed, I've noticed this. It's not just with this campaign, but I have noticed that as soon as a Christian attempts to

exercise any bit of discernment, attempts to distinguish between truth and lies, biblical theology and non-biblical theology, a very loud section of the peanut gallery will angrily accuse those Christians of being Pharisees. It's like they believe Christians aren't supposed to have wisdom. Like we're just supposed to accept any and all doctrines, especially those that come in the name of Christianity. Here's Paul writing to the church in Galatia asking them, telling them to please discern between true and false gospels. He says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the

gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be a cursed. That's Galatians 1,6, through 7. So God takes Christians who do not or cannot discern between the true gospel and a fake gospel to task. It's a really big deal for him. But we've actually got Christians out here today. who will call you a Pharisee or hyper-religious if you attempt to distinguish between the truth and a lie, who refuse to see the difference between the prosperity gospel or the progressive gospel and Jesus' gospel, and who condemn others who do. And you've even got Christians who will get angry at Christians for condemning sin.

Christians are called to be wise. We are called to discern. We are called to distinguish. Jesus in Matthew 1016 says, behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. So be wise as serpents and innocent as duffs. So if you disagree with what I say today in regard to my concerns with the campaign, I respect that. You can explain to me your perspective and I am happy to hear it. I don't claim that my point of view is infallible by any means. There are Christians I respect to see this differently. But I do not respect the silly accusation that thinking critically about public representations of

Jesus is wrong or some form of legalism. I follow Jesus. I'm a Christian. Therefore, I care deeply about how he is being presented to the world as a conservative. I'm not looking to see him represented as a Republican or as an anti-abortion activist or a protester outside of gender clinics, even though I'm confident where his word stands on things like abortion and gender. I am looking to see Jesus represented biblically, truthfully, accurately, period. And there are ads in this campaign that do not do that. And there are also reasons I am praising God for how this campaign has already impacted people. So stick with me. I promise I will get to positivity and celebration about this too, but I do have some concerns. But before we even get into that, I want to talk about

what He Gets Us is. Maybe you don't even know. Maybe you don't even know. You haven't even heard this. You don't know what I'm talking about. Let me explain to you what these He Gets Us ads are. So this is from the He Gets gets us website. He gets us as a diverse group of Jesus followers with a wide variety of faith journeys and lived experiences. Our work represents the input from Christians who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, as well as many others who, though not Christians, share a deep admiration for the man that Jesus was and we are deeply inspired and curious to explore his story. We look at the biography of Jesus through a modern lens to find new relevance and often overlooked moments and themes from is life. If you'd like to join us, you're invited below. You'll find several resources to explore

the story of Jesus for yourself. So, this is an organization that is trying to create modern relevance for Jesus by putting out ads that depict him in modern ways, that depict him in ways that a lot of people today can relate to. The point is he gets us. So there are several different ads that they have. They have ads that say he was a refugee. They have ads that say that he was an influencer. They also say on their website that Jesus was an activist. In fact, the greatest activist that ever lived. So the point of these ads, they say, is to hook people, to make people understand that

Jesus can empathize with you, that Jesus has been there, that Jesus understands what you're going through. And they say that their hope is that these ads will pull people in and then, lead people to Christ. So the He gets us pilot launched November 29th, 2021 in 10 U.S. cities with a multi-million dollar advertising test conducted over two months. And that went into 2022. And so this is millions of millions of dollars poured into this campaign, poured into these advertisements that you've probably seen running on your TV. And they paid $20 million for two ads to run during the Super Bowl last night. Before I play you the ads that ran in the Super Bowl, let me play you

some ads that they have played in the past. Here is one saying that he gets us because Jesus was a refugee. There was a mother and a father who had a son. They lived in a small village and didn't have much money, but they were happy. One day, they heard the head of their country was in soldiers to their town because he thought they were part of an insurrection. The young family decided to flee. They grabbed only what they could carry and ran. They hiked for days, wondering if soldiers might still be following them. They were scared, hungry, and exhausted.

But they were far away from the atrocities taking place. in Bethlehem. That's all Mary and Joseph wanted. A safe place to call home. All right. So at the end there, it says Jesus was a refugee. He gets us, all of us. I will respond to that claim that Jesus was a refugee in the later portion of this.

