Have you seen the He Gets Us TV ads and video clips? Funded and produced by The Signatry, the $100,000,000 He Gets Us campaign is meant to globally reach skeptics and unbelievers with the message of Jesus.
Ministry Watch had this to say about The Signatry and their He Gets Us campaign:
A $100 million media campaign is attempting to attract people who are skeptical about Christianity but may relate to Jesus by highlighting his upbringing as a homeless, bullied son of a teenage mother.
The “He Gets Us” campaign, which launched in mid-March, is an initiative of The Signatry, a Christian foundation based in Kansas that is channeling more than $100 million in funding from what it describes as “like-minded families who desire to see the Jesus of the Bible represented in today’s culture with the same relevance and impact He had 2000 years ago.”
The Signatry has bought time for its advertisements on broadcasts of the NCAA’s popular March Madness basketball tournament as part of a blitz on TV, radio, billboard and social media.
Jason Vanderground, president of Haven, a creative hub based in Michigan that is working with The Signatry on the project, said the initiative is based on broad research.
“We talked to thousands of people who, while of course they have heard of Jesus, they don’t know the full extent of His ministry,” he said in a statement to Religion News Service. “We see a light go on for them when they begin to recognize that Jesus was fully human — and that carries them forward in being able to take in and understand that He was fully God, too.”
In a 15-second spot called “Anxiety,” black-and-white photos show people in despair, hands to their heads, before the words “Jesus suffered anxiety, too” appear on the screen. On YouTube, viewers are told in the video’s memo field: “Yet, despite this total failure to quell his anxiety, Jesus found the strength to face his accusers and submit to them willingly and without violence — knowing that his death would only further spread his message of radical love.”
The campaign’s website, offering alternatives to an “increasingly divisive and mean-spirited world,” gives visitors the option to chat online, to text to ask for a volunteer to “pray encouragement for you” or access a seven-day Bible reading plan. Gloo, the Colorado-based technology partner for the campaign, is training the volunteers who connect with those seeking to chat or receive prayer.
The Signatry, also known as Servant Foundation, defines itself as existing “to inspire and facilitate revolutionary, biblical generosity.” It reported gross receipts of more than $658 million on a 2020 tax form. In 2018, it reported having more than $1 billion in contributions.
Partners who have joined the initiative include the Luis Palau Association, the National Association of Evangelicals and Christianity Today magazine.
I have seen numerous He Gets Us advertisements. The objective appears to be to present the humanity of Jesus in a non-threatening way. In doing so, they seem to ignore the obvious theological contradictions in their approach. Take the ad that states “Jesus suffered anxiety, too.”
Did Jesus really experience anxiety? One could make the case from Jesus’ travail in the Garden of Gethsemane over his impending crucifixion that he experienced anxiety. That’s assuming, of course, the Gethsemane events even happened.
Elsewhere in the Bible, particularly in the writings of Paul, Christians are commanded to not be anxious; that “worry” is a sin that reflects a lack of trust and dependence in God. Thus, if Jesus was anxious (worrying) over his impending death, doesn’t that mean he was sinning? Shouldn’t Jesus have put his complete, absolute trust and dependence in his Father and his perfect sovereign will? The Bible says that Jesus was a lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. This means Jesus, who is God, knew exactly what would happen at his crucifixion. He knew the exact date, time, and place these events would take place. Why would Jesus be anxious over things he had known for thousands of years would happen at an appointed date, time, and place?
Now, if Jesus were fully human, and not divine, then, yes, I can understand why he might be anxious. But, as the God-Man? If the writings of the Apostle Paul are true, then Jesus sinned against God (himself — weird, right?) if he had any anxiety whatsoever over his impending death. (Please see I Wish Christians Would be Honest About Jesus’ Three Day Weekend.)
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Honestly, the contradictions between Jesus-As-Human (as he is frequently represented in the Bible) an Jesus-As-Part-Of-God (as the Trinitarian approach to Christian theology demands) was a big part of the things that I couldn’t reconcile — the things that Made No Sense — which led to me walking away from Christianity. Jesus as a Theseus-level demigod makes a lot more sense if you’re trying to reconcile those things, but every mainstream brand of Christian theology that I’ve ever run across insists that such cannot be the case.
I agree. The whole idea of a man who is also one of the three persons of God–a God who is only one– makes no sense. The idea is so odd, it is never even clearly expressed in scripture.
I think that, most likely, Jesus was conceived by men like Paul as simply a heavenly demi-god, not as an earthly person. Mark wrote the fiction of this demi-god living on earth as a man who was clearly subordinate to God. Somehow Mark’s fiction got accepted by the common people as fact. As this man became identified as God over time, and as there was a need to reconcile this with the Old Testament view of one God, the concept of the trinity was developed later.
