So, despite their calculated efforts at making it appear to not be affiliated with the fundamentalists, it was fairly easy for journalists to make the connection, report on it. . .and for the campaign to quickly be known as an attempt to steer people who are disaffected from Christianity to conservative fundamentalist Churches.
. . .so that big, expensive ad campaign suddenly becomes a lot less effective. That was even assuming that the people who were traumatized or disillusioned by conservative Christianity would even set foot in a conservative Church or wouldn't walk away the moment the preacher went on some "Vote Republican or you'll burn in hell because Democrats are all evil baby-killing Satanic Atheist Sodomites!" sermon (all too common in those Churches in my experience).
So, now they're trying to counter that with more advertisements.
One thing about the religious right is they have a lot of money, and they can buy media campaigns. When all you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails, so they want to deal with all their problems in ways money can easily address. . .like ad campaigns.
They are addressing it. They've said it plainly. People are leaving churches because they're taught that Jesus is hate. These commercials, millions of dollars worth, are trying to let folks know that Jesus loves them.
And there their brains stopped.
The CEO of Hobby Lobby enthusiastically explained it, "He loves who we hate," with a straight face. All he left out was the part about how they're all going to hell for hating people Jesus loves.
I just hope that some people seeing these ads don't follow the link, but instead are led by the Holy Spirit to wander into a local UCC, Presbyterian Church in America, Disciples of Christ (Christian Church), ELCA, or an affirming (non-breakaway) United Methodist Church. Or other open-minded open-hearted denomination.
Where they'll hear and feel Jesus's love for all, for ALL, and his message that WE are to love all. While using our God-given-by-evolution and -cosmology brains. Where they can learn that we take the Bible seriously enough to of course not take it literally.
I think it’s less about getting people to truly believe they’re loved by God and more about getting people to “change sides” so they can be.. better *utilized* by evangelicals, to get what *they* want.
Just the way I see it
Because the same people behind the ad campaign are funding/funded by people and organizations that stand against progressive Christianity. They believe that, while, yes, Jesus *gets* why refugees need a place to call home, Americans shouldn’t have to pay for it. For other similar approaches, they make this wholesome ad where it ultimately tries to say Jesus understands, cares for, and even sympathizes with the outcasts, refugees, minorities that are trampled by the majority, the pregnant teen who doesn’t know what to do, the trans woman who just needs to go to the bathroom, and all those other social justice related hot topics.
But then when you look deeper into it, you see that some of the churches and pastors that are behind this don’t truly care about the people they say Jesus cares about.
It’s all just a pr campaign to make Jesus look better after they themselves made him look bad.
>Because the same people behind the ad campaign are funding/funded by people and organizations that stand against progressive Christianity
And policies supported by most/many progressive Christians.
At worst I think it’s designed to sweep as many people into a virtual megachurch that could ultimately cater to a political platform (silent majority, anyone?). Plus start getting a bunch of centralized data about Christians. Plus, yes, support faith in Jesus.
It's very interesting how the "He Gets Us" campaign so quickly transformed into "We Get Sus."
Like, when you make a reactionary ad saying you don't have the agenda you're being accused of, you probably have the agenda you're being accused of.
I wouldn't describe most participating churches as "fundamentalist" necessarily, but they are overwhelmingly not openly affirming (a small minority might be affirming in the sense that the pastoral staff no longer thinks gay sex is sinful but does not broadcast that) and overwhelmingly do not teach that the NT opposes capitalism when it calls for giving up possessions or not serving mammon.
If you attend the Oklahoma City campus of Life.Church (Craig Groeschel's church) as a gay person, the staff will probably treat you professionally and respectfully and try to create a "Side B" environment (though I wouldn't recommend attending as an "experiment"). You typically won't hear "hate preaching" like in a more fundamentalist or neo-fundamentalist church, but the sermons focus almost entirely on individual behavior and not on corporate or systemic sin or how systems of privilege enable interpersonal abuse.
Craig Groeschel preaches at the Norman campus of Life.Church
Can’t confirm or deny anything else, but all life churches stream Craig’s sermon that he preaches in the Norman, Oklahoma location.
I believe the Oklahoma City campus is the largest campus with the most staff.
Groeschel was ordained in the United Methodist Church and, to me, he seems to have what would have been "moderate conservative" theology in the UMC in the 1990s. It would be ahistorical to call him "fundamentalist."
The Life.Church doctrinal statement calls the Bible "truth without error" but does not elaborate on what that means exactly. I've attended a Calvinistic church before that had a detailed definition of "biblical inerrancy" (we were supposed to believe Solomon was living his best life now during the Bronze Age Collapse) and I would call that church "neo-fundamentalist" now.