In my analysis of all of this, there is also a Spanish version of that ad that is not called the refugee ad, but the immigration ad. And so it's interesting how we're kind of making these. political points here. But again, I'll get into all of that in a second. Here is another one, calling Jesus an influencer. There was an influencer who became insanely popular. Everybody started following him. Then one day, he stood up for something he believed in. People got angry. The establishment called him an extremist, said he shouldn't be allowed to share his views. They would stop at nothing to shut him up. So they did what they had to do. they nailed them to a cross.

Hmm. So they say there that Jesus was canceled. He gets us, all of us. And you can see the depictions, actually, that they're putting up as I guess they're trying to say modern versions of Jesus.

This is some kind of so-called racial justice protest where you actually have people like trying to break down windows and are protesting against the police and things like that. And so even though they don't say in this clip that Jesus was in activist. That's obviously what they're trying to portray here. And they do again, say that explicitly on their website. So the ads that played last night in the Super Bowl weren't quite as overtly political as that. In fact, I wonder if that was purposeful that they made them a little bit more seemingly nonpartisan. So let me play you that. The first one is about being childlike. Here's that.

So honestly, that one makes me tear up a little bit because some of those videos. They're like really viral videos from social media that I've seen throughout the years and they just kind of put them together. And at the end, it says Jesus didn't want us to act like adults be childlike. He gets us all of us. Again, interesting, interesting message at the end of that, although I do appreciate the just like the sweet depictions of love between those innocent children. And so I think that's maybe the point that they're trying to make. And here's another one in the same vein about loving your enemies. Maybe I'm blind thinking I can see through this and see what's behind.

Got no way to prove it. So maybe I'm like. Look in the mirror. What do you see? Do you see it clearer? Or are you to see? And what you believe? Because I'm only human.

Okay. So that's the last one that will play. So Jesus loved the people that you. hate at the end of it. And it was just a bunch of people yelling at each other, angry, different sides of the political aisle, different races, different socioeconomic backgrounds and ages. You can tell that that's the point that they were trying to make, that Jesus told us to love our enemies, and Jesus, in fact, has loved our enemies by, I mean, they don't say by dying on the cross, but I'm kind of filling in the blanks there. And so those were the ads that cost tens of millions

of dollars that were playing at the Super Bowl last night. Now, the question is, who is behind these ads. Well, there are a lot of people behind these ads, the $100 million that have gone into this over the past two years. It comes from the Servant Foundation. It's a nonprofit backed by a Christian donor advice fund called the Signatory. The Hobby Lobby CEO, David Green, is outspoken about funding the project. He actually told Glenn Beck that a while back. And there's a lot of evangelical ties to He Gets Us. This is a pretty explicitly evangelical effort to try to, they say, reach people with the Jesus that maybe they haven't seen. And they talk a lot about how our political discourse and our discussions and debates today and even

the church itself has kind of distorted who Jesus is. And so I think that their hope is that if they try to make Jesus relatable and kind of project him on or project our modern narratives onto him, then people will be hooked, they'll be interested. And then you can go to the He Kitsis website and they have a few things that they do. They have a chat feature, which I'll talk about in a little bit. They connect you to a church. Now, as far as we know, there are no doctrinal standards whatsoever that a church has to meet to be a church that an inquisitive person is connected to.

There are also other resources like there are Bible studies that you can be connected to on the U version app. I will say it repeats a lot of the stuff that you just saw. in the ads. Some things I think are good in that. And of course, I want people to read scripture. Some of the things this will talk about in a second. I do not think are just accurate depictions of Jesus and can actually be harmful. So obviously there's a lot of money behind this. There's a lot of effort behind this too. Jason Vanderground. He is the president of Haven, a branding firm that's based in Michigan, is working on the He Kits' campaign. and so they have been kind of helping market this and helping with the PR.

