By Alberto Cox Délano | Politics | February 14, 2023 |
By Alberto Cox Délano | Politics | February 14, 2023 |
The funniest thing is that the “He Gets Us” campaign, to which the US was subjected during Sunday’s Super Bowl, doesn’t incense me in my skeptical, scientifically atheist side, but on the culturally Catholic, Liberation Theology Christian part of me. That side is on its Samuel L. Jackson era.
Catching people up can be exhausting, so I’d rather let you read up on this wretch of a … PR campaign for Jesus. This publicity blitz has been organized by something called the Servant Foundation, which also goes by the name The Signatry. The Lever has a short but thorough breakdown of who these people are and who finances them. In short, it’s basically a billion-dollar investment fund for Christian fundamentalism, supported by the Hobby Lobby family. They have donated millions of dollars to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the mother—-ers behind all the anti-choice and anti-Queer legislation strategies over the last few years. The link is so easy to trace that even CNN reported on it without trying to appease both sides, and they had them quoting another report by freaking Jacobin Mag. The “He Gets Us” campaign is just the smiling façade for the same clerical fascism from which they claim they are the alternative.
These people saw US Zoomers and Millennials breaking with religion in droves, and they came up with the most American solution possible: A publicity campaign centered on a catchy slogan. Of course, they weren’t going to spend the same amount of resources investigating what makes them so unappealing to young people. I’m not just including the fundamentalists, it’s everyone from the milquetoast mainline Protestants to the Southern Baptist Convention to the Catholic Church itself. So they spend $20 million dollars on those Super Bowl ads; probably hundreds of millions in the future; they invested in a glossy, modern design; and they try to make Jesus cool again with all the depth and wit of those youth ministers. They came within inches of understanding the point of Jesus’ humanity, but then they went with taglines like “Jesus was canceled”, they appropriated pictures from BLM marches, were very careful in making sure their promotional materials included a diversity of people (except anyone wearing a hijab, or a rainbow flag), and focused everything on Jesus radical love, or something like that. They also describe themselves as non-political, neither left nor right, which has always been an admission of being far-right. No one in the left or in the normal right is ever ashamed of identifying themselves.
There were two reactions to this campaign on Elon’s inferno. First, there was everyone from milquetoast liberals to commies lambasting the ads, the waste of money, and denouncing the interests behind it. To be expected, though this one was fire:
But then, there was the reaction of the full-on evangelicals that weaved a double discourse. On the one side, there is an official “party line” of sorts, in which “He Gets Us” supposedly represents the reasonable moderates, even woke-ish progressive Christians, exactly the kind of people we need to reach across the aisle and bring America together (clerical fascism will always insist on the unity of the church above everything). On the other side, the more fanatical have been disparaging this campaign precisely because it’s perceived as woke Christianity because it doesn’t remind people that Jesus is the only true religion and because it diminishes the divinity and perfection of Jesus as God.
Whatever the case, both parts of the discourse are functional to the GOP. It all reinforces their belief that by rejecting the most watered-down version of their propaganda, we are an out-group that is irredeemable.
I have many words, most of a violent nature, to describe the hatred I have for what these people at “He Gets Us” are doing. First, they are the ultimate evolution of performative wokeness, one so far removed from the progressive movements it steals from that it transforms them into their opposite, the reactionary. It’s even worse than when corporations appropriate these causes. They talk about immigrants while providing cover for those who refuse the reform that would finally grant 11 million people in the US with citizenry. They talk about women’s equality, and well, they fund forced-birthers. They talk about Jesus being a rebel, but just show pictures of bikers. They talk about forgiving your enemies, but as a cudgel to silence BLM into hugging the police. They do it with a perfect white smile. They are the living embodiment of what I hate the most about White American Protestants: Niceness without kindness.
Which brings us to the title of this piece. I saw a video called “The Myth of the Nazi Police State”, which dispels the notions we have of regular Germans living under constant terror of the Gestapo. In very short terms, average Germans had little to fear from surveillance, unless they were in the out-groups, be it Jewish people, Socialists, Liberals, etc. Most of those had been sent to concentration camps by the start of the war. Most Germans just complied and looked the other way, over and over again. Most of them weren’t members of the Nazi party, and most of the military were not Waffen-SS. They just coasted on being slightly or substantially better than the out-group (including other European countries) and in supporting the party that supported their status. Not cynically though, they believed in Hitler just the right amount.
I’m sure the more “moderate” people behind “He Gets Us” are true believers, convinced they are doing something good for the US (he!) and Christianity. They just refuse to question the idea of Christianity they are starting from; they just keep the pretty aesthetics of salvation and love. But they also know who they’re working for, people with whom they share most of their beliefs, but convinced that other, less proper people are soiling their hands. They are the Germans that looked the other way.
That’s why I despise this form of christianity, that only deserves the lowercase. Once you have dipped your toes into Liberation Theology and when you have all these Left-wing priests in your history (tributed in the banner, the movie Enough Prayer by Aldo Francia), I have no time for these people empty theology. For their refusal to actually acknowledge any humanity other than that of their white, wealthy financiers.
The good thing is, it seems their target audience of “dissafected” youths and young adults caught wind of their bullshit early on. Let’s hope they run out of money before they turn to Latin America.
I implore you to read this report and essay by an actual Christian for a better insight.
Alberto Cox, as a follower of the Gospel by Kazantzakis, would also like to send a very particular f*ck you to those saying Jesus is a non-sinner