Those "He Gets Us" ads are funded by White Christian Nationalists

[Nevilledog]

https://www.au.org/the-servant-foundation/

The Servant Foundation

The Servant Foundation, also known as The Signatry, is behind the “He Gets Us” ad campaign that debuted during the 2023 Super Bowl. Over the next three years, the Servant Foundation plans to spend “about a billion dollars” toward this public relations campaign. They’ve hired a PR firm to address, in the firm’s words, the problem of “How did the world’s greatest love story in Jesus become known as a hate group?”

Of course, they’re the cause of their own problem – not only has the Servant Foundation funded hate groups, but the PR firm, Haven, has represented these organizations. Key Shadow Network members Focus on the Family and Alliance Defending Freedom are in their portfolio. ADF is a noted anti-LGBTQ hate group that has argued repeatedly in courts that religion, and specifically Christianity, is a license to discriminate; they have one such case pending before the Supreme Court right now.

The money trail

The Servant Foundation is one of ADF’s biggest financial backers. A recent exposé reports that, “between 2018-20, the Servant Foundation donated more than $50 million to the Alliance Defending Freedom and that those contributions “were among the five largest donations given out by the foundation in each of those three years.”

Other recipients of the Servant Foundation’s billion dollars in assets include:

* Nearly $8 million went to Answers in Genesis, creationist Ken Ham’s fundamentalist ministry behind the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter, an organization that has been championed by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a former ADF attorney.
* Over $1 million was designated for the anti-LGBTQ Campus Crusade for Christ (rebranded as “Cru” since 2011).
* $374,800 went to Al Hayat Ministries, an organization that seeks to “respectfully yet fearlessly unveil the deception of Islam,” and runs an Arabic-language Christian satellite TV station with the goal of converting Muslims to Christianity.

In 2020 alone, we found donations to prominent Shadow Network members American Center for Law and Justice, First Liberty Institute, and Liberty Counsel.

*snip*

[live love laugh]

1. Most annoying commercials next to diabetes the musical.

[skylucy]

16. LOL! "Diabetes The Musical" . I know exactly which commercial you mean! Thanks for making me laugh!

Recommended this thread because of this great comment!

[themaguffin]

2. They. are. not. Christian. We need to stop using that term. There is NOTHING Christian about them Nothing.

Call them nationalist. White nationalist. Pieces of shit. Whatever, but they are not Christian.

[keithbvadu2]

3. Political Christians rather than Christians of faith.

Politics and religion use each other to gain power and wealth.

[hvn_nbr_2]

17. How 'bout we invent a word Christianesque or Christianish? nt

[keithbvadu2]

19. Some Protestants/Catholics think the other is a false Christian. They don't mince words.

[magicarpet]

32. Does KKKrishtun work for you ?

Anti-Jesus as can be.

[sop]

52. Religionists

[themaguffin]

20. If they were, they would support healthcare, social justice etc, but they don't

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. Sure they are. Why aren't they?

[themaguffin]

21. They are against the Gospel and social justice

[WhiskeyGrinder]

22. No true Scotsman, eh?

They live it out in a way different than the way you think they should, in the name of Christ. It's still Christianity. There isn't "one" "real"" Christianity.

[themaguffin]

23. Well, how is one a Christian if they don't believe & support the Gospel? Worse, they have disdain for it. It's cosplay.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

24. When you say "the Gospel," what do you mean?

[themaguffin]

25. I'm sorry, but if you don't know what the Gospel is, I'm going to stop now. Not trying to be rude, I just don't

know where to begin what that.. but it's the core of Christianity.

Conservatives don't support it. They are hostile to it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

27. No no, we're good -- people generally figure the gospels are the teachings of Jesus.

(The question was "when you say 'the gospel,' what do YOU mean?" not "when you say 'the gospel,' WHAT do you MEAN?" )

The point is, different Christians interpret those teachings very differently. And to pretend that there's one right answer is a form of Christian supremacy by equating Christianity, "REAL" Christianity, with moral good.

[themaguffin]

30. I think it's that and that they also seem to focus on the Old Testament which I find to be mostly negative and it's also

not the teachings of Christ... so while get as Christian, the OT is part of the package, it's the NT that is his teachings.