Pinkston was the PR firm that reached out to me, which is a major PR firm that I guess is also representing that he gets his campaign. So this is a very formal, very well-funded evangelical effort to evangelize two non-believers in, I guess, a new and what they would call a relevant way. Now, the North American Mission Board, which is a huge missions organization associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, they were at one point kind of supporters of the Hekits' campaign. But then they stepped back and said, you know what, this effort is a little bit too broad for us. We're not really sure if we agree with all the doctrinal statements. We're not really sure if we can fully support this effort since we don't know kind of what churches people are being connected to here.

And so there are a lot of concerns. There are a lot of concerns as I'm about to outline kind of across the board. Christian conservatives like me who worry that this demonstration of who Jesus is is simply not biblically accurate. But of course, I am hopeful that people come to Christ. And then you've got the left-wing side of this. So the left-wing side of this, because this is an evangelical effort, they also are not super happy about these ads.

All right. So AOC has something to say about this. She says something tells me Jesus would not spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign. Fascism? Is fascism in the room with us right now? Like how do we just conjure up these things out of nowhere? Fascism. What does this have to do with anything?

I guess she's saying like we shouldn't love our enemies or we shouldn't reach across the aisle because the other side of the aisle. they're fascists, they're Nazis. And so, like, Jesus wouldn't want you trying to talk to them. I'm not really sure. I did see some other people saying this. Like, these millions of dollars could have gone to relief. They could have gone to, you know, housing people. They could have gone to satiating hunger and thirst and things like that around the world.

I will just say, you don't have to worry your pretty little head about that. Like, I've got my critiques of this campaign, too. But Christians are out there. Okay? Christians are already spending millions and millions. of dollars and millions and millions of hours, aiding those who need it around the world. Okay, Christians still lead in philanthropic and charitable and rescue efforts around the world.

All right. So if you're worried about that, if you're worried about how Christians are spending their money, like I'm interested to look at your bank account, where are you spending your money? How much charity are you giving? How many hours are you volunteering? Because, like, I will say that the Christians who are backing this. like the Green family are incredibly generous and they're generous elsewhere.

They've got enough cash to be able to help fund something like this and to also offer relief from hunger and things like that, which they do. And a lot of Christians do. So I don't think that's a proper critique of it. I think that this could be a good stewarding of people's money if it is an effective and biblical campaign. So I have my criticisms. I don't think that that's a good criticism.

But that's, of course, how the left always sees money or they see everything as like some kind of zero-sum game. So CNN and Slate are two outlets that I saw call out he gets us for being funded by the Servant Foundation and being funded by the Hobby Lobby co-founder because the Servant Foundation and the Hobby Lobby co-founder because the Servant Foundation and the Hobby Lobby co-founder. founder have also donated millions of dollars to organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, which is a conservative Christian legal group. And this is according to CNN, the ADF has been involved in several legislative pushes to curtail LGBTQ rights and quash non-discrimination legislation in the Supreme Court. That's CNN's wordings. Of course, that is their way of saying, protecting religious freedom and the freedom of speech. A Hobby Lobby has. has famously been at the center of several legal controversies,

including the support of anti-LGBQ legislation in a successful years-long legal fight that eventually led to the Supreme Court allowing companies to deny medical coverage for contraception on the basis of religious beliefs. Yes, of course, a company should not be forced to pay for the birth control or for any kind of ethically questionable, so-called health care, that it doesn't want to and that violates their religious belief. So I'm very thankful to the Green family for fighting that fight. I'm very thankful to Hobby Lobby for choosing to stand their ground on that.

They didn't have to. It would have been a lot easier not to. And yet they did. And CNN is decrying that. And they are also saying that this is an evangelical, an evangelical effort and Christian evangelicalism, or evangelism, they actually say, is closely tied to conservatism in everything. Everyone knows how scary that is. And then also they're mad that the He Gets Us campaign affirms the LaSanne, I guess that's how you pronounce it,

covenant. The 1974 LaSan covenant. It's inspired by Billy Graham. Documents and decisions that have come out of the movement summits have decry the idolatry of disordered sexuality. So basically they're saying, and Slate is also saying this in a recent article, that they have anti-LGBQ ties, and that is why this is problematic. other people just think that this is a waste of money.

