People can hear the name Jesus and still feel like they are walking into someone else’s argument. One person associates it with a family tradition, another with a church they felt judged in, another with politics, another with pain. Even when the goal is simply to know him, the labels arrive first. They come from corners that are loud, selective, and sometimes cruel.
The Christian campaign He Gets Us has tried to interrupt that pattern. Its central invitation is straightforward: consider Jesus, his life, and his teachings, and ask why he matters today. That sounds simple enough, but simplicity can be hard to live through, because most people do not approach Jesus on a blank slate. They approach him with memories.
What makes He Gets Us notable, at least in the way it is publicly described, is that it positions itself as a way to reintroduce Jesus without anchoring the message to one political party, one denomination, or one religious brand. The campaign says it is led by a nonprofit called Come Near, Inc., and that He Gets Us, LLC is wholly owned and managed by Come Near, Inc. It also states that it is not affiliated with any single individual, political position, church, denomination, or faith viewpoint, though it is about Jesus and therefore connected to Christianity. That combination matters, because it helps explain why the campaign’s messaging can feel aimed at “outsiders” and also why it still becomes a point of debate.
To understand what it is trying to do, it helps to slow down and ask a gentler question than “Who is behind this campaign?” The question is, “What are they asking people to notice about Jesus?” Once you focus there, you can better separate the person of Jesus from the noise that sometimes surrounds how people talk about him.
Why labels can block the door
A label is supposed to save time. It lets you sort someone into a category quickly, so you do not have to think. In practice, labels often become shortcuts for fear.
I have seen this happen in small ways. A friend says they are curious about Christianity, and before they can finish the sentence, someone responds with a ready-made script about culture wars or moral rules. Another person admits they are wrestling with doubt, and the response turns into a debate about who is “allowed” to have questions. Even well-meaning believers can accidentally treat curiosity like rebellion.
And then there is the more subtle version: people do not always hear doctrine first. They hear volume. They hear the certainty of people who have never sat with grief. They hear the confidence of people who have never apologized. They hear a kind of righteousness that does not leave room for complexity.
When that happens, Jesus becomes less like a person and more like a symbol to defend or attack. That is precisely the problem if what you want is understanding.
He Gets Us began in 2021 as a response to loneliness, division, and anxiety, with an idea of sharing stories about Jesus in unexpected places to spark curiosity and conversation. That starting point is worth noting, because it signals a specific target: not arguments, but isolation. Not polemics, but curiosity. Not forced agreement, but conversation that can happen even when people are cautious.
Loneliness and anxiety are not abstract categories. They show up in households, workplaces, and friendships. People carry them the way they carry fatigue, quietly and persistently. If you are living with that kind of strain, you are unlikely to trust a message that feels like it demands you sign up for a fight.
So when a campaign says it is responding to loneliness and division, and when it emphasizes conversation, it is trying to create a different entry point. It is saying, “Before you take a side, meet Jesus.”
What He Gets Us says it’s about
According to the campaign’s publicly described aim, it is meant to reintroduce people to Jesus and highlight themes such as love, forgiveness, understanding, kindness, and service. Those themes are not random. They are the kinds of words that people tend to want when life is hard, and they are also the kinds of words that people sometimes feel are missing when Christianity gets reduced to slogans.
A key point is that He Gets Us says it is not affiliated with any single political position, church, denomination, or faith viewpoint. That does not mean the message is neutral about Jesus. It means the organization does not frame itself as a branch of a particular institution with a particular agenda. The campaign says it is connected to Christianity because it is about Jesus, but it does not claim to speak for one religious faction.
In practice, that approach can help some people feel safer. If you have been burned by certain religious communities, you can still wonder about Jesus without immediately feeling like you are being recruited into a specific crowd.
The campaign also says that it invites everyone to explore Jesus’ story, and that Jesus loves LGBTQ+ people. On the surface, that is a statement about Jesus, not about everyone’s politics. But it is also a clear signal to many people who have felt excluded in church settings. When a public message explicitly includes LGBTQ+ people, it can function like a hand held out across a gap you did not choose.
At the same time, it is impossible to ignore that He Gets Us has received criticism. Public reporting has described criticism partly focused on perceived tension between an inclusive public message and the backing of conservative causes by some financial supporters, including anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ efforts. When you operate in public life, money and messaging can collide in complicated ways. Even if a campaign says it is not affiliated with a political position, people still ask who is funding what, and why.
That tension does not mean every aspect of the message is invalid, and it does not mean every supporter’s values align with the campaign’s public tone. But it does mean the conversation around Jesus can get tangled fast.
If your goal is to understand Jesus without labels, the trick is not to pretend complexity does not exist. The trick is to separate what you are hearing about Jesus from what you are hearing about the institution delivering the message.
That is harder than it sounds, because people are not just listening to ideas. They are interpreting trust.
Jesus as a person, not a debate team
When people want to understand Jesus without all the labels, they are usually trying to get past three common obstacles.