They ignore that.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

34. Some do. Others focus only on the New Testament. The ones that I see harassing people outside of abortion clinics

and LGBTQ people only use NT teachings to make their points. They focus on what Jesus' reported words in Matthew 22:36-40:

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

For them, verse 37 means following God's law (10 commandments). Verse 39 means telling everyone about how Jesus wants them to follow God's law. They see "love thy neighbor" as a command to evangelize and warn people when they're sinning. I think it's a shit interpretation. I also see their logic.

[honest.abe]

46. Read the sermon on the mount.

That spells it out nicely.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

48. I'm very familiar with it.

* The Beatitudes stress that people who are suffering will be comforted. It's clear, though, that the comfort is spiritual.
* The "salt and light" part is about making new disciples (salt) and bringing them to Jesus (light).
* The Antithesis broaden and deepen the concept of sin, making it clear that people cannot get to heaven without a savior/redeemer.
* It goes on to say that if they're true disciples, they won't have to worry about their lives and should just continue on preaching.

And all of it, which seems so straightforward, is interpreted in a wide variety of ways. A person could certainly see "blessed are the merciful" as an exhortation to exercise mercy through charity and policymaking; a person can also see it as being "merciful" by standing on a streetcorner and yelling about how to get saved, which some see as the most important work they can do. I've seen the "judge not" at the end to be interpreted as "don't judge unrighteously, but if you see someone going against God's word, go ahead and tell them what they're doing is wrong."

There simply isn't a whole lot of what we would describe as social justice in the gospels. Jesus himself said that he didn't come here to bring peace, but a sword. One interpretation is that he is warring against evil. Another is that he knew his word would divide people who might otherwise work together. It goes on and on.

[honest.abe]

49. Its certainly not even a remote resemblance to today's RW evangelicals no matter how you interpret it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

50. Some of the stuff I put in that post is taken verbatim from right-wing evangelicals who go out day after day

to stand on street corners and try to convert people. They believe they're following Christ's teachings. There is no one true Christianity.

[honest.abe]

51. I suspect if Jesus appeared today and said those same things they would call him a flaming libtard.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

53. Could be. In the meantime, there's no need to repeat ableist slurs the right embrace.

[honest.abe]

54. My apologies.. I was just tying to make a point.

[Voltaire2]

36. The christian gospels do not advocate for social justice.

In fact they do the opposite, they advocate for slaves to be good slaves in this world so that they can 'go to heaven'. It was a slave religion from the start, and it was fully incorporated into the Roman Empire, a slave economy empire, by the end of the 4th century.

The reformation, back in the 1500s, integrated christianity with the emerging capitalist economy, providing religious ideological justification for wealth accumulation and inequality. If you think nonsense like the 'Prosperity Gospel' is some new deformed version of christianity, John Calvin would like a few thousand words.

[themaguffin]

58. I said and

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[Sky Jewels]

55. They're right in line with the Bible though.

Yahweh/God is a cruel, sociopathic dickhead. I wouldn't worship that '"Imma drown most of the population of Earth" piece of shit even if it actually existed instead of being just a mythological character in dumb Bronze Age stories.

[themaguffin]

57. Yeah, the like select OT crap. Not the Gospels which is what Jesus said

[Sky Jewels]

59. It's all patriarchal mythology though.

The male characters in the myths, like “God” and “Jesus,” are the ones given magical superpowers. Men like Noah, Job, Abraham, Moses, etc. get a lot of ink. Eve is the cause of all ills, and Mary is a rape victim/vessel for a “Son.” Those two are really the only important female characters.

“Do unto others” is a good sentiment, of course, but it came about long before these silly, convoluted stories were made up. Humans evolved over hundreds of thousands of years as highly social group-living primates who needed to cooperate and share to survive and thrive.

[themaguffin]

60. You missed my point

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[magicarpet]

15. This brand of Jesus,...

KKKrishtun Jesus.

[JanMichael]

18. Who is "he" then? Prince?

[The Unmitigated Gall]

4. He "gets" you.

You’re despicable, wretched people,
And so is he.

[Sky Jewels]

56. I wonder if he and his "father"

who is also himself, as well as a ghost ( ) "get" the thousands of Palestinian children being slaughtered, or the people starving to death, or the teens being sex trafficked, etc. etc. ...

[Boomerproud]

5. Are they also behind Heaven...Or Not?

I thought I had read that somewhere.

