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Spouting Thomas's avatar

Appreciate the willingness to reassess here, Aaron.

I can get behind the notion that evangelism (or pre-evangelism) aimed at the left may need to be unappealing to some of our sensibilities. But maybe a first test for this sort of evangelism is that it shouldn't just give secular leftists ammo to attack conservative Christians and further convince themselves that we're wrong about everything while they're right and already have it all figured out.

Maybe the "He Gets Us" market research dept. came up with different results, but I honestly think the idea is extremely widespread on the left that Jesus (if he existed) was just a really nice guy. The sort of guy who might just happen to wash your feet. E.g., there's something like this from this SNL bit from about a year ago: according to it, the authorities killed Jesus because of his "radical message of peace and love."

https://youtu.be/hj6E2_3nraQ?si=8YhXEj8BqTFR3GD2

It's rare that secular depictions of Jesus ever portray his wrath, portray him as crazy, ignorant, etc. He's almost always a really cool, chill teacher. If any actual words of his from the Bible are depicted, it's the preaching of the Beatitudes.

Under this view, practically every group in our society is nicer/more tolerant than conservative Christians and therefore more Christlike. So when "He Gets Us" reinforces this message, it just reinforces the idea that one doesn't actually need to engage with Christianity or the Bible. You'll be far more Christlike by following the current leftist moral fashions.

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SlowlyReading's avatar

Also, even bending over backwards to appease the powers that be isn't ever going to be enough -- a major flaw for the "engager strategy" in Negative World. Despite the herculean woke efforts of this campaign, they are still being "called out" for not being "inclusive" enough, i.e. failing to offer full-throated endorsement of the Rainbow Reich. Give it up, guys, they're going to hate you no matter what.

https://www.themarysue.com/he-gets-us-controversy-explained/

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/controversy-over-he-gets-us

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