‘He Gets Us’ Super Bowl Ads for Jesus Flagged by Fans Criticizing Company Funding Them

A controversial company paid $20 million to air two commercials promoting Jesus.

With the Super Bowl comes many extravagant and strange commercials, and this year, there will be two ads promoting Jesus with a campaign called He Gets Us. But after people started looking deeper at the campaign and the company behind it, there is strong criticism against it.

The ads depict present-day struggles and use them as a metaphor for something Jesus went through, to show that "He gets us."

For example, one ad describes a family of refugees, before insinuating that it was talking about Jesus the whole time, with text reading, "Jesus was a refugee."

Many people were immediately confused about the ads, with a Twitter user writing, "Has anyone noticed these extremely creepy 'He Gets Us' Jesus commercials? What are those? Why are those??"

At first glance, there appears to be no monetary motivation for the ads, with the organization's website stating, "He Gets Us is a movement to reintroduce people to the Jesus of the Bible and his confounding love and forgiveness. We believe his words, example, and life have relevance in our lives today and offer hope for a better future."

The website goes on to say, "Be assured, though, that we’re not 'Left' or 'Right,' or a political organization of any kind. We’re also not affiliated with any particular church or denomination," but further investigation revealed that the campaign has some controversial ties.

While most donors of the campaign and the organization behind it known as the Servant Foundation, or The Signatry, are anonymous, known conservative, anti-contraceptive billionaire David Green, the founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby, has openly stated that his family is one of 50 families funding the campaign, as reported by KCUR.

The news organization KCUR also listed many recipients of funding from The Signatry, and despite the claims that He Gets Us isn't aligned with any churches or denominations, there are quite a few major churches on this list.

Along with that, Lever News reported that the Servant Foundation has donated more than $50 million to the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization declared a hate group by the SPLC that is intensely anti-LGBTQ+ and has played a role in legislature pushing to ban abortion and allow for discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.

Social media users are bringing all this to the surface and more, calling out the He Gets Us campaign.

One person highlighted how the people behind the campaign are planning to spend $1 billion in total on their rebranding on Jesus and religion, writing, "Conservative evangelicals will do anything — including spending $1BILLION on a foolish 'he gets us' marketing campaign — to get people interested in church … other than actually following Jesus by supporting social, racial, economic, LGBTQ, and reproductive justice of course!"

Another Twitter user also pointed out the hypocrisy of the He Gets Us ads: "So there’s a religious organization called 'He Gets Us' that spent $20 million on a Super Bowl commercial. Imagine how much good that money could do being spent elsewhere. It could help thousands of people in need."

It remains to be seen whether or not the extensive ad campaign will have the desired effect for the Servant Foundation and those funding He Gets Us.