Jesus has taken some bad press and is apparently in need of a branding makeover. Thus we have all been subjected to the "Jesus gets us" marketing campaign. (It attracted widespread media attention around the Super Bowl, but the ads had been around for months before that.) There's a problem, of course: The evangelicals behind this campaign do not seem to understand even the most basic elements of getting Jesus. It turns out that the evangelical leadership's warm embrace of Donald Trump was a bad idea, in terms of turning people toward the Christian faith. I'm sorry to say that I think the current "brand identity" of American Christianity looks a lot like Trump wrapped in the flag, with a semiautomatic rifle in one hand and the Bible (which he hasn't read) in the other. America is certainly becoming less and less a "Christian nation," and many evangelical Christians are panicking, believing certainly feel they are losing the cultural and political war for the soul of America. They're right about that, frankly, and what's more they deserve to lose.
Decade after decade, fewer people in America attend church. Indeed, Americans reject the label of "Christian" more now than ever before in this nation's history. Yet during exactly the same time period over the past few decades, the evangelical church became increasingly louder in the areas of culture and politics. But evangelicals haven't figured out that the louder they get, the more people run away from the church. This new advertising campaign that culminated during the Super Bowl won't bring them back to church.
