This Alternative “He Gets Us” Ad Is Very Telling.
As if the original wasn’t bad enough.
The notorious He Gets Us ad campaign, whose Sisyphean goal is to fix Christianity’s negative image problem by promoting a more palatable Jesus, aired a commercial during this year’s Super Bowl that somehow managed to piss off people on both sides of the political spectrum.
Enough has been written about it on Medium alone that I don’t think I need to say more. I’m here to talk about an alternative ad that’s currently making the rounds on conservative Christian social media pages.
On February 13, a pastor in Ireland named Jamie Bambrick uploaded his “improved” version of the He Gets Us ad to Youtube and X, explaining he thought the original ad fell short because
“Essentially, what it came across as doing was putting a sort of Jesus-shaped stamp of approval on the ideas, the values, and the actions of our generation and that are common today, which, in many cases are not things of which Jesus is approving.”
The new ad, called “He Saves Us,” currently has 431K views on Bambrick’s YouTube channel and over 2.2M views on X.
The message is extended from being simply “he gets us” to “Jesus doesn’t just get us — he saves us.”
Conservative Christians have responded in an overwhelmingly positive manner. Here are a few of the top comments.
That is breathtakingly beautiful. The original Super Bowl ad was horrifying. Thank you.
Whereas the other ad made me cringe, this one made me want to weep and gave me chills. Tears filling my eyes instantaneously — THIS is the Gospel!!!!
LOVE IT. This is what is needed. The he gets us Campaign is complete trash and blasphemy.
There is much that could be said about the complex backgrounds of the individuals used in the ad, the compelling profitability of publicly coming to Jesus thanks to the Evangelicals who will eat up a story that confirms their biases, and the fact that one former [insert title here] should not be propped up as a voice or poster-child of “hope” for the rest of them.
But the first thing that stood out to me about this ad is what continues to trouble me most.
Take a look at the categories of “formers” being presented as in need of Jesus and his salvation.
Witch. Atheist. Jihadist. KKK member. Drug addict. Gang leader. Drag queen and prostitute. Abortionist. Transgender person. Porn star. New age guru. Lesbian activist.
These things are not comparable.
But the juxtaposition they’re placed in reveals the insidious nature of conservative Christian belief today.
It’s a bizarre list, when you really look at it. Many of these are morally neutral ways of being a human, only made negative through a Christian framework that believes in the supernatural and demonizes the free expression of sexuality.
Some relate to complex social issues that conservatives actively worsen through the policies they support and reject.
And then two of them describe people who belonged to terrorist organizations.
That’s the disturbing part to me. Those in support of this alternative ad have no problem comparing someone who is transgender, who is LGBTQ+ or fights for their rights, who struggles with substance abuse or believes in a different kind of spirituality, with someone who belonged to the Ku Klux Klan: a vile (and Christianity-based, please don’t forget) white supremacist hate group.
Focus on the Family basically came right out and said it.
…the video shows black and white photos of 12 individuals who used to live in sin and darkness — witchcraft, drug addiction, homosexuality, atheism, pornography, hatred and violence — but who have now been lifted out of darkness, their lives forever changed by Christ’s saving work on the cross.
To them, these are all sins, and all equally abhorrent in the eyes of God. When they look at us, we atheists and queer folk and consenting adults and enjoyers of a good Tarot deck, this is what they see.
The Jesus they believe in — the Jesus they want presiding over our nation — is a Jesus who sees the same thing. And their backlash against the original ad wasn’t because of the disproportionate ratio of white foot-washers to black and brown feet being washed, or the seemingly tolerant ad’s funding by groups actively fighting the rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community, or even the exorbitant 17.5M spent on airing the two He Gets us ads that were shown over 2024's Super Bowl weekend.
It was because they find it extremely important to make sure people know that the “real” Jesus would never tolerate or accept the people they hate.
Oh, and by the way, they’re not persecuting anyone through this behavior: they’re the ones being persecuted.
The ad feeds into the progressive narrative that Christians who care about pro-life, secure borders, law & order, or traditional family values are “haters.” This is already the attitude of the culture toward God and His people. They already call us “haters” and “bigots” for promoting God’s standard of righteousnes [sic].
-Pastor Ryan Visconti
None of this is new or surprising. But it is a sobering reminder of the cultural implications of this particular brand of Christianity.
