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“He Gets Us” doesn’t get it
[repost because server wipe, if that’s cool with everyone. Same post as yesterday, but probably some uncorrected mistakes from my note app]
The Christian advertising campaign “He Gets Us” aired two ads during the Super Bowl. The first ad asks “who is my neighbor?” interspersed with shots of mostly unsavory characters. The one you don’t value or welcome, the ad answers, to the drums of glitch-y hip hop. The second ad is titled “Foot Washing” and proved quite controversial. Among the scenes of foot washing depicted in the ad, the following have generated the most discussion: a Mexican police officer washing the feet of a black man wearing gold chains in an alley; a “preppy” normie-coded girl washing the feet of an alt girl; a cowboy washing the feet of aNative American; a woman washing the feet of a girl seeking an abortion (with pro-life activists sidelined, their signs upside down); an oil worker washing the feet of an environmental activist; a woman washing the feet of an illegal migrant; a Christian woman washing the feet of a Muslim; and a priest washing the feet of a sassy gay man. This last ad has tenfold the views on YouTube, in large part due to the negative response by Christians and conservatives, for example Matt Walsh and Babylon Bee editor Joel Berry. Joel writes,
I mostly agree with Joel. I think that this ad campaign is a failure.
The campaign fails to understand what brings people to a religion, or any social movement for that matter, or even any product, and as such it will not lead viewers to join their evangelical church or behave in the intended Christian manner. The audience of the Super Bowl is jointly comprised of people who care about what’s popular and cool, and people who care about remarkable feats of strength and dominance. These people are not going to be compelled to “love” their crack addict neighbor because you tell them to, because why would they listen to you? — there is no deeper motivation substantiated as for why they should do this. In the Gospel, Jesus doesn’t say “love your neighbor because it’s nice to do that and I am guilting you”, he says “love your neighbor so as to be a son of God whom created you, and obtain His reward, or else risk judgment from the eternal judge.” This is reward-driven and status-seeking behavior, the reward being administered by God and the status being administered by the church body. In its context, it requires a belief that the person saying it is the ultimate judge of both life and afterlife. (To behave Christlike, the required motivation is the totalizing significance of Christ... hence the name of the religion.) The starting point of the faith is the most dominant and powerful person telling you to care for the poor, not some cheeky “you should care about the poor because you should.”
Again, the Super Bowl viewer cares about what is popular and what is dominant. That’s normal, I’m not criticizing it. So could you not pull anything out of the religious tradition to depict the popularity and dominance of God? What, you feel bad playing off of FOMO to get people to your church? Jesus did just that on many occasions. 1, 2, 3, 4. Do you somehow feel guilty describing Jesus as glorious and powerful? What about the 72,000 angels he commands? You don’t want to tell the viewer that their prayers will be answered, when every 10 minutes there’s an ad for betting and gambling? Viva Las Vegas, non Vita Christi. So it has to be asked, what exactly is the purpose of the campaign? How is this getting people to your church, or even just getting people to behave better? “Jesus gets me” because… biker smoker and crack addict?
If the object of the ad is the instill a sense of pity to compel the viewer to behave morally, then there’s clearly more relevant subjects. Why not the focal point of the religion, the “innocent beautiful sacrificial lamb slain for our freedom” motif? The religion already comes with a built-in way to empower pity. You could say, “he gets us because he dealt with all our pain and temptation”, and that would make much more sense, while incentivizing the intended result of the ad. As is, I get the idea that the ad campaigners are afraid of any depiction of the life of Christ. I don’t get the sense that these people believe he is an essential ingredient of the moral life. And it’s fine if they don’t, that’s their business, but then dont make multimillion dollars ads that about it. If Christ is indeed essential, then your multimillion dollar ad campaign ought to be directed toward producing an image of Christ that is alluring, whether this be through scenes of pity or scenes of power. In an attempt to make Christianity subversive you should not be subverting Christianity.
Back to Joel’s critique of the ad: yes, the foot washing ad is problematic. Beside the fact that it is misinterpreted (explained below), it only works to further demean the image of Christianity to an irreligious America. “If I become a Christian, I’ll have to wash an old man’s feet?” The only viewers that will be compelled here are the foot fetish enthusiasts piqued by the alt girl. You are not going to convince anyone to join your social movement by promising them the opportunity to wash a man’s feet in an alley.