And so the left-wing criticism of this is that it's too closely tied to conservatism, even while they are admitting that the ads themselves seem to be progressive. I mean, Slate says this. He Gets Us has insisted that they are not left or right, but the reality is that using fraught terms like canceled and images of Black Lives Matter protests invites viewers to try to map partisan politics onto it. And while it invites the questions, it can't help. spur others. Mainly, is this really the best use of a billion dollars in Christian donations?

Wouldn't the more Jesus-like thing to do with that money be to actually work to reduce problems like poverty and homelessness and institutional failures of the justice system? So that's a really good, I think, summary of the concert or of the progressive critique of this. And then CNN also talks about that it seems progressive and that it depicts Jesus as kind of an advocate for women's rights and a progressive social and racial justice activist. But then, of course, outlines the same concerns that Slate does. So that's kind of going from the left-wing perspective. And then I've got my perspective.

And I've got my issues with it. And then also why I am still hopeful in the midst of it. So now that I've laid this all out there, what it is, how much money is behind it, where the money is coming from, like what the goals are. I've given an accurate and a fair depiction of what it is while also already kind of highlighting some of the words that have been said that I'm concerned with. In summary, I think that there's some good here. I also think that there's some bad. I think good things can come of this. I think that there are very bad things that can come of this. So let's start there. Let's start with my critiques,

and then I can move to some positive things that I see. First, as I mentioned, some ads describe Jesus in a way that is not true. It's not biblical. Jesus was not an activist at all. He wasn't a conservative activist. He wasn't a anti-abortion activist. He wasn't a social justice activist. Jesus, fully God, fully man was a teacher, a healer, a preacher, a minister, a disciple, a friend, a son, a brother. He was not an activist. An activist seeks to change systems, particularly political systems. Jesus did not do that. In fact, when confronted by the Pharisees with a question about how they should participate in the political system, should they continue to pay taxes to Caesar? He pointed to Caesar's depiction on the coin and said, rendered to Caesar what is Caesar's into

God's, what is God. Jesus was also not a feminist. He believed in the equal dignity and worth of men and women as written in Genesis 127. He didn't seek to overturn the patriarchy. In fact, he actively participated in it. He was not a socialist. In fact, we see that repentance for Matthew and Zechias involved returning taxes from people who were overtacks. we also don't see necessarily that he was a capitalist. This campaign claims to add modern relevance to Jesus by inserting him into our stories today. But you see that when we do that, we depict him in ways that just aren't true. We depict the Jesus that is not real. He was not a political revolutionary. He did not seek to take down the Roman Empire. His purpose wasn't as a rebel against Roman rule. His chief aim wasn't even a take down of the Pharisees. He repudiating. He repudiating. the Pharisees not because they were too holy, two religious or cared too much about rules, but actually because they added rules and burdens to scripture that did not exist, and therefore they were lawbreakers. They were unholy. They were irreligious. So Jesus came not to say,

I'm getting rid of all the rules. I'm going to do away with the so-called system, bye-bye religion. Jesus showed us what religion and relationship with God, that it was always, what it was always meant to be. He made holiness and obedience even more. important than the cheap imitation demonstrated by the Pharisees. Matthew 517, do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Jesus doesn't push back against the Pharisees because the Pharisees cared too much about sin. He pushed back against them because they didn't care about sin enough.

He took rule following to a whole other level by making it not just about what you do, but about also what you think and feel. Matthew 528. but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So he took sin to an even deeper, new level. He cared about sin way more than the Pharisees ever did. This was Jesus' concern. Jesus was concerned with people's hearts. He cared about their bodies. Yes, that's why we see him miraculously heal and feed so many, but he really cared about their theology. He did not preach political activism. He preached salvation through him, John 146. He preached that his

kingdom was not of this world, John 1836, he could have led an earthly revolution. He could have thought to take down Rome. He could have led an insurrection. That's actually what he was accused of doing, but he didn't. It was through his preaching of the gospel that he was perceived as a threat, that he was a threat. It was his relentless commitment to the radical truth that there is a higher kingdom, which is ruled by a higher king, namely himself, that was the threat to the Pharisees to Rome. He did not activate against these institutions in the way that an activist does or would. Now, does that mean that we should not care about politics? You know that I don't think that.

