He Gets Us—the Christian marketing effort to rebrand Jesus as a Cool Dude™️—returned to the Super Bowl this year with another pair of ads straight from the Uncanny Valley. If you get the sneaking suspicion that the people behind these seemingly inclusive ads aren’t exactly practicing what they preach, congrats, and welcome to the SVU, detective.
Hey kids, let me tell you about this cool dude named Jesus. He’s gotten a bit of a bad rap these days, but back in his time, old J-man was fighting the establishment and bringing folks together by doing radical shit like feeding hungry people and washing feet—is definitely the vibe of the latest ad from the He Gets Us campaign, which is ostensibly reclaiming Jesus’ image from the naughty, bigoted Christians and giving it back to the Good Christians whose hearts aren’t full of hate. At least that’s the narrative being pushed by Come Near, the nonprofit organization behind He Gets Us and this year’s pair of Super Bowl ads, including one about Jesus’ predilection for feet (which immediately inspired a wave of jokes on social media, of course):
The ad features several still images of people from different social, racial, and religious identities seemingly overcoming their differences as one washes the bare feet of another: A preppy high school girl washes the feet of a skater punk, a cop washes a Black man’s feet in an alley, a cowboy washes an Indigenous man’s feet in the desert, and—the money shot—an anti-abortion protester outside a “Family Planning Clinic” washes the feet of a young pregnant woman. The clinic is definitely meant to represent the “crisis pregnancy centers” run by evangelical conservatives who use the centers to lure in pregnant people and convince them that abortion is not an option.
That shot in particular is especially rich considering where He Gets Us gets its funding.
What is He Gets Us and who is behind it?
When He Gets Us bought two Super Bowl ad spots for the 2023 game, it didn’t take long for reporters to figure out who was behind the marketing effort, which describes itself as “a diverse group of Jesus followers with a wide variety of faith journeys and lived experiences.” The official website claims that He Gets Us is not “affiliated with any single individual, political position, church, or faith denomination,” which might be only slightly truer this year than it was in 2023. In any case, He Gets Us definitely doesn’t want you to associate its marketing with any specific donors.
He Gets Us began in 2022 as a subsidiary of the Servant Foundation, a.k.a. the Signatry, a conservative religious group that has donated tens of millions of dollars to the Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an anti-LGBTQ hate group. Through the ADF, the Servant Foundation has invested millions to support anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion legislation and has fought against legislation that would prohibit discrimination.
Hobby Lobby co-founder and billionaire David Green previously revealed himself as a major donor to the Servant Foundation and He Gets Us. The Green family and their business are notably conservative: Hobby Lobby spent 11 years (a psychotic amount of time) embroiled in a lawsuit to prevent a trans woman who worked at the company from using the women’s bathroom, and infamously fought the Affordable Care Act mandate to provide contraception coverage to employees; the Supreme Court ultimately sided with Hobby Lobby, allowing companies to opt out of contraceptive coverage based on religious beliefs. In addition to their support of the ADF, the Green family supports the National Christian Foundation, which also funds the ADF.
As of 2024, He Gets Us is run by Come Near, a new North Carolina-based nonprofit. In a detailed report on the Jesus marketing campaign and the people behind it, Rolling Stone found that the Green family is still involved with He Gets Us:
New corporate documents show Mart Green is on the three-man board of directors at Come Near, a North Carolina nonprofit that recently took over the He Gets Us campaign, in place of the Servant Foundation. The other board members are Bob Hoskins and Marwan Rifka, who are both executives at OneHope, an evangelical ministry focused on sharing gospel messages with children around the world; David Green says his family has supported OneHope for 25 years. (Come Near’s CEO, Ken Calwell, was previously the chief marketing officer at the Christian charity Compassion International.)
Before joining Come Near, whose CEO previously worked for Wendy’s and Domino’s, Mart Green sat on the board of the Illuminations Foundation and oversaw the donation of $23 million to the NCF. In the lead-up to the Super Bowl, He Gets Us hosted an event called “Hey Neighbor” in Las Vegas, where volunteers reportedly handed out 35,000 pounds of free groceries to locals. The Salvation Army (which has its own history of discriminating against the LGBTQ+ community) and Wahlburgers (the Wahlberg family’s fast food business) served free lunch.
All of which is to say: He Gets Us can claim to be inclusive and support the LGBTQ+ community all it wants, but money talks. And this money comes from bigots with extremely hateful views.
In its 2023 coverage of He Gets Us, CNN spoke with pastor and bible scholar Dr. Kevin M. Young, who pointed out the most obvious problem with this costly marketing campaign:
“Young people are digital natives who understand the difference between slick marketing and authenticity,” he says. “Megachurches, mega-events, and 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.”
According to He Gets Us, the answer to What Would Jesus Do? is “find a stranger who doesn’t agree with you and wash their feet.” All world problems: magically solved! But it seems more likely that Jesus would take the $17.5 million that the group spent on two Super Bowl ad spots and give it to people who actually need it.
(featured image: He Gets Us / screenshot)