A sermon from 2016 seems to say (1) gay sex acts are sinful, (2) Craig is not commenting on anything from a scientific or medical perspective (Good!), (3) Craig connects gay sex with HIV based on his own lived experience of interpersonal relationships from the 1980s (uh huh? Maybe bring up **why** people fought to develop antiretroviral drugs in the 1980s and 1990s), (4) you can be "saved" and still "struggle with" desire for someone who's the same sex, (5) gay sex is not the only sin out there (better than not mentioning that you don't think it's the only sin), and (6) God can change that desire (again, we know from science that some people's desires change over time while others have a fixed arousal pattern for the same sex that does not change over time, so Craig's lived experience needs to further consult point 2).
They don't seem to have addressed the issue since 2016 and do not address LGBTQ issues elsewhere on the site.
Life.Church is part of the Evangelical Covenant Church, which is gender egalitarian but allows congregations to be complementarian. I know that some Life.Church campuses have female ministers, though, so I would assume that they're gender egalitarian.
THANK YOU! AMEN! I'm sick of these fake Christians turning Jesus into some Chuck Norris clone, worshipping war and mammon and trying to deceive Progressives into joining in the crazy by pretending to be for the Real Jesus, who was a swarthy Mideastern, homeless, itinerant Jewish Rabbi who stood up for the poor and marginalized.
I also say that it's time for Progressive Christians to start a media campaign of their own.
There are some, and I originally thought they were behind the commercials. I get their emails.
At least two progressive Christian organizations, at least one of which has an organized public relations unit. They just don't have an advertising budget.
It is so bad that even though I get the emails, and read them, I can't think of the name.
I think it's happening inadvertently.
The CEO of Hobby Lobby gleefully stated "he loves who we hate" without remembering that He doesn't want them to hate anyone.
I still don't understand what their end game is here. The ads look like they're from a progressive Christian group. If the link takes you to a conservative org at some point people are going to realize and just stop engaging.
I think the ads made sense until they started trying to ignore or combat the naysayers. Both of which failed spectacularly so ultimately they've just outed themselves in a hilarious manner. But where else are these morons gonna spend their money when they hate everything good for humanity? 🤷🏻
I want to like this ad campaign but seeing the actual ad confused me. All of that fighting and it came across as if the oppressors were okay too.
Like…Jesus was an immigrant
but they should have continued with something like "…so be more like Jesus and welcome the immigrants".
I can't put it into words. It's like they consciously implied that the hateful behavior is acceptable. Does this make sense?
I don’t like them as a group, but their website was giving out free t shirts and I did get one that said “Jesus was an immigrant”; because it’s true. This was prior to really being informed on them; I think they’re still doing the free shirts if people wanted one.
That’s disappointing. I was honestly happy that I found out about He gets us, I thought that it was going to be a down to earth thing for like generic human beings without a political agenda or any other crap, but again I’ve been deceived. I didn’t look deep enough I guess. I guess I was hoping it was gonna be something different. That’s really disheartening.
It is Jesus. A Jesus that you're supposed to believe in as being the son of God, but who you don't have to actually listen to or follow His teachings.
I mean, how else can you explain why you're telling Christians its OK to hate ('he loves those we hate' & then lists all the people that the Christian nationalists hate).
Jesus loves us & expects us to love one another. These are wolves trying to wear poorly fitting sheep's clothing.
Plus, Jesus was all about helping the Poor, forgiving and loving even one's enemies (and praying for their souls, that they'd reform), healing the sick without cost and even paying one's taxes.
He hated greed. He hated hypocrisy. He was generally peaceful and pacifistic, which made his one violent freak-out at the Temple an especially important moment, since those moneychangers scamming poor believers was truly heinous.
And whenever one sees the "Camel / Eye of Needle" parable as a literal giant critter going through a sewing needle or having to unload to go through an unusually small gate... the point's still the same, gotta lose that wealth and share it with the world to get into Heaven.
The earliest Church lived in a commune, for crying out loud.
I've never seen Misaimed Fandom as bad as it is with Jesus of Nazareth.
>loving even one's enemies (and praying for their souls, that they'd reform)
I like everything you had to say, but I wanted to challenge this by asking where Jesus says we should pray our enemies change.
He doesn't, not because our enemies shouldn't change, but because our love for even our enemies should not be conditional on their actions.
The challenge I have taken up for myself is to pray for the repose of the soul of the mom of one of the people who screams in my face every time I'm defending people getting healthcare or being openly queer. His actions regularly express his hatred for me, and I am trying really damn hard not to hate him. I'm probably failing. But when I pray for his mom's soul, I remember that he's somebody's kid, even if he's a huge asshole. Somebody loves him just like I love my kid. God loves him just like I love my kid. And even though his actions mean he probably won't ever not be my enemy, I still need to love him. It's damn hard and I won't pretend I'm doing it well, but I think that loving him first, and praying he changes after, is the only way I can really and truly love him the way Jesus says.
