The "He Gets Us" Super Bowl Ads Brought Back Bad Memories

How the Christian "seeker" movement can cause serious harm

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Almost twenty years ago, in early 2005, I tagged along with a boyfriend to a Presbyterian church service on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I assumed it was a mainline Protestant Church, and didn’t bother to get any further information because I honestly didn’t care. I was a lapsed Episcopalian and depending on which day you asked me, agnostic or atheist. I was just going to church to please my boyfriend.

Long story short, it was an evangelical church that sought to be “seeker friendly.” They led with the good stuff: Jesus was an immigrant; a radical when it came to treating women equally and a champion of the downtrodden. It was an intellectually stimulating format, including sermons that were laced with poetry, art references, philosophy and pop culture. I was intrigued, to say the least.

I was also vulnerable. A year earlier, my …