You’ve probably seen the television advertising campaign that is captioned with the phrase, “He Gets Us.” This has been a nationwide campaign led by David Green, CEO of Hobby Lobby. The commercials take basic principles of the gospel and overlay it with the contemporary human experience. Reportedly, the target audience of these commercials are Millennials and “Gen Z” with the hope that the ads will connect with this spiritually hungry generation. As you watch today’s Super Bowl, two of these ads will appear, costing in the neighborhood of $100 million.
The ad campaign is not without criticism. While the ads themselves are professionally done and incredibly clear, questions have been raised by critics toward David Green, who has been on the record about his personal moral positions about sexuality and abortion. While it may be unfair for critics to discount the ads based on the person leading the campaign, this is today’s reality. Christians that I have talked to have been impressed with the commercials, but the target audience may indeed reject the message because they reject the messengers positions.
What are your thoughts?
It’s a bait and switch. Young people who are persuaded to attend an evangelical church because of these commercials will soon find out the church’s doctrines bare scant similarity to the teachings of Jesus.