Turns out it’s being funded by Hobby Lobby.
Ah. Yes. Thank you for this. Pretty much what I expected, actually.
Just a friendly reminder that anyone who relentlessly and loudly bangs the drum of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is never, ever going to do any of the positive things he stood for. You want “Jesus of the Bible represented in culture”, make a damn YouTube video or webcomic like a normal person. Guarantee that’s gonna set you back way less than 3 billion. God DAMN. 
Three billion dollars? How many poor people could that much money feed, clothe and house?
Why waste your money feeding the poors when you could use it to tell them they’re going to Hell for using birth control! Now get to having your eighth kid - those (white) babies aren’t going to birth themselves!
Evangelical churches, and the Southern Baptist Convention in particular, have been in a tizzy for the past decade or so, as church attendance/membership has steadily fallen. Younger people, specifically, have been driven away by evangelicals’ politicization of Christianity, their rabidly reactionary stances on culture war issues like women and LGBTQ rights, and by the unfolding sex abuse scandal in the SBC. There’s a blogger called Captain Cassidy, over on Only Sky, who’s been writing about this for years, and she notes that rather than make fundamental changes, their solution is simply to “Jesus harder”. He Gets Us is just another attempt to lure the "spiritual-but-not-religious’ demographic - the fastest-growing segment of the American religious sphere right now - back to the pews.
Well, David Green and his family gave $20 million to a Bible college in Alabama. And there’s this:
“Hobby Lobby also gives a 10 percent in-store discount to churches, schools, and national charitable organizations for purchases made with an organizational check or credit card. Please see your local store manager in regard to obtaining this discount.”
I don’t recall Jesus’ position on discounts, but it sounds like something he’d endorse.
Wow – I wonder if they’d honor a P.O. from the Church of Satan or the Al Akbar Mosque?
(For sake of argument only, I’m not implying equivalence between these orgaizations)
Who did he have to kill?
Never mind. Not a funny joke.
I dunno, I thought it was.
Yep. Plus, from CNN:
The chain of influence behind “He Gets Us” can be followed through public records and information on the campaign’s own site. The campaign is a subsidiary of The Servant Foundation, also known as the Signatry.
According to research compiled by Jacobin, a left-leaning news outlet, The Servant Foundation has donated tens of millions to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group. The ADF has been involved in several legislative pushes to curtail LGBTQ rights and quash non-discrimination legislation in the Supreme Court.
Color me… not surprised. The message always struck me as disingenuous at its core, not unlike when people on the right try to cherry-pick from MLK to criticize BLM. At best it comes across as “Hey, stop protesting and just try to be more like this other guy as we have imagined him in our heads to serve our purposes: do nothing.”
The “He Gets Us” stuff is at least much less toxic than the usual bullshit the fundagelicals push; it’d be nice if they took their own message to heart. They’d probably respond that Jesus forgave the adulterous woman, but told her to go and sin no more; in other words, it’s just a sugarcoated version of their usual “hate the sin, love the sinner” horseshit. As I posted above, HGU is just another attempt to get butts in pews and bux in collection plates.
By the way, this is not the only religious organization turning to advertising to fight falling attendance. I have seen a fair number of commercials openly sponsored by the Catholic church. The theme of these commercials seems usually to be “I had drifted away and life was okay, but then I got back into it and now I have traded occasional happiness for a lifetime of joy” (definitely paraphrased).
They are going to have a commercial in the Super Bowl.
Yes. If a christian group did these things, people would sit up and take notice.
Hey, these people are serving, just like Jesus did! If only.
The church I attend on Wednesday eves, has people stand up and recite Malachi 3. You are cursed if you don’t tithe! “Somebody say hallelujah.” People-" hallelujah."
I can’t link to it at work for some reason, but some of the images they used were taken from a BLM protest.
If I wore baseball hats, I’d get me one of those “Jesus was a refugee” hats to wear in downtown Prescott Arizona. I would let hubs wear his FJB baseball hat and open carry a .45 on his hip. We could even go to Cracker Barrel so I could order some plant-based sausages.
For those who don’t know, Arizona is one of the reddest and most racist states in the US. Prescott is known throughout Arizona to be one of the reddest and most racist cities in Arizona.
If I were to really do such a thing, poor hubs would probably end up having to shoot someone (probably not me) because I just can’t learn to keep my mouth shut around bigots and deliberate idiots.
Wow, they sold out fast.
Take that too far, and you might end up agreeing with the principles espoused by Anton LeVay, namely “Why don’t we worship what really gives us power, wealth and success in the real world?”