First, they want to get past the assumption that Christianity is only about rules. Rules matter to many believers, and the moral seriousness of Jesus is a real part of Christian teaching. But in real human life, morality often shows up as compassion, and compassion often shows up as patience. If all you ever experience is judgment without mercy, you may never meet the Jesus people describe as gentle and present with others.
Second, they want to get past the assumption that Jesus is only a tool for winning arguments. Some people reduce faith to a weapon, something you hold up when you want to prove you are right. If you are already tired and anxious, that kind of faith feels exhausting. It asks you to spend your limited emotional energy on conflict.
Third, they want to get past the assumption that Jesus is only for people who are already “in.”
He Gets Us is trying to work against that third assumption by inviting curiosity and conversation, including in major cultural spaces. The campaign has been widely associated with Super Bowl advertising, with reporting that it ran Super Bowl ads in 2023 and 2024, and the campaign describes that it has brought Jesus into major cultural spaces. That is a strategic choice, whether you love it or hate it. Public attention forces people https://hegetsus.com/ to encounter Jesus even if they are not seeking him out.
From a practical standpoint, it also means the message has to be portable. It has to work in a glance. It has to create enough interest to carry people into a longer conversation later.
And that is where themes like love, forgiveness, understanding, kindness, and service come in. They are not as easily dismissed as politics slogans, because they point toward how a person might live.
How to “meet Jesus” when you are skeptical
A lot of people approach Jesus with skepticism that is not just intellectual. It is emotional. You might distrust institutions. You might distrust claims of certainty. You might distrust anyone who asks you to “just believe” without acknowledging your pain.
If you want to move toward understanding anyway, you need a method that can hold both skepticism and openness.
Here is what that tends to look like in real conversations.
You start by listening for what Jesus is like, not only what Christians say they should do. People often quote teachings without giving the personality behind the teachings. But Jesus, as Christians describe him, is not merely a set of instructions. He is portrayed as someone who sees people, notices the ignored, and responds with mercy rather than humiliation.
You also pay attention to how messages talk about forgiveness. Forgiveness is often used as a slogan, something to demand of others. But in life, forgiveness means boundaries plus healing. It means refusing revenge while also refusing to pretend harm did not happen.
You then notice whether kindness is treated as performative or costly. Real kindness usually costs time, attention, and sometimes pride. It is easy to say “be kind.” It is harder to be kind when someone has made your life harder.
If a campaign invites you to explore Jesus’ story, you can test the invitation by asking what kind of fruit it points toward: love expressed in ways that lower cruelty, understanding that does not excuse wrongdoing, service that helps without controlling.
The campaign’s emphasis on those themes gives it a kind of internal compass. It is not asking you to accept a label. It is asking you to consider a pattern of life.
Still, skepticism remains reasonable. Sometimes public messages feel curated, and sometimes curated messages hide more than they reveal. That is not a reason to reject everything immediately, but it is a reason to slow down and watch for inconsistencies.
He Gets Us itself also publishes resources. It describes publishing articles and resources focused on Jesus and topics like relationships, bias, mental health, and hospitality. Those topics are not “side quests.” They touch daily life. If Jesus is real to you, he should be real in the messy parts of living, the places where people struggle to be decent.
The trade-offs of going mainstream
Using major cultural spaces, like Super Bowl advertising, is a high-visibility move. It puts Jesus into environments where most people are not preparing to think theologically. Some people experience that as refreshing. Others experience it as intrusive or commercial.
Both reactions can be understandable.
If you are someone who has longed for spiritual conversation but feels shut out, seeing Jesus in mainstream media can be like catching a signal on a distant radio. It tells you the subject is not trapped in a particular building or group.
But if you are someone who already feels overwhelmed by advertising, political messaging, or religious marketing, the same visibility can feel like another sales pitch. And if you then learn that some financial supporters have backed conservative causes that include anti-LGBTQ+ efforts, the feeling can sharpen into distrust.
So the trade-off is this: mainstream visibility can create access, but it also creates scrutiny. The moment your message enters public culture, it becomes part of culture’s arguments.
That is not unique to He Gets Us. Any religious message in public life eventually gets interpreted through social fault lines. The difference is that Jesus is too big a subject to stay in a narrow channel. He is about how people treat each other, and how you treat people is never just one issue.
When critics point to tension between an inclusive public message and some supporters’ conservative backing, they are basically saying, “Your words and your ecosystem do not match.” When defenders respond, they might say, “The message is about Jesus, and Jesus’ story includes mercy for people who have been rejected.”
The tension is real. The question for readers becomes: can you evaluate the invitation on its own terms, while still acknowledging the messy reality of who pays for public messaging?
If your goal is understanding Jesus without labels, that kind of discernment is part of the journey.
What it can look like to explore without committing to a label
A person does not have to join a specific church to explore Jesus. They can start by reading, reflecting, and talking with people who genuinely treat curiosity with respect.
But “explore” does not mean “pretend you do not care.” Exploring often involves moral seriousness. You might begin with a question like, “Why do people keep returning to this Jesus story?” Then you might notice the themes that keep surfacing: love, forgiveness, understanding, kindness, service.