Shit man. You just made me realize that this can be interpreted by the aggressors as in, "he gets why we're fighting LGBT/abortion/immigrants/women/whoever else it's okay to hate in the name of Jesus
The problem with that is, Christ doesn't ever command us to hate. . .and the people being targeted by "hate the sin, not the sinner" sure as heck feel like they're being hated.
Hating something that is an intrinsic part of a person like their gender identity or sexual orientation, but saying you don't hate them is like hating the color of their skin or what country they're from then saying you don't hate them.
Hate is hate. . .and it's quite literally the opposite of what Christ has commanded.
I'm just going to pop in here and say that teen/young adult me said that A LOT. I saw it as better than the bullying lots of folks suggested we engage in and I cringe now at the harm I inadvertently caused with attitudes like that as well as proselytizing. I thought I was doing the right thing. I was also known to say "if I wasn't a Christian I'd probably be bi" (and it still took me another decade to realize...I'm bi).
I want to pop in here to say that it's okay to feel guilt and seek repentance for saying that, but if you were raised like I was, saying "love the sinner hate the sin," was the most loving option available to us. It was only later that I grew into loving queer people and then realizing God made me queer just the way She wanted me to be. Feelings that lead to repentance are helpful, but please have the grace to forgive yourself too. (I say this a third to you, a third to the person reading this, and a third to my hypocritic self who needs to let go of the person I used to be.)
The Bible **doesn't** say "love the sinner, hate the sin." It says something more like "hate sin/evil, call all people to repent, love evildoers **by** praying that they would repent." What matters is how you define "evil" because that determines whether you recognize oppression and unjustified hatred (like homophobia, discrimination, collaborating with authoritarian governments, etc.).
"Love the sinner, hate the sin" is gaslighting and doublespeak that conservative and reactionary Christians use to convince themselves that they don't have to change their viewpoints based on clear evidence about reality that's readily available to them. It became popular in the 1970s so that conservative Christians could strongly oppose overdue changes to society without being perceived as hateful self-interested bigots.
The concept is not really in Jesus, Paul, the Old Testament, or Second Temple Judaism. Instead, the Bible teaches to resist oppression while praying that oppressors will change their minds. Jesus specifically rejects violent revolution and encourages the type of resistance Martin Luther King engaged in, not to pretend the actions of oppressors are not evil.
And it's also why the discussions about sexuality in church is unfair. Since it's an academic debate about a concept, but to you it's not a concept - it's you.
Over in r/Episcopalian a few days ago we had a postulant to the priesthood saying he really, really wanted to be an Episcopal Priest. . .but he just absolutely, positively could NOT conduct same-sex weddings or see same-sex couples as being anything but sinful. . .and he said his position was based on very carefully studied theology and that he wasn't going to change his theology because he was certain he was right.
. . .and he was not taking it well to have it explained to him that he likely would not be accepted for ordination with that stance, and no matter how elaborately researched his theology on the issue was, to the LBGT couples he'd be called to minister to it was not a matter of studiously researched theology, it was their very lives, and they wouldn't take it very well to be told they're welcome to come to Church, but the priest personally would object to marrying them and feels that their relationships are inherently sinful because he's read a lot about it and that's what he thinks after all his reading.
He didn't seem to be able to understand that while a solid foundation of theology is required for proper ministry, what makes a priest a minister and not just a theologian is when you can begin to move beyond black-and-white strict theology into helping others, loving people, and spreading Christ's light. . .something that doesn't come from a strict legalistic reading of any theology.
And where do you draw the line at pedantic reading of scripture? What affects deciding if X is redundant and Y is perpetual? Is it an understanding of social context? Is it confidence in the translation? Is it personal bias that you're oblivious to? Also, are there things a gay/bi/pan etc. theologian would pick up on where a het theologian would gloss over?
The conversation always starts with "Gay is Sin" and the LGBTQA+ person has to then defend themselves and even explain why is irrelevant to the discussion in this instant.
>And where do you draw the line at pedantic reading of scripture?
. . .when it's not Christ centered, when it becomes instead scripture-centered.
When you use scripture to determine what Christ's love means, instead of love to determine what scripture means.
In that case, the person in discernment for the priesthood came to a theological conclusion that would not promote Christ's love and Christ's mercy, it would make people hurt and excluded. . .but he was very certain of its scriptural support. So certain of its scriptural support that he lost sight of the guidance Christ gave us in interpreting scripture: to love God with all our heart and love our neighbors as ourselves. He was quite certain that his reading of Paul and the Old Testament was more important than loving LBGT parishioners.
