Veggie Tales Creator Upset Christians Oppose LGBTQ
Veggie Tales creator Phil Vischer, the man who swears he’s not progressive despite knocking creationists as a bunch of dummies, crediting his white privilege for the success of his show, arguing that liberals and Democrats are the real pro-lifers who have been reducing abortion, claiming he didn’t know there was such things black Christians until he was an adult, and recently thumbing his nose at “Cracker Barrel Christians” while guffawing with other elites, has decided to let his hand show even a little more, this time on the bible’s view of sexual purity and immorality and how the church ought to treat those in open rebellion.
While at initial blush this may sound mildly harmless, Visher is effectively taking the church to task for daring to come alongside and discipline church members who are openly defying the scriptures and God’s law by “doubting the wrong tenet of our faith” or “reconsider their own gender or sexual identity.”
In context, it’s talking about the notion of “queer Christians” and those with differing views on homosexuality, transgenderism, and gender identity. To use a real-life example, a woman comes out as a lesbian and says she doesn’t think the Bible condemns it, or a married man comes out as transgender and comes to church in drag. What does the church do?
While Vischer argues that this should not result in the church viewing the person as a “them” that is doing anything wrong, this in fact is called “sin and rebellion” and produces “leaven” in the body. If it remains unchecked or accepted, it will leaven the whole lump. Rather than purging the evil from among a congregation, Vischer instead wants to “get rid of its mentality.” He has no concept of the notion that “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth,” and that the Church elders ought to do likewise.
It is not loving to allow someone to remain in their sin, but rather the loving thing to do is to chastise them in order to bring them to repentance. The judgment is love. The rebuke is love. The church discipline is love. The shunning is love, and drawing them back and welcoming them into the body after they have repented is love.
Despite all his talk of “in” and “out” and “us” and “them,” 1 John 2:19 makes this very clear “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”
Vischer concludes with an appalling, intellectually dishonest statement: “Not saying doctrine doesn’t matter, just saying love overall.”
Actually, you are, Phil. You are.
[Editor’s note: This is what happens when you spend too much time talking to tomatoes…]
About Author
By all means, if we all openly embrace sin in opposition to God we can more effectively bond with each other. No doubt God will get over it.
We are to lovingly rebuke and redirect those (them) who have been deceived. If those we have recognized as brothers and sisters in Christ continue in their rebellion against Truth, we are to treat them as an unbeliever.
Matthew 18:17 NKJV
“…let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”
That is indeed instruction to treat them as a “them”. A loving process of attempted restoration should precede this, and the objective of putting “them” out of the local church is for eventual restoration as well. If they remain in rebellion, there is the indication that they were never truly saved… but ultimately only God knows.
Yet another piece of chaff separated from the wheat.
My Bible says “from such turn away” – 2 Timothy 3:5. 1 Cor. 5 and 6 – they should be kicked out of the church.
The prodigals must repent of their abomination. If not, leave them to their pig pen. And that is God’s definition of love. Love “Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;” – 1 Cor. 13:6. Love does not abide sin. Love does not cause little ones to stumble. Love does not pat them on the back and encourage them toward eternal damnation, in rejection of God’s Word and God’s authority.
The warnings that Jesus gives to the churches in Revelation are so relevant to the church in the US today. The point of interest here is that Jesus never condemns a church for holding high standards and breaking unity with those that compromise. Quite the opposite, he always commends them for that. The strongest condemnations though come for those churches that are allowing sexually immoral practices to go on within their midst. Churches and pastors and congregations today think they can be friends with the world and that by compromising a little, they can reach more people. But, we almost always see these churches slip into apostasy that eventually leads to a false gospel. You might even say, that Jesus takes away their lampstand, they are no longer a light, no longer have the Holy Spirit’s power upon them, and are no longer bringing people into the Kingdom.
Oh, God gives them space to repent. The apostasy doesn’t all happen at once, but it creeps forward until scripture is no longer infallible, Paul was a racist bigot and we can’t accept everything he said, and we need to unhitch from the Old Testament because God was mean and not loving back then. They no longer look for the deep truths of scripture but just want to focus on unity (with the world) and love. Their young people leave because they accept science ‘so-called’ over God’s Word. They become meaningless shells preaching social issues, “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof”. And its clear that we are to “Have nothing to do with them”. Of course, we should pray for and try to convince those that have not reached the level of full apostasy to turn back. We should do so by teaching the truth in love, but if they don’t accept if for what it is, then what can we do? Compromise for unity? Absolutely not.
Here’s an idea:
Stop looting Christians with your merchandise if you are not aligned with what true Christians believe.
Just go away.