Phil Vischer, the creator of the famous
VeggieTales was interviewed recently by
World magazine. He speaks of how he nows views what he was doing with his approach to the talking veggies. He writes:
After the bankruptcy I had kind of a forced sabbatical of three or four months of spending time with God and listening to Him. I looked back at the previous 10 years and realized I had spent 10 years trying to convince kids to behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity. And that was a pretty serious conviction. You can say, "Hey kids, be more forgiving because the Bible says so," or "Hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so!" But that isn't Christianity, it's morality.
Vischer's new endeavor is an attempt to go more deeply into the Bible:
That realization led me to a quest to say, all right, I need a new vehicle for teaching where I can go in much, much deeper but still in a fun, lighthearted, witty way. For my new series, What's in the Bible, I wanted to create the equivalent of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It was this groundbreaking miniseries in the '80s that explained the entire world, the entire universe, to families. I want to do that with the Bible, not just for kids but for families. It's not a kids' show, it's a family show.
Let's hope Vischer is faithful to this new vision and that God grants him success in this endeavor.