Politics mattered because policy matters because people matter. But we can recognize that without saying, we can recognize that without saying that Jesus was an activist. That idea is not supported by scripture, not in the gospels, not in the epistles. Who was Jesus? And what did he come to do? We don't have to guess, but you don't actually get that from many of these ads. John 1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name,

he gave the right to become children of God who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory, as the only son from the father full of grace and truth. Luke 199, for the son of man came to seek and save the lost. Mark 217, and when Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. To what? To faith. faith-filled love, empowered, repentance. Also, not only was Jesus not an activist, but he was also not a refugee. Not in our current political sense. Again, this is the problem with trying to

project our modern socio-political world onto Jesus. The Spanish version of this ad, as they said, was titled Immigration. The Immigration Act. Well, Jesus wasn't an immigrant. He wasn't a refugee in our sense. As a child, he and his family fled from one part of the Roman Empire to another. that would be like going from South Carolina to Missouri and then returned home. Refugees today, our definition of refugees today go from one country to another and by definition they stay. That doesn't describe Jesus and there is no reason to describe Jesus in this way to show people the significance of who he was and is.

GotQuestions.org, which I think is a great resource. I liked this quote from their page about the He Gets Us ads. It says the concern is that he gets us walks on the knife edge of doing exactly what they claim to counter, repurposing Jesus's story to support certain political narratives while playing fast and loose with scripture. Exactly. Jesus also, not only is he not an activist, not only was he not technically a refugee, Jesus also shouldn't be diminished as some influencer. Everyone didn't start following Jesus, as that ad says, and some people didn't just start getting angry when he bucked against the system, as that ad argues. They were angry at his

ministry from the beginning because he claimed to have power from God. So the he gets us ads at times to pick Jesus in a way that is just not true. It's not biblically accurate. They sacrifice truth for relevance. And in so doing, they offer a Jesus that isn't real and a Jesus that is not real cannot save. I understand that it's supposed to be a hook. I get that it's supposed to be the first step of evangelism. Okay. Okay. I get that. But it's not necessary to deceive. That's not an excuse for bad theology or a poor understanding or rendering of history. This is another example to me of Christians thinking they can do a better job of reaching people than God can. Deciding that the truth about who Jesus is just isn't appealing enough. And so dressing him up in a costume, hoping that people

will be attracted to that instead. And then I've got my second issue with the campaign. And this is, I think, the really big one. My second big issue with the campaign, is that it makes central the peripheral, and it makes peripheral the central. It, in my opinion, does more to distract from the gospel than to attract people to Christ. And here's what I mean by that. Yes, Jesus, God who became flesh sympathizes with our weaknesses. Yes, Jesus was tempted as we are today, Hebrews 415, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted.

as we are yet without sin. That is an amazing aspect of God becoming human. He didn't have to, but he did. And so we have a high priest we can relate to in many ways. It is true that Jesus dealt with hunger, pain, rejection, temptation. But that is peripheral to the gospel, not central to it. And I just think if we are going to spend millions of dollars on a brief advertising spot to share Jesus with people, we really need to make sure that the main thing is the main thing. In a compelling and creative way, sure, but not in a way that compromises what the gospel is. The gospel is that you are a sinner and that God is holy. Our sin creates a chasm between us and God.

We are enemies because of it. We need a bridge between us and God. We need a form of reconciliation between us and God. We need to be connected to God. But because God is holy, he can't be connected to sin. so we must be made clean then. Someone must pay for our sins. There must be a sacrifice made on our behalf to do away with our sin so we can be made

holy and presentable to God so we can be reconciled to Him, forgiven by Him, and sons and daughters of Him and spend forever with Him. And that sacrifice, that reconciliation is Jesus. 2 Corinthians 520 through 21, we implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. For our sake, He made Him to be sin, who knows. knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. That is the gospel. Jesus died to pay for our sins so that whosoever would believe in him, as John 316 says, would not perish but have everlasting life so that we could become righteous, new creations.

