A Grand Haven company behind the ‘He Gets Us’ ad campaign is spending millions of dollars on two ads that will air during the Super Bowl.
Haven previewed the ads at an event Wednesday night in Grand Rapids.
According to the campaign’s website, ‘He Gets Us’ is a movement to “reintroduce people to the Jesus of the Bible.”
Organizers say they want to unify the American people around Jesus and his teachings.
You may have already seen some of their ads that have run during national sporting events, promoting messages like “Jesus was wrongly judged” and “Jesus welcomed all to the table.”
“When you think about being in front of 115 million people — it’s like you’re here tonight, we’re talking because of the Super Bowl — and so all of our audiences are so excited about knowing that Jesus is going to be in the Super Bowl, it creates so much energy,” Jason Vanderground, the president of Haven, said. “The Super Bowl is literally a kickoff thing for people. It’s not like you’re reaching the finish line and going, ‘We’re in the Super Bowl, that’s it, great, let’s pack up and go home.’ It’s the start of something and that’s what we want people to know about.”
It’s unclear exactly how much the group spent on the ad buy, but estimates show a 30 second ad spot went for $7 million this year.
Building off what @axont is saying... if you're not familiar with Evangelical Christianity (the dominant form of Protestantism in the US), basically they take two different approaches to proselytizing.
Tell it like it is. Be open about what they think it means to be a Christian. This means you tell folks they are wretched sinners in the hands of an angry God. If you do not repent of your sins - and being gay or trans is definitely a sin - then you will spend an eternity in a state of conscious torment in hell. The people and churches who do this are truly horrible people, but they are honest about what they believe.
The "seeker sensitive" approach. This means minimizing and misdirecting anything that appears unpalatable to non-believers. Sometimes you gotta really know what to look out for and what weasel words they use. They will say LGBTQ folks are welcome in their church and they want them to come and "experience Jesus" or some shit. Sounds accepting right? Nope! What they really mean is they will allow someone like that to enter the church... but then they will hear a message (eventually) that God thinks being gay is a sin, and you have to not be that if you want to be saved. Or ask these people if non-Christian people go to hell. They'll just spout weasel words like "we don't know what happens to those who do not accept Christ". What they mean is, we don't know the specific details of what hell is like. Maybe it's more psychological torture than physical. The point is, they absolutely believe there is a "bad place" and you're going there, they just couch it in wording that makes it more ambiguous sounding than it is.
So this campaign leans hard into approach #2. They are targeting vulnerable, non-religious young people who may be going through some shit and in desperation, reach out to this campaign. They will get told all sorts of things that sound nice superficially but hide true beliefs and intentions. The idea is to get people into churches and slow boil them in Christian doctrine.
Just wonderful people Evangelicals are...
Evangelicals are simply disturbing to me in a way I can't put into words. They're obsessed with trying to overthrow all secular culture. Like the evangelicals I went to high school with would wear a t-shirt with the Tide detergent logo except it would say "Jesus: Tough on Sin." They have their own secluded culture, movies, books, diets, and it's all presented with the idea they're separate and superior to the non-believing masses, who are all festering in insidious sin.
They have a warped perception of how many people are non-believers too. My high school classmates all thought Christianity was a small religion worldwide and was under constant threat of being forgotten. Even though we lived in America and every single president has been a Christian and the only religious buildings in my hometown were the 40 different evangelical churches for the sub 1000 population.
They're disturbing because consider their two main premises: 1) All of mankind is a vile, unlovable mass of sinning monsters who don't deserve to be saved, yet we're being granted mercy anyway by a domineering and vengeful god if we beg enough and 2) Christianity is on the verge of extinction, which will plunge all of humanity into eternal doom. You'd think with those two things at the forefront of their minds they'd have better art and music, like you'd think it would be really grim and introspective, but everything they create is dogshit. Their hymns are all sappy and smiley, their movies are cloyingly sweet, the way they talk too is they're simply pleased with themselves and happy to be alive. At least the Catholics have made some cool buildings and some of their organ music is pretty fire.
I once had an evangelical pastor tell me that if you have family who dies without becoming a Christian, they go to hell forever, but you won't miss them in Heaven or regret it because there's no pain in heaven and also you'll have a fuller understanding of justice. You'll simply agree they need to burn forever once you get to heaven, and he added "even if it's your spouse." And he explained all of this with a gentle soft voice, a smile, and the deadest doll-like eyes I've ever seen on a human.
I'd wear that t-shirt ngl
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