'He Gets Us' campaign responds to AOC's criticism of Super Bowl ads
The He Gets Us campaign is responding to criticism from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and others in response to the group’s Super Bowl ads that urged skeptics to show “love and respect to one another” instead of “responding to divisiveness in anger.”
The He Gets Us campaign, which describes itself as a “movement to reintroduce people to the Jesus of the Bible and his confounding love and forgiveness,” received backlash from one of the most progressive members of the U.S. House of Representatives over ads it aired during Super Bowl LVII on Sunday.
“Something tells me Jesus would *not* spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a tweet Sunday night.
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Something tells me Jesus would *not* spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 13, 2023
One of the advertisements in question, titled “Be Childlike,” featured several pictures of children of different ethnic backgrounds embracing one another, followed by on-screen text reading, “Jesus didn’t want us to act like adults.” The ad, set to the tune of Patsy Cline’s “If I Could See the World,” concluded with a declaration that “He gets us. All of us.”
The other advertisement, titled “Love Your Enemies,” features multiple images of people entangled in intense conflicts with one another, including one depicting a protest against ongoing coronavirus lockdowns and another picture of violent ANTIFA militants. The ad concludes by saying, “Jesus loved the people we hate,” once again displaying the phrase “He gets us. All of us” on screen.
Jason Vanderguard, a spokesman for the ad campaign, addressed the pushback from the Democratic congresswoman and others.
“Our research shows that many people’s only exposure to Jesus is through Christians who reflect him imperfectly, and too often in ways that create a distorted or incomplete picture of his radical compassion and love for others,” Vanderguard said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “We believe it’s more important now than ever for the real, authentic Jesus to be represented in the public marketplace as he is in the Bible.”
He added: “The goal is that the two commercials will not only inspire those who may be skeptical of Christianity to ask questions and learn more about Jesus, but also encourage Christians to live out their faith even better and exhibit the same confounding love and forgiveness Jesus modeled. Instead of responding to divisiveness in anger or avoiding conflict altogether, Jesus demonstrated how we can and should so confounding love and respect to one another.”
“On multiple occasions, Jesus used the term ‘childlike’ to refer to a humble and trusting attitude,” continued Vanderguard, noting that “Christians often refer to their faith as childlike, being humble enough to place one’s trust in a power greater than self.”
Referring to the second ad, Vanderguard asked, “What could possibly be louder and more powerful than hate? Love can. But not just any love. Confounding love. Unconditional love. Sacrificial love. The love we see in Jesus.”
“What if we tried to love our enemies the way Jesus loved his? How would it change the tenor of our conflicts and our conversations?”
Vanderguard also told Fox News Digital that Jesus “cares about our problems because he has experienced them,” adding: “We believe that investing in efforts to ensure more people consider his life and movement as an inspiration for their own, will in turn, help improve the lives of those listening — and begin to create the kind of cascade of love Jesus himself sought to generate.”
The He Gets Us advertisements appeared to sit well with the American public. The USA Today AdMeter, which measures the popularity of Super Bowl ads based on the votes of a selected group of panelists, ranked the “Childlike” ad as the eighth highest-rated Super Bowl ad this year while ranking “Love Your Enemies” as the 15th highest-rated Super Bowl ad.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