The 2nd Corinthians 517 tells us freedom from sin, total forgiveness, no matter what you've done, joy, a new identity, hope, purpose. I love this stanza of the hymn, great is thy faithfulness, because I think it sums up what we get in this glorious exchange so well. Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide. Strength for today, bright hope for tomorrow, blessings all mine with 10,000 beside. So we get forgiveness, we get comfort, we get grace, we get God's protection and provision and presence. There are lots of creative ways, I think, to depict that message. Actually, Jesus does it really well in his parables.

Like maybe we should have had ads that depicted like the story of the prodigal son or the lost sheep and maybe even modern versions of them while remaining true to who Jesus really was. I don't know. I just think that the Bible, I think Jesus already does a really good job of making the gospel relevant. That Jesus, like the real Jesus, the one who says, I am the way, the truth in the life and no one comes to the Father except through me. That's the Jesus the world needs to see. That's the Jesus the world hates. We can blame the church all we want for wrongly representing him. Some of that is certainly true.

But at the end of the day, the world hates that Jesus because they always have. Jesus, we read. And John 1, full of grace and truth. Stephen, we read in Acts, was full of grace and power. They were both examples in kindness and in love. Jesus is a perfect example, Stephen, an imperfect, but a great one. Yet what was their fate for both of them, these people that we are told were full of grace? We're examples in kindness, in love and gentleness.

Jesus was crucified. Stephen was stone to death. That he gets his campaign on their website seems befuddled as to how Jesus got a bad rap when he did so much good. Did we forget that Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago? He was spat upon by people who fully knew who he was and what he did. Did we forget that the crowd in his day, a crowd that had no doubt seen or heard of his restorative, his restoring the sight to the blind and feeding the hungry, he chose to execute him and free the criminal Barabbas instead?

Did we forget that his own friend, who'd watched his ministry and received his love, handed him over for 30 pieces of silver? These things did not happen because Jesus didn't have a good PR firm representing him. This happened to fulfill the ancient prophecies and because the world has always hated God. Romans 1 explains this very clearly. So let's not dilute ourselves into thinking that if Jesus had better marketing,

everyone would accept him. I'm not saying all marketing campaigns are bad. I'm not saying that PR is bad. But it's not that Jesus has a PR problem that people aren't accepting him. It's that the world has always hated Christ. The Jesus said that he gets us campaign shows us. in an attempt to do PR for Jesus, to rebrand Jesus, to market him better than they believe the church has for thousands of years. This Jesus that they show to us, Jesus, the man, Jesus who can relate to you, Jesus who is just like you, but maybe a little better.

Jesus, the guy who only ever talked about love. That is the Jesus the world already believes in. that's the Jesus that the world is already presenting to you and begging you to follow. Jesus the empath, who gets it and just wants you to feel good about yourself. Everyone already has faith in that Jesus. Loves that Jesus. The Jesus that makes things about you. These ads basically reaffirm that Jesus is exactly what the secular world has long been saying Jesus is.

And it's also a tacit apology for how Christians have made him into something else. So to summarize, Jesus is not you. He's not me. I don't look to Jesus to see my story reflected in him. He had similar experiences to some of us and we should be grateful for that. That is comforting, but it is not our right or our responsibility to project modern narratives onto him that distort who he really is and the message he brings. We are beneficiaries of the gospel, but we are not the point of the gospel. The point of the gospel is God, His glory. That's where the liberation is, that it's not about us anymore. Like, isn't that good news?

Everything, everywhere, especially since the dawn of social media has been screaming to us, it's about you. In fact, here's your About You section of your page. What Disney Princess are you? What's your Enneagram number? What's your truth? What are your pronouns? What pictures best represent the life you want to show people?

Let us curate a timeline in an explorer section that perfectly matches your interests, self-love, self-care, self-help, self-empowerment, me, me, me, my story, my feelings, my lived experience, my identity, my wants, my needs, self, self, self, I'm enough, I'm perfect the way I am, I'm the source of my own happiness and truth, fulfillment. This is constant. It's everywhere, every advertisement, every form of encouragement, inspiration makes it about us. Every secular source all day, every day. Here's a new. Here's a new. another way you can think more about you. Guess what? We don't need any more messages sintering on ourselves. It's exhausting. It's actually weighing us down with a burden we can't carry.

