CREEDE HINSHAW: Jesus has a new publicist

Jesus has a new publicist with $100 million to spend. And I have a new baseball cap, thanks to the publicity.

I wonder what Jesus would think about the latest effort to elevate his image. The man who had no place to lay his head and who depended on support from others is now the star of a $100,000,000 campaign. That’s a bunch of money.

The campaign, which I stumbled across by catching the last half of a black-and-white video about Jesus on a network television station, is theologically and professionally very well-done, with the tag line “He Gets Us.” This campaign will culminate with an ad during next year’s Super Bowl. I guess that’s the advertising equivalent of Mecca, to introduce a badly mixed-religion metaphor.

If you visit the “He Gets Us” website, you will discover, in addition to a number of thought-provoking videos, the sponsors offer free T-shirts, baseball caps, water bottles and stickers. You order just like on any other website. You fill out your address, etc., then send the order to your cart, where you learn your “payment” is that you pledge to read a chapter in the Bible, do a good deed, pray, or forgive somebody. I chose to forgive a person and now am wearing my free baseball cap that announces “Jesus was a Refugee.” I am getting closer (not there yet) to the forgiveness I promised.

A somewhat unsettling aspect of the campaign is that it is predicated, according to the sponsors (Luis Palau Association, National Association of Evangelicals and Christianity Today), on data indicating church people have given Jesus a very bad name. Between church cover-ups, scandals, power plays, so-called Christian nationalism and church hypocrisy, the surveys seem to indicate Jesus isn’t faring so well. The sponsors are not trying to recruit people to churches or convert people from other faiths, but merely to “raise the respect for and personal relevancy of Jesus.”

Maybe Jesus needs a publicist or maybe he doesn’t. The more I think about it, the less I believe that Jesus’ reputation needs rehabbing. He can take care of himself, and for that matter he never seemed concerned about what others thought about him.

On the whole, I suspect Jesus’ reputation is doing pretty well, thank you. I am not dissing this campaign: Any good-faith effort to tell Jesus’ story to a new generation will be rewarded. As for my baseball cap, it has already produced a couple of excellent conversations I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

I can’t help but wondering, however, if the $100 million could be better spent on elevating the image of the somewhat tarnished church: not the Methodist or Baptist or Catholic or Lutheran or Pentecostal version … just good old, generic church. Jesus’ reputation can take care of itself. The church, however, thanks to the above-mentioned list of sins, might profit from a little publicity help