What helps is to treat those themes as a lens, not as a badge. You can apply them to your own life. You can ask where you have been unkind, where you have been unforgiving, where you have misunderstood someone you did not take the time to know.
That kind of self-examination is not a label. It is personal.
When someone feels labeled, they often stop asking questions. They become defensive. They stop listening. They start protecting a public identity.
When someone feels invited, they often slow down. They start to listen for nuance.
If you want a practical way to approach that kind of exploration, consider a short set of questions. Not as a checklist you perform, but as a way to keep the conversation human.
- What does this message suggest about Jesus’ character, not just my obligations? Does it emphasize kindness and understanding, or does it try to provoke hostility? Does it make room for people to explore, including those who feel excluded? Does it connect Jesus to daily life, like relationships and mental health? What changes in you when you consider the story, even if you disagree at first?
You do not need perfect answers. You need honest attention.
The part many people miss: curiosity is spiritual work
It is tempting to think that understanding Jesus requires immediate certainty. Some church cultures create that pressure, but it does not fit the lived experience of most people.
Curiosity grows slowly. It often starts with a moment of discomfort, then a moment of relief, then a moment of deeper questions.
For some people, the trigger is loneliness. He Gets Us says it began as a response to loneliness, division, and anxiety. If you have ever sat alone with your thoughts, you know how quickly division can start inside your own head. You begin to imagine that no one understands you. You begin to assume your pain makes you abnormal. You begin to hoard your questions.
In that state, a public invitation that says “Jesus” can function like permission to breathe. Not permission to ignore your doubts, but permission to consider that there might be a compassionate center.
For others, the trigger is division. Division can be ideological, yes, but it is also interpersonal. It shows up as a refusal to listen, an eagerness to interpret motives, an urge to win rather than to understand.
A campaign that emphasizes understanding and kindness is aiming directly at that pattern. It is not only trying to change beliefs. It is trying to change the atmosphere in which belief is formed.
For still others, the trigger is anxiety. Anxiety does not respond well to harshness. It responds better to steadiness, to reminders that you are seen and not condemned.
If He Gets Us is inviting people to consider Jesus with themes like love and forgiveness, it is offering the kind of emotional tone that can help anxiety loosen its grip.
That does not solve every problem. Real people still struggle with real mental health needs, relationships that fracture, grief that will not be postponed. But it can be a starting point that keeps people from slamming the door before the conversation begins.
When “inclusive” still needs accountability
Because He Gets Us is public and because it is connected to Christianity, discussions about it inevitably surface ethical questions.
The campaign says Jesus loves LGBTQ+ people and that everyone is welcome to explore Jesus’ story. That is a meaningful claim, and it can provide comfort to people who have been harmed by exclusion.
But the criticism reported publicly includes concerns about perceived tension between inclusive messaging and some financial supporters’ backing of conservative causes, including anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ efforts. Those are not small details. They affect trust.
So how do you hold both realities without falling into cynicism?
One approach is to treat the Jesus message as primary, while still insisting that accountability matters. If you discover a gap between the stated invitation and the actions of some associated parties, you can ask what that means. You can decide how much weight to give it in your decision to engage. You do not have to pretend the gap does not exist, but you also do not have to let it erase the possibility that Jesus’ story contains a genuine invitation to compassion.
This is where labels become tempting again. People either decide it is all authentic or all hypocritical. Both decisions can spare you the work of thinking, but both can also block real discernment.
A more grounded path is to stay anchored to the themes the campaign says it highlights, while recognizing that real life involves imperfect human actors and imperfect institutions. You can still say, “I am interested in Jesus,” while also saying, “I want integrity where it matters.”
Bringing it home: what “he gets us” can mean in everyday life
The phrase “he gets us” captures a desire that many people share, even if they do not share Christianity. People want to be understood without being reduced.
When Jesus is presented through themes like understanding and kindness, that desire is being addressed. When Jesus is presented through forgiveness, it speaks to the longing to be healed rather than shamed. When Jesus is presented through service, it speaks to the longing to matter beyond yourself.
He Gets Us, as described, began as a response to loneliness and division, and it continues to invite conversation by bringing Jesus into cultural spaces. Whether someone finds that approach compelling or uncomfortable, it is an attempt to move Jesus back toward the center of human experience: love for the lonely, mercy for the harmed, understanding for the misunderstood, service for the person who is tired of only being a spectator.
Understanding Jesus without all the labels is not the same as agreeing with everything. It is the willingness to let Jesus be more than a trigger for whatever arguments you have inherited.
You can be cautious. You can ask hard questions. You can notice tensions. And still, you can choose to explore the story.
If Jesus is truly who Christians say he is, then the point of coming to him is not to wear a label. The point is to be remade at the level of love.
And that kind of change, even when it begins with curiosity, is rarely quick. It is usually quiet. It is usually inconvenient. It often starts when you stop treating Jesus as a slogan and start relating to him as a person, the one who, in his own way, meets people right where they are.