Ok ok. So I broke down and watched some of those “He Gets Us” videos even though I promised myself for an entire day that I could not possibly find time for the latest thing, I’m just not that sort of person. Turns out I can, no matter how busy I am, find time for whatever the internet tells me to have time for.
I haven’t watched or read any of the commentary or anything but, after a quick five-minute meandering, I do have a few thoughts. But first, if you haven’t seen any of them, here is one:
And here is another:
And finally:
Because I am racing along, I will limit myself to two good things and two bad ones. First, honestly, I love the short pithy gray-scale aesthetic. It is actually true that God’s word is relevant to any and every culture. That’s litteraleigh what sharing the gospel and translating the scriptures is about. You have to keep doing it because cultures and languages shift and change and you encounter new situations. This isn’t staid 1950s America. This is a post-Christian world where ordinary people do not have the slightest idea what the Bible is about or who Jesus is. Therefore, these sorts of projects have to be undertaken. The story has to be told and people have to be invited to consider for themselves who Jesus might be.
Second, I like the attempt to take Biblical images that are used for Jesus and the stories he tells in the Gospels and relate them to a very broken world. Jesus is the Physician. He did tell stories about dinner parties. His mother was a very young woman. And so on and so forth. The whole point of parables is that they are easily graspable images that Jesus used to say something about himself. So what the people behind this project are doing is the thing they should be doing, especially using pictures and images and accents that are current with most people today.
Ok, first bad thing–clearly they don’t want to mention that Jesus is God and has real power. I mean, the reason that “He gets us” is that he made us. So, maybe this seems like a quibble, but I really don’t like Jesus options where Jesus is super helpless but just loves and loves and so should you. I think people who followed this brand of Jesus would find themselves still doing a lot of work and not depending on him which is the only way to actually be healed.
Second, this seems to be on its way to “Jesus died because he just loved too much.” I’m not sure if that’s where they’re going to go, but it seems like it. The people who didn’t come to Jesus’ dinner parties will actually be thrown into outer darkness forever, because they are rejecting him. Like, either you worship Jesus or you don’t, that’s your option. These little clips seem like they could be confused and think that Jesus is so in love with you that he could worship you and not the other way around. Is Jesus only a human? No, he is also fully God and so rejecting him means rejecting God. That is the context in which something like “love” needs to be framed.
Apparently, some are saying that loving The Chosen will naturally lead you to love “He Gets Us.” And remember! You have to choose between The Chosen and the Bible! All people who love The Chosen are obviously not reading their Bibles and vice versa. To which I would like to point out, it’s possible to both read the Bible and watch The Chosen and compare the two, and wherever there is a disagreement, obviously the Bible should always win out. And the same can be said about “He Gets Us.” You’re going to have to watch them and see how they measure up. So far, I’m going with “meh.” But maybe one will come along where Jesus turns out to actually be God.
Gosh, I said I would only have four thoughts and here’s the sixth one–Jesus does “get us,” as I said. That’s because he was there before the foundation of the world and in him all things hold together. He is God from God, Light from Light, Very God of Very God. He became incarnate so that he could pull us out of our darkness and despair. “He Gets Us” so far is doing really good on the darkness and despair part. If they don’t turn their gaze upon Jesus and look full in his wonderful face, they are very much wasting their time.
So anyway, hope they pull it together! Will be watching with interest to see how it turns out! Hope you have a nice day!