Praise God. The gospel frees us from this self-obsession. Praise God for Luke 923, where Jesus says, and he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Praise God for Galatians 220. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Praise God for Philippians 3-8. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them all as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. John 3.30, he must increase. I must decrease. So these are my two big things. My two big things are that some of the ads get Jesus just straight up wrong. I think overall they distract from the gospel. And they deliver us something that's worldly rather than biblical.

There are plenty of other things that I could say, but I will leave it at that. Now, let me talk about the more positive side of this. You got a more positive side to say, all right? because I know what some of you are thinking. Okay, but all of that is too much to put in a 30 second ad. This is relatable stuff. It's a hook. And these people get interested.

They'll look into it. They'll be connected to a church where they will hear the true gospel. So like a lot of that is valid. And I'm just going to affirm that in just a second. Let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day. We'll be done with ads. And then I'll tell you about my positive perspective on this. So, okay.

So addressing that argument. I mean, I do have some push back to that. The Bible study plans that the site connects to repeat some of the same problems that I just outlined that we just talked about. And there is no doctrinal standard, as I already said, that the churches must meet to be a part of the He Kitsis Network. So who knows if they're preaching the prosperity gospel, the workspace gospel, the, there's no such thing as sin gospel at some of these churches. All of that said, though, I do take your point and think that there is some. something to it, that maybe this could peak someone's interest and they be connected to a church whereas earlier or earlier they weren't interested and they weren't interested in other types

of evangelism and this worked for them. Because here's the thing. God can and does use imperfect and even straight up wrong things to lead people in himself. It is in spite of error, not because of it that God may use campaigns, people, books, whatever, as vessels to lead people to the gospel. When I was in high school, I consumed all kinds of stuff trying to learn more about Christianity, junior and senior year when I really got interested in this. I read Blue Like Jazz. I read Rob Bell. I read The Shack.

I listened to Stephen Ferdick, watched Joel Osteen. And then I also read C.S. Lewis and John Piper and Tim Keller and David Platt. It was a wide range. I probably would have been the person at that point. if someone had told me, hey, the shack is no good or like, you can maybe do better than Blue-like Jazz. I probably would have been the person to say that they were being Phariseical, but that's just because I didn't have discernment yet.

The shack is not an accurate depiction of God. Rob Bell is now a straight-up heretic, blue-like jazz, questionable theology. Ferdic and Osteen, Prosperity, Gospel. And yet, I believe that God used these books and these people to lead me to the next books and people. those things kind of piqued my interest in learning about God. It wasn't just them. It wasn't like just the heretical stuff.

But it was easy to read and it was interesting. And so God, in spite, not because of, but in spite, I think of the error and some of the false teaching that was being consumed, he moved me along to better teaching and truer things. Now that is not me advocating for or defending false teaching or saying, you know, there's a time and a place for a false gospel. I'm not saying that. I am saying that God is sovereign. I am saying that I believe that he can use things,

even misrepresentations, to draw people to himself, to pull people deeper into his word and what is true. That is not because the messages are always good, but that's because he is good. And I think that is absolutely possible and even probable here. Not every ad that the He Gets his campaign shows is bad or wrong. Jesus did tell us to love our enemies. We are to have childlike faith. He did advocate on behalf of

the weak and the poor that something another ad says. I think God can and I pray that he will use these ads in spite of what I believe are some wrong representations of him to glorify himself and draw people to him. I saw this tweet from a former guest on the show. Her name is Melissa Chen and she said, it's so weird, I say this as an atheist, that the best Super Bowl ad was the Jesus one. Was it just a another ad with scathing political commentary for some product trying to cash in on the zeitgeist? No, it wasn't so black and white. It was raw, edgy, poignant, then boom, Jesus. That's coming from an atheist. Honestly, that reaction makes me so happy. I love that. I am so excited by that. Like, so even though I'm not the biggest supporter of this campaign, like, if that is success, like, I want it to succeed in that way.

one of you also messaged me saying that you have a friend who is part of the chat function on the site and she's answering questions to or she's answering the questions that come in from people and you said that she has been able to share the gospel with multiple people who are interested another one of you messaged me saying that your neighbor who is not a believer texted you last night about the ads and wanted to talk to you about them that's amazing I used the chat function on the site last night just to see what the responses would be just for a couple minutes because I didn't want to take this guy's time who could be talking to someone sincerely curious about who Jesus is. But he answered my questions.

