A Super Bowl ad from a faith-based organization is sparking debate among Christian conservatives, who have expressed concern that its message of unity could be misconstrued as justification for engaging in certain sins and that it fails to communicate a biblically accurate account of Jesus. .
THE “He understands us“, which describes itself as an effort to remind people of “the example Jesus set while inviting everyone to explore his teachings so that we can all follow his example of puzzling and unconditional love”, was broadcast in a 60-second commercial during Super Bowl LVIII. Sunday.
THE announcementtitled “Foot Washing”, featured photographs of people washing another person’s feet in various situations.
One image depicted in the ad showed an older woman washing the feet of a younger woman outside a facility labeled as a “planned family clinic.” In the background, protesters on both sides of the abortion debate held signs reflecting the different positions on the hot-button issue.
Additional images in the ad showed people washing the feet of people with clearly divergent ideologies and/or social statuses. Two of the photos depicted protests against police brutality and in support of environmentalism. It ended with an on-screen message declaring: “Jesus did not teach hatred. He washed feet. He understands us. All of us.”
Andrew Walker, professor of ethics and public theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and also a member of the Ethics & Public Policy Center, said: X Monday to raise concerns about the implications of the ad.
“He Gets Us framed evangelism with a left-leaning tinge, communicating the respectability of certain sins over others in our culture (although I’m not sure the ad even communicated that respectable sins were sins at all),” he wrote.
“It’s curious that Jesus never showed up to wash feet at a (Make America Great Again) rally, at a porn store in an Alabama truck stop, in front of scruffy, drug-addled factory workers in the Ohio, or at a white nationalist militia meeting in Michigan,’” Walker added. “If Jesus is truly for all sinners, we should also want right-wing racists to convert, right? How would we react if Jesus washed someone’s feet in front of the Capitol on January 6?”
Suggesting that the video showed bias in selecting which situations to identify as foot-washing opportunities, Walker noted that in the ad, “the socially elevated sins of the left are the ones that Christians are told to evangelize about.” , and not the sins of low status.” of the deplorable right because, it seems, they are the ones who are truly beyond the reach of redemption. »
He argued that “the conditioning effect of these ads in defining and reaffirming the social castes of American sin” is “really something.”
“The truth is that Jesus redeems sinners of the right and the left, whether of high or low status. Everyone is equal in their need for Christ (Rom. 3:23). This could have been communicated, but that was not the case,” he concluded.
Pro-life advocate Ryan Bomberger responded to the ad in a Message Sunday. He responded to the premise that “Jesus did not teach hatred” by proclaiming “Yes. And no “. Affirming that Jesus “taught us to love one another as he loved us,” Bomberger emphasized that “his word also teaches us to “love what is good and hate what is evil.” The pro-life activist identified another important lesson: “disagreement and truth ≠ hate.”
Allie Beth Stuckey, conservative commentator and host of the “Relatable” podcast, responded to the argument that Christians should “just be happy that the name of Jesus reaches millions of people” in a statement. Message Sunday.
“If this isn’t the biblical Jesus, then no. If you have the money and opportunity to buy ad space for the Super Bowl, share the gospel,” she wrote. “Don’t waste your money on ambiguous gibberish that portrays Jesus as us rather than portraying Him as the King and Savior that He is.”
Podcaster Michael Knowles took X Sunday and wondered if he was “the only conservative who didn’t totally hate the ‘He Gets Us’ ad.”
While acknowledging critics’ concerns that it “speaks ‘woke-ese,'” it’s not for us; even considering Our Lord, I am not totally opposed.
“Your green-haired lesbian cousin who hates her father won’t read the Summa Theologiae series that you didn’t buy for her,” he predicted. “But if she begins to feel even a slight affection for Our Lord, she *might* turn on a podcast. Maybe that podcast could be Father Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a year. Advertising wouldn’t not my first choice for evangelism. But Our Lord has used far worse things for good.”
“He Gets Us” expanded on the commercial’s intended message in a statement published on its website.
“We recalled the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and realized that it was the perfect example of how we should treat each other, even people we are not familiar with. “agreement”, we can read in the press release. “Jesus had washed the feet of Peter, a faithful friend who would publicly deny knowing Jesus later that same night. And more astonishingly, Jesus washed the feet of Judas Iscariot, the one who would betray him for 30 pieces of silver. “
Noting that Jesus washed the feet of his 12 disciples at the Last Supper as “a symbol for all his disciples to see how they should treat one another,” the “He Gets Us” campaign states that “washing the feet required humility on the part of Jesus. of both parties: the one who wants to wash the other’s feet and the one who wants his feet washed. » The group called the washing of feet “an act of mutual admiration” that allowed Jesus to eliminate “all notions of rank or caste among his disciples.”
“We began to imagine a world in which ideological others were willing to put their differences aside and wash each other’s feet. What would that look like? How would our contentious world change if we washed each other’s feet? each other’s feet, not literally but figuratively? It can be as simple as paying a colleague a compliment or paying for a stranger’s lunch. It can also be as difficult as not responding to someone who criticizes you or reaching out to an estranged family member.
Insisting that “acts of kindness done out of humility and respect towards another person could be considered the equivalent of washing feet,” the “He Gets Us” campaign expressed the hope that “our last advertisements will stimulate both societal debate and individual self-reflection on ‘who is my neighbor?’ and how each of us can love our neighbor even though we have differences and serve one another with more kindness and respect.
Ryan Foley is a journalist at the Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
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