[Timeflyer]

6. They get the fact that "religious"(phony or otherwise) groups are excused from paying income tax.

Cha-ching.

[TSExile]

7. Think of all the $$$ that goes into those ad campaigns.

That dough could be used to help rape crisis centers, battered women's shelters, food banks, etc. But of course, they hate women and the poor. (Of course, it's convenient for them to forget the passages in the Bible about the widows and orphans.) It's all about their own earthly power and wealth - and lording it over everyone else.

P.S. They obviously also skipped over the parable of the rich man and Lazarus!!

[Cha]

8. Yeah, I get you too.. Stupid Brainwashed Treasonous ASSholes.

[redqueen]

9. And the anti sex trafficking ad is also funded by shady groups

Fighting sex trafficking is the job of law enforcement - but this is a bunch of billionaires

A group of two dozen investors with nearly $1 trillion in assets under management have also called on Apple to publicly report the number of abusive images that it catches across its devices and services.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/01/technology/child-sex-abuse-imagery-apple-safety-privacy.html

[hlthe2b]

10. Yeah. But, I have to admit they are compelling--especially with the background music choices.

A lot of people will be sucked in.

[ellie]

11. They're creepy as hell

[lindysalsagal]

14. Yep.

Selling imaginary gods w imaginary magic.

[Sky Jewels]

39. Wait, you don't believe that a magical undead carpenter

Last edited Tue Feb 13, 2024, 12:48 PM - Edit history (1)

born of a virgin impregnated by a cruel sky wizard is going to return to Earth to suck believers into the sky?! How could you doubt such an airtight tale?’! /s

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

13. hatemongers trying to spread their hate

[underpants]

26. Actually I thought the foot washing one was pretty good

Inclusive and basic.

[Ferrets are Cool]

28. I thought it was gross as hell.

None of those scenario's were realistic. It was almost a "look at me" thing.

[Blue Owl]

29. Same here -- wash your own fucking feet

I ain't getting anywhere near some MAGAt with toenail fungus

[Dulcinea]

31. Why does Jesus need an ad campaign?

Asking for a friend.

[lindysalsagal]

43. If he wants me, he knows where to find me.

[Emile]

33. Tax free ads?

[Nevilledog]

35. As far as I know

[Voltaire2]

44. Advertising is generally an expense not an income

so it usually goes on the deduction side.

[Emile]

45. So is a pair of shoes, but I still pay taxes on

a new purchase.

[Voltaire2]

47. A sales tax on a commodity.

Religious organizations are not exempt from paying sales taxes. And there is no sales tax on hiring an ad agency to produce an ad. If there were then this organization would have to pay it.

[cilla4progress]

37. So what was the message?

Accepting, tolerating, diverse ie gay, people, POC, etc.?

[Nevilledog]

38. It's to immunize the masses to accept this version of theocracy.

They want people to buy into religion being in government as a good thing. We all know that the version of Christianity in the ads is the opposite of the actual theocracy they want.

[cilla4progress]

41. I'm left with confusion

as to why they would so blatantly include transgendered and gay individuals, as well as many other of society's "outcasts."

Is it complete and utter bullshit?

Because this is the version of christianity I can support. Speaking as a humanist pagan atheist liberal.

[Nevilledog]

42. They're trying to rebrand their Christofascism. Show one thing, do the opposite.

This Evangelical Billionaire Family Wants to Convert You on Super Bowl Sunday

https://archive.li/KdBii

The Servant Foundation: the power behind the ads

https://www.au.org/the-servant-foundation/

[Midnight Writer]

40. When I was involved in a Christian Church, we organized to do good deeds for others.

We had food drives, we had a group that checked in on the elderly and sick, we had a group that would go to people's homes and perform maintenance and simple fixes and upgrades, we prepared holiday meals and delivered them to homes, we had a daycare program for working families. It was a lot of cheerful, happy folks getting together to help others, and it was exhilarating fun. We worked hard, but enjoyed it.

I don't recall any talk of LGBTQ folks, of white heritage, of prosperity gospel, of political power struggles. Certainly no endorsement of political candidates.

There were certainly bigoted, small-minded members, but they were either few in number or they kept quiet about it.

I miss the old "Love Thy Neighbor" and service oriented Christian Church that served a genuine role in making people's lives better here on earth.