The controversial “He Gets Us” Super Bowl ads appear to have been funded by sneaky cultural conservatives who want seekers to join progressive churches.

That was the strange takeaway from this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, which focused on the hard-news coverage of the “He Gets Us” campaign, which was sparse, and the online commentary on the same topic, which was plentiful.

USA Today (no surprise) followed the money and, looking for political angles, found this:

Come Near's CEO is Ken Calwell, a former executive at Wendy's and Domino's Pizza. ... The organization donated $50 million to the Alliance Defending Freedom from 2018-2020. The Southern Poverty Law Center listed the ADF as an anti-LGBTQ hate group in 2016, citing the ADF’s support of criminalizing homosexuality and approval of imprisoning LGBTQ individuals for engaging in consensual sex. ...

The "He Gets Us" website says "Let us be clear in our opinion. Jesus loves gay people and Jesus loves trans people. The LGBTQ+ community, like all people, is invited to explore the story of Jesus."

More questions: What was the purpose of the ads, evangelism or social commentary about “haters” in today’s churches? The Gospel of John says Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. So, who are the disciples in this ad?

Finally, conservative Aaron Renn wants to know why the 2024 ads “explicitly endorsed a culturally and politically left view of the world.”

On the religious left, Leon Bloder liked the ads, but stressed that seekers have to go to churches with modernized doctrines:

If people outside of the Church view these ads and then decide to give Christianity a chance, what will they find in the kinds of faith communities around them? The answer is, “It depends on where they go.” They may visit a church where women cannot be pastors or elders. They may also discover that while LGBTQ+ folk are welcomed, they are not included in the life and leadership of the church.

The bottom line: Reporters needed to find the pros who wrote the ads and ask some questions.

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