The second, shorter ad, titled “Who Is My Neighbor?,” shows a series of people from different walks of life and answers the title’s question by stating, “The one you don’t notice, value, welcome,” again directing people to the He Gets Us website.
Regarding the purpose of the ads and the responses they have garnered, He Gets Us spokesperson Greg Miller told ChurchLeaders:
Our hope is to familiarize people with Jesus and show how he is not only relatable, but relevant to peoples’ lives today. For those who already follow him, we hope they will live out their faith even more authentically and exhibit the same confounding love and forgiveness. For those who might be skeptical, we hope they will ask questions and learn more about Jesus on their own terms.
When asked how many people have shown interest in Christianity and Jesus as a result of the ads, Miller said, “HeGetsUs.com had more than 715,000 website visits in the last 18 hours. People visiting the site were spending twice as long as the historical averages we have seen on the website exploring the story of Jesus through videos and articles.” Moreover, “Thousands of individuals took action to Read More via the reading plans available online or requested to be connected to a group through Alpha.”
Among the harshest critics of the ad showing the foot washing are those who saw it “heretical,” soft on sin, or displaying a liberal bias.
Andrew T. Walker, ethics and public theology professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the foot washing ad “framed evangelism with a leftward tinge, communicating the respectability of certain sins over others in our culture (although I’m not sure the ad even communicated that the respectable sins were sins at all).”
Joel Berry, managing editor of The Babylon Bee, perceived a bias in the ad based on those who were shown washing feet and those who were being served, claiming the ad’s creators “were strictly following oppressed v oppressor intersectionality guidelines.”
One pastor compared the ad to “Alister Begg‘s prodigal son sermon,” stating, “‘Love’ means affirming people destroying themselves and blaspheming God.” Some people criticized the ad for implying Jesus would have washed the feet of his enemies, saying that he only washed the feet of his disciples. One person took this position even while acknowledging that Jesus washed the feet of Judas, the disciple who betrayed him.
Others posted the hashtag #HeGetsUs along with images depicting biblical accounts of God’s judgment, such as the flood in the time of Noah.
Many Christians, however, supported the ads or at least expressed surprise that they should be controversial.
