There was this controversial figure everywhere he went people challenged him.
They questioned his ideology, trolled him,
called him ugly names but he never took the bait.
Never raised his voice, refused to retaliate because he
believed he could change the world by turning the other cheek.
>> Have you guys seen these ads on TV?
From here it gets us and
many times you don't realize that they're talking about Christianity,
religion specifically more Jesus, and the things that we're told that he did.
But these ads will be appearing on the Super Bowl apparently after a 20 million
Super Bowl ad campaign was bought out by this group.
I mean maybe that'll buy you a 22 ad, I'm not sure what the rates are lately.
But this organization, they call themselves, he gets us but
also the Jesus of radical forgiveness, they're all about compassion and love.
But once you see some of the ties and
connections they have you might wonder about those descriptions of themselves.
Here's more information about who they are and who they're connected to.
He gets us is a subsidiary of the Servant Foundation which is a Kansas-based
charity also known as the signatory that says it exists to inspire and
facilitate revolutionary biblical generosity.
It's a lot of different words in that one little phrase.
So between 2018 and 20, the Servant Foundation donated more than $50 million
to the Alliance Defending Freedom,
a nonprofit that's led big policy fights over abortion and
nondiscrimination laws at the Supreme Court and in states around the country.
The nonprofit is designated as an anti-LGBTQ plus hate group by
the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Damn it. Southern Poverty Law Center over there,
just labeling folks just for no reason, right?
Right, we will see.
The Alliance Defending Freedom says it helped draft the 2018 Mississippi abortion
law at the heart of the Supreme Court decision last year, allowing states to ban
the procedure, and also helped argue that case before the High Court.
This term,
the American Alliance Defending Freedom is leading a new Supreme Court case arguing
that businesses should be able to discriminate against LGBTQ plus customers.
So, pause for a second, this group that's about inclusion, love, and respect and
all that is looking to discriminate, also put forward and argued these things that
apparently the heart of the Supreme Court decision that I thought politicians and
maybe other folks within the government is supposed to be arguing towards.
No, but this outside grew that then puts the words in the models of these
politicians and also the money in the pockets of these folks to then do their
bidding that goes on and on, so I guess we can accept that.
But also the connections continue from there.
They claim that their whole mission is inclusive.
They said we're also about sharing Jesus' openness to people that others might
have excluded.
His message went out to all is what the group says.
And though you may see religious people as often hypocritical or judgmental,
[LAUGH] know that Jesus saw that too and didn't like it either.
Instead, Jesus taught and offered radical compassion and stood up for
the marginalized.
I was a little confused by that part.
He said you might see religious people as often hypocritical or judgemental, and
then goes on to talk about how they're looking to discriminate and
judge folks and exclude them from these other things.
I think you kind of walked right into the characterization that many folks have, but
more because the plan,
they plan to have more of these ads in the future to look and spend more money.
But I'm curious where is this money coming from?
>> Yeah. >> Jason Vanderground,
a consultant involved with, He Gets Us,
told Christianity News that the company's goal is to invest about
a billion dollars over the next three years towards this branding campaign.
Where are they getting these billion dollars from?
Some of that money has come from billionaire David Green.
>> Yeah. >> Have you heard of that guy before?
He's a devout Christian co-founder of the arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby.
Green and Hobby Lobby fought the Obama administration's contraception
mandate all the way to the Supreme Court,
leading to the 2014 ruling that closely-held corporations do not have
to comply with the mandate if their owner's voice religious objections for
some health care, for these employees of theirs inclusion,
morality, helpful and Jesus like, he gets us, right?
AB does he get us?
>> I hope you get them and everybody that supports them
a first-class ticket via spirit Airlines to hell.
>> [LAUGH] >> That's what I hope he get because
that's.
>> [LAUGH] Have you seen some of these ads though?
AB have you seen some of these other ads that they have?
>> The audacity of them to play them in the middle of Rihanna's concert,
I don't know nothing about the Super Bowl, but that's audacious.
That's all I'm gonna say.
>> Yeah. >> Have you ever?
>> I've seen one of them before.
I mean, there's a lot here.
I mean, this is a very very manipulative project.
So, all right, so this group is creating ads
using extremely progressive language, right?
Or I might even say like the language of someone like Cornel West, right?
Radical compassion, care, and love, right?
Cornel West is a devout Christian, right?
So, wow, how different, right.
So I wonder if radical compassion and
discriminating against LGBTQ people are consistent with one another.
The answer is obviously no, right?
So this I think is touching on a few different nerves for me.
First of all, I tend to be pretty uncomfortable with religious
advertisements airing during major national events in a country that's
not merely Christian [LAUGH] We're not Christian in this country.
And second of all, right,
we this we're seeing that these are a set of ads that are funded and
pushing ultimately extremist right-wing agenda that is discriminatory and
likely very defaming toward women and women's rights and women's health.
I wonder what if a mosque, a very moderate compassionate
Islamic group would decide to air an ad during the Super Bowl,
how that might go, or what if Black Lives Matter
decided to air an ad during the Super Bowl?
I wonder how that might be treated,
and whether there would be any sort of consistency associated with that.
So, what Christianity means is very different based on who or
where you are in the name of Christianity, many socialist laboratory,
indigenous rights, beautifully civil rights-oriented struggles have occurred.
But this is a bait and switch and it's a trap for us who are viewing it.
>> I was wondering if you guys have seen these ads because they do come across
very, like you can get the Christianity part of it, you can see it coming.
But the thing is it comes without the open your bible read this part, if you don't,
you're going to hell.
It doesn't give that energy, it gives more the energy of, hey, it's a very normal
situation, hey, you can be a normal guy who doesn't go to church every day and
you can get it, he gets you, he's intertwined with your daily life.
And it actually feels if you're just looking at it generally inspirational
like, I didn't know that christians were like this,
many people who are maybe hearing about what they see or
see the some of the most rabid things that are being said on TV or on the internet,
they may think, man, every christian is just this rabid, bloodthirsty human being.
>> [LAUGH] >> But
they come with this different approach and
I was like, maybe they're trying to rebrand, maybe they're trying to actually
look in a different way to attract people with some positivity rather than fear.
But then you never know who's behind these type of things and
actually what is there in the working.
>> Which is exactly what this ad comes across as and
the one that I saw is like that, it's like yeah, I mean,
I have a lot of respect for the stories of Jesus that I know of but
if you're gonna try to lure people in with compassionate content and
then push them into extremely discriminatory places, then you're
actually turning people into hypocrites who want to be drawn by Christianity.
>> And I wonder if an LGBTQ plus person, someone in the community then season goes,
and then once they are invited in then it's, yeah, no not you.
[LAUGH] >> Not you.
>> Yeah, and then how that would suddenly mess with their entire mindset for
what they thought was compassion.
>> It's like that famous line from Animal Farm, remember it?
All of us are created equal but some of us are more equal than others.