“Jesus as a Theseus-level demigod”
My, my, not even the Arians went this far. Back in the good old two hundreds you could start a new heretic movement on a premise like this, too bad those days are long gone.
I’ll have to agree with you on the “this made no sense” part, which I guess is why some churches say a leap of faith is necessary.
Did Jesus suffer any anxiety over the fact that his mother was raped by God, albeit in a non standard way, that his mother did not plan to have him, or that his human father isn’t his biological father? Points overlooked in the traditional nativity story that little children act out each year.
I’d never thought about anxiety in the ‘fully-human’ jesus, but I had thought about guilt. I produced a lot of school and church nativity plays when x-tian. As doubts gathered, I too wondered what the man, jesus thought about his origins, referencing Herod’s slaughter of all the other babies. Surely even the most callous of us would be burdened with guilt that our birth had caused so many deaths. I began to want to include in my cutsie, sanitised presentations, the entry of a group of blood-stained, traumatised, grieving mothers who accused Mary and Joseph of being responsible for the murder of their child.
I’m sitting here thinking how many needy people’s needs could have been met with the money wasted on that lame-ass ad campaign. What a tragedy. It’s disgusting how evangelicals’ priorities are so screwed up that they think an ad campaign like this, that frankly, most people will fast-forward through or use the opportunity to visit the bathroom or refrigerator instead of watching. Those that will watch are either already on Team Jesus or are atheists like me who want to see what the damn evangelicals are up to these days.
The while concept of “Jesus as fully human yet also a God” never made any sense to me at all. If you’re a perfect God, how can you be tempted to sin? That made no sense to me. How could Jesus be tempted to steal, for example? He owned everything. And if you’re an omnipotent deity your manipulation skills are probably so on point as to be able to easily convince a mere human to hand over whatever you want anyway. None of it made sense. As an adult, it seemed to me that Jesus was probably a beloved teacher who got killed, and his distraught followers wove grander and grander tales about the awesomeness of this teacher. And in those days, anyone worth their salt was the son of a deity, so voila – Jesus is the son of God. And he is so super awesome that he rose from the dead, but no, you can’t see him because he went to join his dad in heaven so shut up.
I presume the Pauline verses in question are in Philippians since Corinthians actually encourages anxiety? Paul doesn’t call anxiety a sin, rather he tries to comfort those who are anxious. Recognition of a human condition isn’t saying that condition is sinful. Jesus, as a man, experienced anxiety, fear, despair, anger, etc. As our example, he showed us how to cope with those very real, very human feelings.
As to Gethsemane, if you point to it as an example while arguing from scripture, you can’t logically discount it without proof. Since it’s realistically impossible to prove or disprove… the only honest statement to make is it’s validity is simply your opinion, but the story as a story within Xian cannon clearly shows the despair and anxiety of Jesus and his response of trust in God (exactly as Paul points towards in Philippians).
At best, one can argue that there are conflicting verses in the Bible.
All I’m pointing out is that there is a conflict between Jesus’ divinity and his humanity; that he cannot be both.
If he was anxious, fearful, and angry, he was human, not divine. The Bible says perfect love casteth out all fear. If Jesus was fearful, this means he was lacking in love. Besides, what did Jesus have to fear? He knew, from before the foundation of the world, what was coming. As the Sovereign God (at no time was he not God), he knew everything. To fear, then, would be to doubt God’s (his) plan.
The impeccability of Christ suggests that Jesus couldn’t sin, so Jesus was not in any way (exactly) just like us. (And, yes, I’m aware of the various theological viewpoints on this subject.)
The human condition includes envy, greed, and lust. Are you saying Jesus experienced these things?
I agree with Obstacle Chick – imagine all the good 100 million could do for the ones here and now who are in need. I’ve seen the ads and they are just another emotional manipulation used by Christians to suck people in. As always, my problem is not with Jesus, but with his followers. And 100 million on an ad campaign rather than spending it to help people illustrates why. If the Jesus of these ads were to appear to many of today’s Christians, they’d mock and dismiss him and then bus him to Vermont.
I agree with Michael Mock. Even when I believed, I couldn’t intellectually reconcile Jesus-as-God with Jesus-as-Man. For a time, I set the question aside lest it impede my faith.
Now, of course, that question is one of the reasons I can’t be a Christian, at least in the ways Christianity is believed and practiced.
Here’s an idea that would infuriate Evangelicals, and many other kinds of Christians: Perhaps the Jesus presented in the Gospels was simply a fantastical figure–like a cartoon or comic-book Superman–representing the kind of hero the writers of the Gospels–and many people–wished for.
I think it’s a waste of money. And really, it would be more loving and helpful to use the money directly for the homeless, or at least the anxious. Better than advertising.
gee, the liars have disabled comments on their videos. Poor dears.