As was mentioned, the ad elevates the status of people who are not exactly Christ-coded, and those whose status is already elevated. During a Super Bowl, it’s not subversive to elevate the status of a vaguely athletic black man wearing gold chains. The half time show was Usher! Neither is it subversive to show an oil rig worker subservient to an environmental activist. In whose world is an environmental activist not more privileged than a dust-coated oil worker? And a wholesome girl washing an alt girl’s feet is not subversive in an event inaugurated by Post Malone’s national anthem. No, no; show me a wealthy and attractive CEO washing the feet of his fat ugly employee, if you must. But don’t just reinstitute the high/low status dynamic already in place by the world.
My last criticism I’ll try to keep short: the theological ground of these ads is spurious. There is indeed a scene where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, but the writer goes out of his way to clarify the meaning behind it. It begins by mentioning that Jesus “loved his own who were in the world”, namely his followers present and future. The students are shocked when their superior attempts to perform this subservient act, until it is explained to be necessary. “If your Lord washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do just as I have done to you. I am not speaking of all of you [not Judas]; I know whom I have chosen.” So, rather than being an act that a Christian is compelled to do to anyone, we have an act that Christians do to one another, to cultivate humility spirit and esteem for their brethren. They are told not to do it to merely self-labeled Christians, like Judas, let alone those of other faiths, as the ad suggests they do.
Foot washing was a culture-specific action that reflected the status hierarchy in a way that has no direct American parallel. An approximate American parallel would be for a boss to allow his employer to use his office, or for a boss to cook his employee’s family a dinner, or to clean his employee’s keyboard. The difficulty in understanding the event without careful study is the reason why it’s a mistake depict it as a means of propagating your worldview. Nothing is accomplished.
My original reply was lost in site reset but I will try to sum up.
While it is very possible that “He Gets Us doesn’t get it" it seems obvious to me from the rest of your post that you don't really "get it" either. I think that by attempting to frame/justify Christainity in explicitly secular left-wing/Rousseauean terms you're effectively falling into the trap I described in my Inferential Distance post about narratives and the Matrix. In short, you still think that's air you're breathing.
If you were to ask a representative sample of sincere Christians for the "starting point" of the Christian faith I'd wager that a significant majority would respond with some take on John 3:16 i.e. For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. For such a short phrase there's a whole lot to unpack there, but I'm going to stick to the elephant in the room. God is not just mighty, he is the mightiest, the literally All-Mighty. And yet he sacrifices, he suffers, and he is humbled. Consider the narrative role of this act. Consider the obvious question it raises in the mind of the attentive reader. Why would he do that? Sure, in the very next line we get so that whoever believeth in him should not perish but that doesn't the question so much as add a layer of abstraction. Why would God care if our sorry sinful asses perish or not? That's the Big question.
In contrast the whole "sky-daddy said so" brand of rhetoric, you seem to be endorsing here with your talk of Jesus as "the most dominant person" and virtue as mere "status-seeking behavior" is a weak/straw man more common amongst woke academics and edgy teenagers who've read a summary of Nietzsche than actual Christians. The oft heard refrain amongst Christians is not "what did God tell you?" or "what's in it for me?" it is "What would Jesus do?" Sometimes to "be Christlike" means associating with undesirables. Sometimes it means humbling yourself by washing the feet of your guests. Sometimes it means beating the shit out of a shady money changer in the temple square, and sometimes it means having a specific hill that you are not only ready but willing to die on.
Virtue is not desirable because it leads to higher status and other worldly rewards (though it can) it is desirable because contra the irony-pilled twitter and substack perverts that get regularly linked on this forum. Good things are good in and of themselves.
While the Lord knows I have my own issues both theological and otherwise with Bill High, the Signatory Foundation, and wider Calvary Chapel-adjacent subculture that puts out these adds, I have to give credit where credit is due, they seem to have come up with a strong pitch, and it seems to be annoying the correct people.
Edit: spelling/links
Funnily enough, on my current read through Gibbon, I finally got to the last chapter of volume 1 where he goes into the beliefs and behavior of Christians in the first 100 years of their church. And he points out that most of their behavior was irredeemably antisocial and borderline suicidal. However, they also believed that the end times would literally occur in their lifetime, and the most important thing was doing whatever it took to prove their virtue before that happened. Preserving society, institutions, even their own progeny ranked distant to non-existent concerns.
In the second century AD their behavior was... moderated. Far more pragmatic.
"Borderline suicidal" I will grant, but whether their behavior was "antisocial" or their concerns "non-existent" is another matter.
As you say, "the most important thing was doing whatever it took to prove their virtue" and I think there is a tendency amongst those who've only ever experienced a prosperous liberal society to falsely conflate "virtuous" and "pro-social" behavior with being supportive polite and inoffensive. Point being that being a "good guy" does not necessarily entail being a "nice guy".
One could argue that the subsequent moderation was a product of having successfully established a reputation for virtue rather than the inverse.
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