And even though it was a little slow and I wasn't sure where he was going to go, he ultimately shared the gospel with me. He said this when I asked just, what is salvation? And he said, you receive salvation by confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that he rose from the dead through baptism, you signified the death of your old life and becoming renewed through faith in Christ. I mean, that's straight gospel. That's Romans 10-9, almost verbatim. And you know what? The word of God does not return void. Isaiah 5511. It will accomplish its purpose. It will bear fruit. Praise God. I pray that there are a million

more stories like this. Now, we don't get much Bible at all from these ads. But I did get it when I chatted with one of their volunteers, and I praise God for that. I pray people get the gospel, get the Bible when they get connected to a church, and I will praise God for that. Philippians 118, only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that, I rejoice. So while I disagree with a lot of this messaging, I will be praying and I hope you will join me that God would use this campaign powerfully. If 10 people come to know Christ and start attending a gospel preaching church, that's worth all of the millions of dollars in the world. heck, when one sinner repents, the angels in heaven rejoice.

That's what Luke 1510 says. So I pray that souls are saved. Hearts are changed. Lives and families and communities are transformed. I hope this campaign is wildly successful in that sense. If they come out with numbers and say, here's how many people heard the true biblical gospel through our chat function. I will be rejoicing right along with them.

Some of you who are going to gospel preaching churches have told me that your church is connecting with this campaign, with the he gets this campaign because you want people to go to your church because they want people to actually hear the gospel. So I can't speak for all the churches involved, but I'm glad that there are Bible teaching churches who will reach these people who are interested in the gospel. I think most of the people funding this, like the Green family, are good intentioned people who love Christ, I think they genuinely want to see people following Jesus and changed by him, that's my desire too. And look, I get messages from people, probably people who love all of these

ads who tell me, you know, you're not leading anyone to Christ, your political views get in the way, your tone is off, whatever. And they can think that. But the truth is, by the grace of God, by the grace of God, I receive multiple messages every month from people who tell me that they've come to Christ after reading my book or listening to my show or they've gone to church for the first time or the first time in a long time. And I don't say that to pat myself on the back at all because Lord knows how unbelievably imperfect and unworthy I am. But I say it to use myself as an example of how God uses people and campaigns, even ones we don't like and adamantly disagree with and whose methods we disdain to share truth and to bring people to himself. And let me emphasize

again, I am not saying it is okay for any of us to depict Jesus in a way that is not biblically accurate. as I think some of these ads do. I am not saying the ends justify the means. I am still against the idea that we need to project modernity onto Jesus to make him relevant. I think the same gospel that was relevant then is just as relevant now in our attempts to make Jesus like us actually diminishes what makes him distinct and therefore obscures the gospel message. However, I am saying that God is sovereign and that God can use this and I think is using this to rescue people. And I can't not rejoice in God authored salvation. However it comes. So we can dislike these ads, but let's pray. Like, let's pray that every person whose curiosity was struck by these ads

and reaches out to someone because of it hears the gospel and believes. That's my prayer. So I hope that you can join me in that prayer and in that hope. I understand there's going to be people on both sides who disagree with me on this and that's fine. I'm giving you honesty, my honest full perspective on it. And I know a lot of you are going to be able to relate to it. I also hope it equips you in conversations with people who say, well, I don't understand, you know, what's wrong with this? What's the issue? Why are you trying to practice discern it here at all? I hope it can give you some talking points for lack of a better term in your conversations with them because we can even use our arguments about this to lead people to the true Jesus

and lead people to the self-denying, self-crucifying gospel that is in scripture. All right. We've got a ton to talk about this week. With the flying things, I mean, should we talk about the theology of aliens? We kind of did a little bit with previous guests. You can go back and listen to that. But also, like, what the heck is our government doing? What is going on in Ohio?

we're going to talk about that stuff. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to get to it. I'll keep you updated. Thanks so much for listening and we'll be back here soon. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity,

and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. we ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts.

I hope you'll join us.