During Super Bowl LVIII, He Gets Us -- a media campaign to rebrand Christianity as more palatable to modern leftists -- ran an ad depicting numerous photographs of people washing the feet of those in sympathetic situations (eg. a battered woman) or situations sympathetic to leftists (eg. a gay man, a woman walking into an abortion clinic). The ad concludes: "Jesus didn't teach hate. He washed feet."
The clear theme is the juxtaposition between hatred and division on the one hand with love and service on the other. Again, "Jesus didn't teach hate. He washed feet."
In the scene in front of the "Family Planning Clinic," a young girl, presumably there for an abortion, sits on a bench. Representing love and service is the older woman washing her feet, thereby following the example of Christ. In the background, anti-abortion people can be seen holding signs with messages including "Save the Unborn" and "Choice or Child?" In the scheme of the ad, they represent hatred and division, or at the very least, uncaring hypocrites who don't actually care about women.
The problem is that He Gets Us' framing is 180 degrees opposite of the truth. Christians who hold signs that the leftists at He Gets Us would deem "hateful" are the ONLY ones offering help and hope to women entering abortion clinics. These Christians plead with women not to murder their children and offer to connect the woman with people or agencies that can help her obtain whatever resources she needs. This is what washing the feet of abortion-minded women actually looks like, and I would wager that none of the pronouns-in-bio leftists at He Gets Us have ever done so.
Given how unfairly the commercial depicts Christians who hold signs at abortion clinics, you would think the Pro-Life Movement would hate it. But even more than they hate being unfairly portrayed, the pro-life leaders have the same seeker-sensitive impulse and yearning for mainstream approval that drive He Gets Us. March for Life and Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins, and Georgia Life Alliance posted positive reviews of the commercial.
At first blush, it might be surprising that the pro-life leaders support He Gets Us given their blatantly pro-choice messaging, but considering the strategies underlying each, it makes sense. Like He Gets Us, the Pro-Life Movement is highly concerned with liberal sensibilities. Pro-life messaging is catered to such people and is defined by concessions to the left.
Abolitionist Pastor and author Luke Griffo recently wrote that the philosophy underlying pro-life strategies and tactics is theological liberalism; a primary tenet of which is the view that sin is a byproduct of external circumstances rather than sinful human nature.
The overall tenor of pro-life activism casts abortion not as a crime but as a tragedy that must be curtailed and mitigated, inasmuch as the electorate will stand for such action, and all from an officially irreligious standpoint.'...
"Liberalism, as we have mentioned, sees man’s problem as outside of himself: he is the victim of disadvantages and societal ills imposed on him, and only through the alleviation of these ills and the empowerment of man can he be 'saved.' The pro-life approach to anti-abortion activism follows the same paradigm: the mother is imposed upon with not only an unplanned pregnancy but also the prospect of losing her access to education and income. She stares down the daunting concerns of providing food, shelter, and clothing for herself and her child. Thus, she is driven into the arms of the abortionist, who tells her that her baby is merely a clump of cells, the removal of which is no different from having an appendix or gallbladder removed, and so she obtains an abortion.
"As with liberalism, the pro-life conception sees the problem of abortion as existing entirely outside of the mother, and therefore, abortion can be ended and the mother 'saved' if all of the externalities are nullified...
"Liberalism sees human sin as a tragedy, an unfortunate yet understandable response on the part of individuals to their difficult human circumstances. ... The notions of regulating abortion, societally incentivizing against abortion, and assigning victim status to the mother who murders her child must be wholly rejected, not due to political considerations, but because they all arise from liberal theological presuppositions that have been imbibed by so many."
The same liberalism underlies He Gets Us commercials. Their conception of the problem of unbelief in America is that hateful, empathy-less Christians are driving unbelievers away. We certainly should always be mindful that we are not putting unnecessary stumbling blocks before unbelievers who are considering the faith, but that is not the primary problem in America. The primary problem is that so many in mainstream Christianity, like He Gets Us, err in the opposite direction by withholding important truths like man's sinful nature and the need for repentance and faith.
He Gets Us and the Pro-Life Movement are not Christian entities. They are seeker sensitive, theological liberals and it is past time to reject both.