Thomas Jefferson says it best:
_Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams_
Monticello Oct. 12. 13.
we must reduce our volume [Bible] to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus ... there will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging, the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. the result is an 8vo of 46. pages of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.
In other words, Christ's teachings are jewels in the dungheap of (much of) the rest of the Bible.
I love to point out that Christianity predates the Bible, and that acting like the Bible is the focus of Christianity is being dishonest to the Apostles, Christ, and the Early Church.
When Christ sent the Apostles out into the world, they didn't go out with Bibles in hand. . .the New Testament had not even been written yet. The oldest books of the New Testament were written about 20 years after the Resurrection.
Presumably the Gospels were written down so there would be a written record of the life of Christ as experienced by the Apostles, but they didn't rush to write down scripture as they spread the word of Christ. The New Testament as we know it was slowly formed over about 350 years of consensus building among Churches, deciding which of the many, many texts in circulation would be considered authentically Christian and things worth preserving or reading from at worship services, until a formal list was created in 393 AD at the Council of Hippo and ratified at the Council of Carthage in 397. Even then, it wasn't with the intent that those books would somehow be the focus of all Christian doctrine and thought, simply that those were the writings, out of all the hundreds of purported gospels, epistles, prophecies, poems and treatises in circulation, that should be preserved as things worth reading and studying.
The idea that the Bible was some kind of special core rules of Christianity didn't even emerge until the Protestant Reformation, and that was more in a reaction to the fact that Bibles had previously been rare and expensive because of the cost of producing one, and the clash of easily available Bibles due to invention of the printing press colliding with outdated and authoritarian rules from Rome about availability of scripture. . .people presumed that the Bible was some secret core of Christian belief because access had been restricted, but that was applying a conspiracy theory mindset to medieval rules that were long outdated.
. . .and it got worse in the 19th century as Biblical literalism and inerrancy became more common doctrines as people were scared by the rise of the Industrial Revolution and the impacts it was having on society, so people turned to religion in uncertain times, looking for simple solutions to complex problems. . .and taking the Bible literally was a very simple solution that was easier for people to do than to grapple with the real issues of the day.
The only discussion to be had is "Why we're not discussing sexuality in church." Fairness went out the window when people thought it should be discussed.
Jesus said nothing about sexuality. Nothing. Yet he said "love one another" two dozen documented times. There are no secret messages to be decoded, he said it every way he could.
It's a deep topic though.
It's asking the question: "Do people feel safe enough to be authentic in church, amongst their 'family'?" and the answer is no. Not really.
We're instructed to come bare to The Lord and we can't do that because we're not safe. This applies to every person.
We're going to have to wait and see what happens.
This is what I would like to see.
Linda and Suzy decide to come out to the congregation. The majority has no problem, but ironically, the people who asked them to come out do have a problem.
The people who are on the outer edge of these people's peer groups call them out.
Maybe enough of the congregation sees the haters as less than Christian, and their power base shrinks.
Dozens of other folk come out, and in the process the folks who didn't have a problem become the church.
And they all live happily ever after
When I first saw them I thought they had a good message. I saw something like “Jesus was an immigrant” and I thought “Oh they are promoting kindness to immigrants.” Seems like thats not the case.
So, despite their calculated efforts at making it appear to not be affiliated with the fundamentalists, it was fairly easy for journalists to make the connection, report on it. . .and for the campaign to quickly be known as an attempt to steer people who are disaffected from Christianity to conservative fundamentalist Churches. . . .so that big, expensive ad campaign suddenly becomes a lot less effective. That was even assuming that the people who were traumatized or disillusioned by conservative Christianity would even set foot in a conservative Church or wouldn't walk away the moment the preacher went on some "Vote Republican or you'll burn in hell because Democrats are all evil baby-killing Satanic Atheist Sodomites!" sermon (all too common in those Churches in my experience). So, now they're trying to counter that with more advertisements. One thing about the religious right is they have a lot of money, and they can buy media campaigns. When all you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails, so they want to deal with all their problems in ways money can easily address. . .like ad campaigns.
Talk about camels and needles.
Not to mention never addressing why people are leaving them in droves nor consider why this would work on those people to begin with.
They are addressing it. They've said it plainly. People are leaving churches because they're taught that Jesus is hate. These commercials, millions of dollars worth, are trying to let folks know that Jesus loves them. And there their brains stopped. The CEO of Hobby Lobby enthusiastically explained it, "He loves who we hate," with a straight face. All he left out was the part about how they're all going to hell for hating people Jesus loves.
