Have You Seen These "He Gets Us" Commercials?
Did you watch the Super Bowl? Did you see the two commercials promoting Jesus with the theme of “He Gets Us”?
In the latest episode of Raising the Standard, I had back on the podcast our theologian and friend Austin Kruetz, president of the Bonhoeffer Forum to give us his take on the “He Gets Us” Campaign.
We had him on the show recently for our episode What Is A Man, and I reached out and invited him specifically again for this purpose because the He Gets Us commercials have everyone talking on both sides, whether you're for them or against them. Whether you’re on the Left or Right, you’re a staunch Atheist or you're a firm believer, evangelical, whatever stream of Christianity you come from, everyone's got a perspective on this!
If you didn’t see them or your internet hasn’t been working for the last week or two, the He Gets Us commercials were put on by a nonprofit called The Servant Foundation, and they’re seeking to put Jesus in a different light for potential new followers of Jesus in groups that feel excluded and repelled by the religious community.
They spent over a hundred million on this campaign, consisting of 2 commercials totalling about 90 seconds, looking to evangelize non-believers in a relevant way.
In other words, it's not for Christians, but non-believers, or what they call “the movable middle”.
Because Christians have “misrepresented Jesus” the He Gets Us campaign is aimed at groups that feel excluded and repelled by the religious community.
So in my discussion with Austin, I asked him a few questions and we discussed at length how the Gospel's an offensive message at its default, while other Christians have been unnecessarily offensive with their representation of Jesus.
Is it a worthy objective to run a campaign like this to try and reach people and “rebrand” Jesus?
According to Austin, it’s an honorable attempt to bring an introduction to the Gospel, but the first question is, which gospel? And the second question is not only which gospel, but where do you go from here?
We have a lot of easy-believism in our culture and Christian culture, evangelical circles, so the problem with these commercials is how it articulates and what is it actually trying to say?
If I was a non-believer and I looked at it, it would be like, "yeah, that's cool. I'm OK".
So, that's the problem with it: we do not have in our evangelism the actual cost of discipleship and lordship. We have many concepts and ideas that will supposedly fulfill our emotions and maybe a little bit of our guilt, but there's more to the call to become a Christian than just that.
The Gospel is offensive
Sin is offensive, but you can't candy coat the matter either. Either you're going to present what's truly in the Scripture or you're not. To try to rebrand a 2000 year old brand is a little facetious, but what's going on here as we're looking at these things, they're appealing to saying “you are OK the way you are ''.
There's a variety of different churches that have a variety of different reactions to homosexuality. LGBTQ, transgender, etc… In our own church, we welcome anybody but on the other hand, we're not going to compromise the truth. Some denominations and fellowships take the approach that sin is sin and we don’t want you coming here and contaminating us.
Are you protecting the four walls of the church or are you supposedly going out and making disciples?
Each individual has the opportunity of accepting or rejecting the message of Christ. Our responsibility is to preach the truth in love. So we have an obligation to be loving, to be open, to be accepting, but we also have the obligation of not compromising truth, and that opens up a whole can of worms in today’s circles.
There’s a well known tale of how Gandhi walked into a Christian Church and he was judged at the door. They wouldn't even let him in, and they told him he had to change his outward and external appearance and wear proper clothes to even be let into the building.
Imagine how history could have been changed and things played out differently if they had let him in and was shown an example of love. Instead, some religious folks judged him and he basically walked away.
Check out the latest episode of Raising the Standard or click on the video below and hear the rest of the conversation where we covered a lot more.
Upgrade Your Environment with Other Men Who Get You
Perhaps as you listen to the latest episode of the podcast it dawns on you that you're going hard after Jesus, but don't feel most churches are a place for you as a man of God? You and Jesus are tight, but need you could use some help accessing your unfair advantage in all areas of life?
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