The Offense of the Cross

The Hallow app has quickly become one of the most successful prayer apps in the country—and not just for Catholics. It was the first faith-based app to crack the overall top 10; it boasts over 10,000 audio meditations, Scripture readings, and music options; and it has not only secured partnerships with major players like Bishop Robert Barron and Fr. Mike Schmitz, but also heavy-hitters of the big and small screens like Mark Wahlberg and Jonathan Roumie.

When Hallow produced a thirty-second ad featuring Wahlberg and Roumie for the Super Bowl, the usual grumblings could be heard from the usual quarters. But this was undeniably a strategic victory—a chance to reach and evangelize countless people across the country and even the world. Indeed, after the airing of the commercial, Hallow reported seeing the biggest spike in downloads in its history. “We’re already ranking ahead of Netflix on the App Store charts and Lent hasn’t even started yet,” CEO Alex Jones said. “Glory to God.”

But there is another story here that should be told: viewers of the Super Bowl broadcast saw a subtly different version of the commercial than what Hallow originally created. In the original version, Wahlberg walks into a church with a large image of Christ above an altar holding the words “I AM WHO AM”; in the broadcast version, Christ is cropped out. In the original version, a family makes the sign of the cross at the dinner table; in the broadcast version, the sign is edited out. And in the original version, Roumie receives a cross of ashes on his forehead; in the broadcast version, the cross is washed out.

These edits—which, it’s safe to assume, came from Paramount/CBS, as Hallow posted the original version on their social media—are especially striking in light of a commercial from the “He Gets Us” campaign that aired earlier in the broadcast. The commercial features people washing the feet out of social outcasts in the attitude of Jesus on Holy Thursday, the last of which is a man a clerical garb—wearing a metal cross—washing the foot of a man in an effeminate pose by the beach.

“Jesus didn’t teach hate,” it declares at the end. “He washed feet.”

What is the cultural message in all this? That the name of Jesus does not cross the line—but the proclamation of his divinity does. That his message of love is not a problem—but the image of his cross (unless it be a minor detail and not the heart of the message itself) is. That a verticalized Christianity of private beliefs and a horizontalized Christianity of social service are both respectable enough—but that Catholicism’s stubborn presentation of the Incarnation and Crucifixion through art and signs and rituals has to be cropped and chopped and airbrushed.

The Church should know, understand, and communicate the Super Bowl’s selective censorship of Hallow’s commercial, but without succumbing to two clear dangers.

The first is the hollow shock and outrage of a politicized, worldly faith. The world’s resistance to Christ and “the offense of the cross” (Gal 5:11) resounds throughout the New Testament as a basic feature of the life of the Church: “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you” (Jn 15:18); “Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ,” and “the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” (Phil 3:17; 1 Cor 1:18).

Christ and him crucified has always been a stumbling block to the world, and always will be.

A second danger is a Gnostic pessimism about “the world” in a broader sense, giving up on the culture altogether. But our secular culture, like all cultures, has its shades of light and darkness, and there are “seeds of the Word” in every direction. What’s more, there has always been a struggle between the proclamation of the Gospel and a given culture’s receptivity to it.

The spread of the Gospel is not an abstract ideal, but must be incarnated—like Christ himself—in the messiness of history.

Instead, we ought to take this as an encouraging lesson in the high stakes of evangelization—and, paradoxically, in how the smallest and humblest gestures advance it. The ultimate threat to the world of sin is the Gospel, which will rob it of its threefold lust: “the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches” (1 Jn 2:16). Yet we need not be great preachers or orators or writers to advance it: even very small and unassuming gestures pointing to Christ and his cross have great power.

The world of sin—both without and subtly lurking within—can only go on flailing and revolting at the radical demand of following Christ and him crucified: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:24).

But the kingdom of God can only go on proclaiming with sobriety and alertness: Ave crux, spes unica; Hail to the cross, our only hope.