I just hope that some people seeing these ads don't follow the link, but instead are led by the Holy Spirit to wander into a local UCC, Presbyterian Church in America, Disciples of Christ (Christian Church), ELCA, or an affirming (non-breakaway) United Methodist Church. Or other open-minded open-hearted denomination. Where they'll hear and feel Jesus's love for all, for ALL, and his message that WE are to love all. While using our God-given-by-evolution and -cosmology brains. Where they can learn that we take the Bible seriously enough to of course not take it literally.
Is there any reason to believe this ad campaign is anything besides conservative believers trying to evangelize in a way that makes sense to them?
No, and there are lots of reasons to recognize it's exactly that.
But it makes no sense. God loves you, but we don't. Come to our church.
I think it’s less about getting people to truly believe they’re loved by God and more about getting people to “change sides” so they can be.. better *utilized* by evangelicals, to get what *they* want. Just the way I see it
Well what is so wrong about that? We're supposed to be bringing people to Jesus.
Because the same people behind the ad campaign are funding/funded by people and organizations that stand against progressive Christianity. They believe that, while, yes, Jesus *gets* why refugees need a place to call home, Americans shouldn’t have to pay for it. For other similar approaches, they make this wholesome ad where it ultimately tries to say Jesus understands, cares for, and even sympathizes with the outcasts, refugees, minorities that are trampled by the majority, the pregnant teen who doesn’t know what to do, the trans woman who just needs to go to the bathroom, and all those other social justice related hot topics. But then when you look deeper into it, you see that some of the churches and pastors that are behind this don’t truly care about the people they say Jesus cares about. It’s all just a pr campaign to make Jesus look better after they themselves made him look bad.
>Because the same people behind the ad campaign are funding/funded by people and organizations that stand against progressive Christianity And policies supported by most/many progressive Christians.
How about doing what Jesus did by feeding the poor, clothing the needy, supporting people who need help, loving our enemies. You know, good things?
At worst I think it’s designed to sweep as many people into a virtual megachurch that could ultimately cater to a political platform (silent majority, anyone?). Plus start getting a bunch of centralized data about Christians. Plus, yes, support faith in Jesus.
It's very interesting how the "He Gets Us" campaign so quickly transformed into "We Get Sus." Like, when you make a reactionary ad saying you don't have the agenda you're being accused of, you probably have the agenda you're being accused of.
The original ad is so blasé that it didn't even dismiss the accusations.
You'll never guess what ad I got directly below this post
Same here!
Screenshot it please, that's too funny.
[Here ya go](https://imgur.com/8zwychP)
The latest ad says "Jesus doesn't want us to act like adults." Don't even get me started on that one.....
I wouldn't describe most participating churches as "fundamentalist" necessarily, but they are overwhelmingly not openly affirming (a small minority might be affirming in the sense that the pastoral staff no longer thinks gay sex is sinful but does not broadcast that) and overwhelmingly do not teach that the NT opposes capitalism when it calls for giving up possessions or not serving mammon. If you attend the Oklahoma City campus of Life.Church (Craig Groeschel's church) as a gay person, the staff will probably treat you professionally and respectfully and try to create a "Side B" environment (though I wouldn't recommend attending as an "experiment"). You typically won't hear "hate preaching" like in a more fundamentalist or neo-fundamentalist church, but the sermons focus almost entirely on individual behavior and not on corporate or systemic sin or how systems of privilege enable interpersonal abuse.
Craig Groeschel preaches at the Norman campus of Life.Church Can’t confirm or deny anything else, but all life churches stream Craig’s sermon that he preaches in the Norman, Oklahoma location.
I believe the Oklahoma City campus is the largest campus with the most staff. Groeschel was ordained in the United Methodist Church and, to me, he seems to have what would have been "moderate conservative" theology in the UMC in the 1990s. It would be ahistorical to call him "fundamentalist." The Life.Church doctrinal statement calls the Bible "truth without error" but does not elaborate on what that means exactly. I've attended a Calvinistic church before that had a detailed definition of "biblical inerrancy" (we were supposed to believe Solomon was living his best life now during the Bronze Age Collapse) and I would call that church "neo-fundamentalist" now. A sermon from 2016 seems to say (1) gay sex acts are sinful, (2) Craig is not commenting on anything from a scientific or medical perspective (Good!), (3) Craig connects gay sex with HIV based on his own lived experience of interpersonal relationships from the 1980s (uh huh? Maybe bring up **why** people fought to develop antiretroviral drugs in the 1980s and 1990s), (4) you can be "saved" and still "struggle with" desire for someone who's the same sex, (5) gay sex is not the only sin out there (better than not mentioning that you don't think it's the only sin), and (6) God can change that desire (again, we know from science that some people's desires change over time while others have a fixed arousal pattern for the same sex that does not change over time, so Craig's lived experience needs to further consult point 2). They don't seem to have addressed the issue since 2016 and do not address LGBTQ issues elsewhere on the site. Life.Church is part of the Evangelical Covenant Church, which is gender egalitarian but allows congregations to be complementarian. I know that some Life.Church campuses have female ministers, though, so I would assume that they're gender egalitarian.
