Last year, many learned who and what He Gets Us is following their initial $20 million investment in Superbowl Ads. Their inaugural Superbowl commercial predominantly led many to question the wisdom of this lavish expense for such a vapid “hippie Jesus” message. This year, He Gets Us returned to the Superbowl, and the content of their commercials, rather than being seen as vapid, was an attack against the Church, which has been called out by many Conservatives and Christians alike.
Most commentators are rightfully recognizing the message as attacking Christians while being pro-abortion, pro-gay, and generally affirming every leftist, intersectional narrative within the AI generated images whereby the perceived oppressor is washing the feet of the perceived marginalized. Few have stood out in defending the ad, and among them is Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles. Like Matt Walsh, Knowles is a trad-Catholic, but unlike his catholic peer, despite his Romanist theology, his reasons are not that different from what many normies are presupposing about He Gets Us. Nevertheless, his arguments are steel-man if it could be called that.
Knowles posted the following initially regarding the He Gets Us ad:
Am I the only conservative Christian who didn’t totally hate the “He Gets Us” ad? Yes, it speaks “woke-ese.” It’s not for us; it’s for secular libs. There’s a risk it leads to heretical complacency. But if it gets some lost lib even to consider Our Lord, I’m not totally opposed. Your green-haired lesbian cousin who hates her dad is not going to read the Summa Theologiae set you didn’t buy her. But if she begins to feel even a slight affection for Our Lord, she *might* turn on a podcast. Maybe that podcast could be Fr. Mike Schmitz’s Bible in a Year. The ad wouldn’t be my first choice for evangelism. But Our Lord has used much worse things for good…
He would later have a video reacting to the ad which largely reiterated the content in the above post. His premise is that the ads speak the language of the secular liberal it is meant to appeal to. While not inaccurate, since secular liberals created the ad, his general argument falls in line with the cliché of “meeting people where they are.” He contends that the ad is not for Christians but for secular liberals. Ironically, for a Catholic, this is a Big Eva trope that is espoused by various megachurch pastors.
Regarding the abortion clinic image, Knowles argued that the protestors were not depicted as hateful and that conservatives are leaping when they concluded that the ad portrayed the protesters as hateful. Maybe Knowles is being dense since he fails to see the contrast being posed so clearly in the ad. Of course, the propaganda is not going to subtly out itself—that is the point of subversion.
Knowles then recites 1 Corinthians 9 to claim that the ad is becoming “secular liberal” just as Paul became a gentile. But even when Paul was becoming a gentile, he was exhibiting the best of the gentiles. The Greeks wanted wisdom, and Paul, being educated, could converse with them on those terms whereas the Jews wanted signs. But the secular liberal wants affirmation—something Christ does not give.
Knowles parlays this interpretation to suggest that the ad provides an offramp for liberals to acknowledge the truth that abortion is murder. However, the ad does not confront abortion as a sin, nor does it do so for any other sin depicted in the ad. Regarding abortion, women either do not care whether the child is a life, or they believe their needs supersede that of the child. In any case, they know what they did, and there is no offramp to confront that sin.
Rather than elaborate on his point, Knowles abruptly contrasts this ad with the Mark Wahlberg Hallow ad that also aired during the Superbowl. This ad featured Wahlberg’s tagline of getting “prayed up” and featured traditional catholic aesthetics. It was a more successful advertisement and probably did more to assuage nonbelievers because of its appeal to tradition and something greater than self.
Secular liberalism is materialistic, and many of its adherents believe that the universe is a bunch of molecules smashed together by random chance and devoid of ultimate purpose but that which they make for themselves. If one were to apply Paul’s teaching, then the campaign would be fixated on showcasing something, or really Someone, greater that created the universe with a purpose. Additionally, those who view life as devoid of ultimate purpose need a message that is aspirational, like Hallow’s subtle appeal to tradition or Jamie Bambrick’s parody in which he exhibited the transformation that came through Christ. The latter especially appeals to postmodern sensitivity where there is greater focus on narrative and story than on sheer facts and logic.
In the end, Michael Knowles does not want to come across as a hater and reads more into the He Gets Us ad while ignoring the blatant contrast presented in the AI generated abortion image. Knowles is behaving much like the Big Eva types who created the campaign, appealing to the “if it saves one life” or the mantra of meeting people where they are. The very people who created the ad were secular liberals, and they created a Jesus they liked, and that is not the one recorded in Scripture.
