CV NEWS FEED // The controversial “He Gets Us” Super Bowl ad this year both succeeded and failed at evangelizing, according to a Catholic Answers expert.
The sixty-second ad has faced significant backlash from conservative Christians, who argue that several of the politically-charged depictions of washing feet are condoning LGBTQ lifestyles, abortion, and immorality.
Catholic Answers expert Todd Aglialoro wrote that while he understands the criticisms of the ad, the value of the ad is still up for debate.
“The Gospel example of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet should not be appropriated for another context without extreme care, and it’s certainly debatable whether invoking modern politics and culture wars constitutes such care,” he wrote. “It’s also debatable whether the ad is communicating opinions on some of those issues that are contrary to Catholic teaching or right reason.”
“But I’m noticing a deeper vein of debate dividing Christians: over the question of whether this approach is evangelically fruitful,” he continued.
Aglialoro said that Christians tend to be divided into two camps. Some say that the message is too “soft,” too much “consolation and no conversion,” not enough substance. Others say that an empathetic and welcoming message is all that some people can hear at first, “a necessary first baby step on the road to discipleship,” according to Aglialoro.
He added that the current debate is similar to the one produced by Fiducia Supplicans, the Vatican’s controversial December statement that opened the door to blessing same-sex couples.
“One side saw it as a capitulation that will have the effect of confirming people in their sin; the other, as a gentle invitation to begin hearing the promptings of the Spirit,” Aglialoro wrote.
Aglialoro concluded that evangelization is a “balancing act.”
“[Evangelism needs] to challenge but not repel; to sympathize but not enable, to convict but not pronounce judgment,” Aglialoro wrote. “I think the ‘He Gets Us’ spot, whatever else may be said of its methods, its enormous cost, its underlying theology, and so on, both succeeds and fails at achieving that balance.”