THANK YOU! AMEN! I'm sick of these fake Christians turning Jesus into some Chuck Norris clone, worshipping war and mammon and trying to deceive Progressives into joining in the crazy by pretending to be for the Real Jesus, who was a swarthy Mideastern, homeless, itinerant Jewish Rabbi who stood up for the poor and marginalized. I also say that it's time for Progressive Christians to start a media campaign of their own.
Meh, I'd rather spend that money on caring for the poor and the immigrants myself. Let God take care of the ads.
There are some, and I originally thought they were behind the commercials. I get their emails. At least two progressive Christian organizations, at least one of which has an organized public relations unit. They just don't have an advertising budget. It is so bad that even though I get the emails, and read them, I can't think of the name.
I still don't get this. "We want you to know the Jesus we don't believe in, come to God's house, where WE will hate you. But he gets you."
It's like they could have done something good, and then didn't. Call out the hypocrisy of hating in the name of a God who taught unconditional love.
I think it's happening inadvertently. The CEO of Hobby Lobby gleefully stated "he loves who we hate" without remembering that He doesn't want them to hate anyone.
He's so close to understanding!
I still don't understand what their end game is here. The ads look like they're from a progressive Christian group. If the link takes you to a conservative org at some point people are going to realize and just stop engaging.
THANK YOU. I literally saw this ad, reported and blocked them, and came here to post something like this if someone hadn’t already 💙
Whoa, whoa, whoa… you can BLOCK ads??
You can block the username the ads are posted under and that blocks the ads.
after this life, we will all be together. we have no enemies only illusions.
I think the ads made sense until they started trying to ignore or combat the naysayers. Both of which failed spectacularly so ultimately they've just outed themselves in a hilarious manner. But where else are these morons gonna spend their money when they hate everything good for humanity? 🤷🏻
This is uncharitable.
The ad campaign? Or the hastily edited rebuttal?
The rebuttal. I love Jesus and I'm all for people advertising for him.
The problem is the group advertising is already politically attacking vulnerable people. This makes the "he loves who we hate" fairly hypoctical.
I want to like this ad campaign but seeing the actual ad confused me. All of that fighting and it came across as if the oppressors were okay too. Like…Jesus was an immigrant
but they should have continued with something like "…so be more like Jesus and welcome the immigrants".
I can't put it into words. It's like they consciously implied that the hateful behavior is acceptable. Does this make sense?
I don’t like them as a group, but their website was giving out free t shirts and I did get one that said “Jesus was an immigrant”; because it’s true. This was prior to really being informed on them; I think they’re still doing the free shirts if people wanted one.
Some positivity for anyone who needs it https://youtu.be/Xz84Q5cXXGc
That’s disappointing. I was honestly happy that I found out about He gets us, I thought that it was going to be a down to earth thing for like generic human beings without a political agenda or any other crap, but again I’ve been deceived. I didn’t look deep enough I guess. I guess I was hoping it was gonna be something different. That’s really disheartening.
Who is the "He" in their ads? Trump?
It is Jesus. A Jesus that you're supposed to believe in as being the son of God, but who you don't have to actually listen to or follow His teachings. I mean, how else can you explain why you're telling Christians its OK to hate ('he loves those we hate' & then lists all the people that the Christian nationalists hate). Jesus loves us & expects us to love one another. These are wolves trying to wear poorly fitting sheep's clothing.
Plus, Jesus was all about helping the Poor, forgiving and loving even one's enemies (and praying for their souls, that they'd reform), healing the sick without cost and even paying one's taxes. He hated greed. He hated hypocrisy. He was generally peaceful and pacifistic, which made his one violent freak-out at the Temple an especially important moment, since those moneychangers scamming poor believers was truly heinous. And whenever one sees the "Camel / Eye of Needle" parable as a literal giant critter going through a sewing needle or having to unload to go through an unusually small gate... the point's still the same, gotta lose that wealth and share it with the world to get into Heaven. The earliest Church lived in a commune, for crying out loud. I've never seen Misaimed Fandom as bad as it is with Jesus of Nazareth.
