The Problem with "Buddy" Jesus Blasphemy
New group Come Near makes idols of political identity.
A great trick of the devil is to produce a counterfeit message to pervert the issue. The “He Gets Us” ad campaign, from a group called Come Near, is a perfect example of this.
Ironically, the true, transformative power of Christ is obscured by their hyper-focus on politics. The more I read about the group and the closer I look at the weird, AI-generated imagery (they’re actually just weird, staged photographs), I’m further convinced.
The multi-million-dollar Super Bowl airtime they bought presents avatars of predictable political and ideological divisions: A presumably pregnant woman having her feet washed outside of an abortion clinic; a police officer washing a black man’s feet; the popular high school girl washing the alternative girl’s feet; the cowboy washing the American Indian’s feet; the roughneck washing the climate protester’s feet; the blonde suburban wife washing the illegal immigrant woman’s feet; the priest washing the gay guy’s feet; you get the idea.
While attempting to lecture on societal division the He Gets Us people play in bigotry and misogyny themselves by, for example, reducing everyone concerned over illegal immigration to a blonde suburban woman — but more offensively, reducing the act of washing feet to a performative indulgence owed for wrongthink. All the people on their knees washing feet are people you’d place on the right whereas the people getting their feet washed are those you’d find on the left. There isn't an instance where these roles are reversed, say where an illegal immigrant washes the feet of the besieged border rancher, or where a trans activist washes the feet of an actual woman.
That these roles were never reversed suggests that the “He Gets Us” people view the act as a symbol of rectification for those who are pro-legal immigration, pro-life, etc. Instead, the ad suggests that Jesus came to serve rather than teach His disciples humility in serving others — and the ad makes political identity an idol. We are divided by these identities, the ad suggests, and the different identities won’t be nice to one another when in reality, we are divided because we live in a Godless society and the true peace is achieved through Christ and our only identity as children of the kingdom.
I’d like to think that the lefty “He Gets Us” folks innocently attempt to dress Christ in social justice regalia as a way to sneak past reflexive skepticism but I cannot because the messages fall victim to what they claim to avoid: they’re lectures on political correctness packaged as “Jesus said.” Their previous ads do exactly this: They’ve previously portrayed Jesus and his disciples as bike gangs or youth running the streets and Jesus, Mary, and Joesph as illegal immigrants (not realizing that at the time of Jesus’s birth Egypt was part of the Roman empire so the family weren’t illegally entering another country; it’s like moving from Missouri to Texas).
You’re never going to make Jesus into some nice, buddy-guy trope that every facet of society accepts and watering down Christ is just misrepresentation. “He gets us?” What does that even mean? Jesus doesn’t affirm sin, he rebuked it. He came in love to save but he will not accept sin, which is what the vulgar vagueness of the ad campaign’s wording suggests.
One of the ads uses John Jones’s song “I’m Only Human After All” which misses the mark of why we need Jesus — because He isn’t.
Jesus is both God and man and only through Him can we find the peace we seek.
This is nothing but plain mockery of Jesus washing of feet to legitimize satan and his evil cohorts wrong doings. We who are true believers understand the scheme of the enemy. For truly unless one repents from their wicked ways and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior they will be lost forever. GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED.
Unfortunately you are right. Satan is on top of it. It sucks. Thank you for pointing it out