(RNS)—Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, game day food and creative advertising—as well as those just in it for Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show—all were invited to think about Jesus Christ once again during the 2025 Super Bowl.
The “He Gets Us” ad campaign aired a new commercial during the first half of the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, marking the project’s third consecutive year of having a presence in the big game, with the hopes of spurring dialogue and curiosity about Jesus.
The ad featured a slideshow of images of people demonstrating love by serving each other while Johnny Cash’s 2002 rendition of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” played in the background.
The commercials, created by Dallas-based advertising agency Lerma, ends with the text “He Gets Us. All of Us.”
This year’s ad, titled “What is Greatness?”, invites the audience to explore “what Jesus showed and said greatness is and the contrast to how culture defines greatness today,” according to a press release from Come Near, the nonprofit startup that acquired the He Gets Us project in 2024.
“In a society struggling with division, loneliness and a crisis of meaning, Jesus’ life and teachings offer a countercultural path toward healing,” said Ken Calwell, CEO at Come Near.
On Super Bowl Sunday, the “He Gets Us” website was turned into a hub of content that highlight “stories of greatness” and offer self-paced resources to “rediscover or learn more about the person and teachings of Jesus.”
The “He Gets Us” project originally was overseen by the Servant Foundation, a Christian foundation that launched the project in 2022, with an initial effort of raising $100 million.
But by 2023—when those first Super Bowl ads premiered—the branding firm Haven had taken over the project, and its president told RNS at the time that “the goal is to invest about a billion dollars over the next three years.”
In the three years since “He Gets Us” launched, the advertising campaign has shown up on everything from buses, to billboards, to YouTube channels. The ads have sometimes focused on personal messaging (“Jesus Wept Too”) but also have veered more political (“Jesus was a refugee”).
Campaign has drawn some criticism
The campaign’s thematic focus in the 2024 Super Bowl drew backlash from both sides of the aisle. The images all centered on a foot washing—in one, an abortion protester washes the foot of a young woman outside a “Family Planning Clinic,” in another a police officer washes the feet of a young Black man—all seeming to highlight people you might see as on “opposite sides.”
More progressive critics accused the ads of offering visuals of “white saviorism,” while conservative critics describe the ads as too “woke.”
The ads have garnered questions over the years about who is behind the funding. In late 2022, David Green, the co-founder and CEO of the craft store chain Hobby Lobby and a major funder for The Museum of the Bible, told talk show host Glenn Beck he was a major contributor.
As he told Beck about the ads, “We are wanting to say—we being a lot of people—that he gets us. He understands us. He loves who we hate. I think we have to let the public know and create a movement.”
Hobby Lobby won a 2014 Supreme Court case arguing for a religious exemption to a law requiring employers to offer a health insurance plan that pays for contraception. Additionally, the Servant Foundation had ties to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization that helped overturn Roe v. Wade and has represented clients challenging same-sex marriage and transgender rights, according to The Associated Press.
Nonprofit Come Near describes itself as an innovation studio creating “personally engaging stories and experiences that reveal the authentic Jesus.” Its board of directors includes Rob Hoskins, Nicole Martin, John Kim, Mart Green, Joey Sager and Gary Nelson, according to the nonprofit’s website.
He Gets Us is just one of Come Near’s projects to teach people about Jesus. The nonprofit also collaborated with Christian musician Jon Batiste, who sang the national anthem for the 2025 Super Bowl.
Come Near and Batiste hosted the Love Riot Festival the day before Super Bowl Sunday on the grounds of George Washington Carver High School in New Orleans and near the site of a future home sports field planned to serve 9th Ward high schools and middle schools.
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