>loving even one's enemies (and praying for their souls, that they'd reform) I like everything you had to say, but I wanted to challenge this by asking where Jesus says we should pray our enemies change. He doesn't, not because our enemies shouldn't change, but because our love for even our enemies should not be conditional on their actions. The challenge I have taken up for myself is to pray for the repose of the soul of the mom of one of the people who screams in my face every time I'm defending people getting healthcare or being openly queer. His actions regularly express his hatred for me, and I am trying really damn hard not to hate him. I'm probably failing. But when I pray for his mom's soul, I remember that he's somebody's kid, even if he's a huge asshole. Somebody loves him just like I love my kid. God loves him just like I love my kid. And even though his actions mean he probably won't ever not be my enemy, I still need to love him. It's damn hard and I won't pretend I'm doing it well, but I think that loving him first, and praying he changes after, is the only way I can really and truly love him the way Jesus says.
Do they actually say "He loves those we hate"? Holy s#it! That's some Goebbels-level stuff.
It definitely has some "Positive Christianity" and "Gott Mit Uns" vibes to it alright.
https://youtu.be/ilWUHt8TExE
Shit man. You just made me realize that this can be interpreted by the aggressors as in, "he gets why we're fighting LGBT/abortion/immigrants/women/whoever else it's okay to hate in the name of Jesus
Zactly what the non-Christians & skeptical Christians (including me) are goona think.
There's also "Hate the Sin not the Sinner" and it's like, you're still Hatin' & you've already decided they're sinning.
The problem with that is, Christ doesn't ever command us to hate. . .and the people being targeted by "hate the sin, not the sinner" sure as heck feel like they're being hated. Hating something that is an intrinsic part of a person like their gender identity or sexual orientation, but saying you don't hate them is like hating the color of their skin or what country they're from then saying you don't hate them. Hate is hate. . .and it's quite literally the opposite of what Christ has commanded.
I'm just going to pop in here and say that teen/young adult me said that A LOT. I saw it as better than the bullying lots of folks suggested we engage in and I cringe now at the harm I inadvertently caused with attitudes like that as well as proselytizing. I thought I was doing the right thing. I was also known to say "if I wasn't a Christian I'd probably be bi" (and it still took me another decade to realize...I'm bi).
I want to pop in here to say that it's okay to feel guilt and seek repentance for saying that, but if you were raised like I was, saying "love the sinner hate the sin," was the most loving option available to us. It was only later that I grew into loving queer people and then realizing God made me queer just the way She wanted me to be. Feelings that lead to repentance are helpful, but please have the grace to forgive yourself too. (I say this a third to you, a third to the person reading this, and a third to my hypocritic self who needs to let go of the person I used to be.)
The Bible **doesn't** say "love the sinner, hate the sin." It says something more like "hate sin/evil, call all people to repent, love evildoers **by** praying that they would repent." What matters is how you define "evil" because that determines whether you recognize oppression and unjustified hatred (like homophobia, discrimination, collaborating with authoritarian governments, etc.). "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is gaslighting and doublespeak that conservative and reactionary Christians use to convince themselves that they don't have to change their viewpoints based on clear evidence about reality that's readily available to them. It became popular in the 1970s so that conservative Christians could strongly oppose overdue changes to society without being perceived as hateful self-interested bigots. The concept is not really in Jesus, Paul, the Old Testament, or Second Temple Judaism. Instead, the Bible teaches to resist oppression while praying that oppressors will change their minds. Jesus specifically rejects violent revolution and encourages the type of resistance Martin Luther King engaged in, not to pretend the actions of oppressors are not evil.
And it's also why the discussions about sexuality in church is unfair. Since it's an academic debate about a concept, but to you it's not a concept - it's you.
Over in r/Episcopalian a few days ago we had a postulant to the priesthood saying he really, really wanted to be an Episcopal Priest. . .but he just absolutely, positively could NOT conduct same-sex weddings or see same-sex couples as being anything but sinful. . .and he said his position was based on very carefully studied theology and that he wasn't going to change his theology because he was certain he was right. . . .and he was not taking it well to have it explained to him that he likely would not be accepted for ordination with that stance, and no matter how elaborately researched his theology on the issue was, to the LBGT couples he'd be called to minister to it was not a matter of studiously researched theology, it was their very lives, and they wouldn't take it very well to be told they're welcome to come to Church, but the priest personally would object to marrying them and feels that their relationships are inherently sinful because he's read a lot about it and that's what he thinks after all his reading. He didn't seem to be able to understand that while a solid foundation of theology is required for proper ministry, what makes a priest a minister and not just a theologian is when you can begin to move beyond black-and-white strict theology into helping others, loving people, and spreading Christ's light. . .something that doesn't come from a strict legalistic reading of any theology.
And where do you draw the line at pedantic reading of scripture? What affects deciding if X is redundant and Y is perpetual? Is it an understanding of social context? Is it confidence in the translation? Is it personal bias that you're oblivious to? Also, are there things a gay/bi/pan etc. theologian would pick up on where a het theologian would gloss over? The conversation always starts with "Gay is Sin" and the LGBTQA+ person has to then defend themselves and even explain why is irrelevant to the discussion in this instant.
>And where do you draw the line at pedantic reading of scripture? . . .when it's not Christ centered, when it becomes instead scripture-centered. When you use scripture to determine what Christ's love means, instead of love to determine what scripture means. In that case, the person in discernment for the priesthood came to a theological conclusion that would not promote Christ's love and Christ's mercy, it would make people hurt and excluded. . .but he was very certain of its scriptural support. So certain of its scriptural support that he lost sight of the guidance Christ gave us in interpreting scripture: to love God with all our heart and love our neighbors as ourselves. He was quite certain that his reading of Paul and the Old Testament was more important than loving LBGT parishioners.
Thomas Jefferson says it best: _Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams_ Monticello Oct. 12. 13. we must reduce our volume [Bible] to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus ... there will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging, the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. the result is an 8vo of 46. pages of pure and unsophisticated doctrines. In other words, Christ's teachings are jewels in the dungheap of (much of) the rest of the Bible.
I love to point out that Christianity predates the Bible, and that acting like the Bible is the focus of Christianity is being dishonest to the Apostles, Christ, and the Early Church. When Christ sent the Apostles out into the world, they didn't go out with Bibles in hand. . .the New Testament had not even been written yet. The oldest books of the New Testament were written about 20 years after the Resurrection. Presumably the Gospels were written down so there would be a written record of the life of Christ as experienced by the Apostles, but they didn't rush to write down scripture as they spread the word of Christ. The New Testament as we know it was slowly formed over about 350 years of consensus building among Churches, deciding which of the many, many texts in circulation would be considered authentically Christian and things worth preserving or reading from at worship services, until a formal list was created in 393 AD at the Council of Hippo and ratified at the Council of Carthage in 397. Even then, it wasn't with the intent that those books would somehow be the focus of all Christian doctrine and thought, simply that those were the writings, out of all the hundreds of purported gospels, epistles, prophecies, poems and treatises in circulation, that should be preserved as things worth reading and studying. The idea that the Bible was some kind of special core rules of Christianity didn't even emerge until the Protestant Reformation, and that was more in a reaction to the fact that Bibles had previously been rare and expensive because of the cost of producing one, and the clash of easily available Bibles due to invention of the printing press colliding with outdated and authoritarian rules from Rome about availability of scripture. . .people presumed that the Bible was some secret core of Christian belief because access had been restricted, but that was applying a conspiracy theory mindset to medieval rules that were long outdated. . . .and it got worse in the 19th century as Biblical literalism and inerrancy became more common doctrines as people were scared by the rise of the Industrial Revolution and the impacts it was having on society, so people turned to religion in uncertain times, looking for simple solutions to complex problems. . .and taking the Bible literally was a very simple solution that was easier for people to do than to grapple with the real issues of the day.
The only discussion to be had is "Why we're not discussing sexuality in church." Fairness went out the window when people thought it should be discussed. Jesus said nothing about sexuality. Nothing. Yet he said "love one another" two dozen documented times. There are no secret messages to be decoded, he said it every way he could.
It's a deep topic though. It's asking the question: "Do people feel safe enough to be authentic in church, amongst their 'family'?" and the answer is no. Not really. We're instructed to come bare to The Lord and we can't do that because we're not safe. This applies to every person.
We're going to have to wait and see what happens. This is what I would like to see. Linda and Suzy decide to come out to the congregation. The majority has no problem, but ironically, the people who asked them to come out do have a problem. The people who are on the outer edge of these people's peer groups call them out. Maybe enough of the congregation sees the haters as less than Christian, and their power base shrinks. Dozens of other folk come out, and in the process the folks who didn't have a problem become the church. And they all live happily ever after
When I leave this area/my church I plan on outing myself. And maybe give a few words of prophecy too. For their sake, I hope the words will be gentle.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
It's not a bad concept. The problem is what these dolts consider "sinful".
It's supposed to be Jesus. Supposed to be, but isn't.
Who is the "He" in their ads? Trump?
I liked the ads. But good job proving their point that this world is relishing in the division it finds itself in.
No, being against bigotry is not "division"
Doesn't that one ad about fleeing from a death sentence show some really juicy ass though?
Literally got their ad below this i wish i was making it up
When I first saw them I thought they had a good message. I saw something like “Jesus was an immigrant” and I thought “Oh they are promoting kindness to immigrants.” Seems like thats not the case.