Many of us grew up watching Veggie Tales, or raised kids who grew up watching Veggie Tales. To this day I still sing "Where is my Hairbrush" on a regular basis (due to the fact that I, like Larry the Cucumber, do not have any hair). It was a source of memorable "Silly Songs", very enjoyable retellings of Biblical stories (even if over-simplified and sanitized), relatable moral lessons, and even occasional wry commentary about living in a Consumer Society (check out "Sport Utility Vehicle" sometime). Veggie Tales has inspired people to love them, despise them, and parody them.
But there is one surprising thing about this staple of Christian childhood formation: It never pictures Jesus, or any of the characters entering into a saving relationship with God!
As a 2021 article from Relevant Mag puts it:
"Bob, Larry and the gang can point kids toward Jesus. They can describe the endless love of God and perfect peace of His saving grace. But they cannot enter into it themselves. Salvation is saved for the crown of God’s creative work alone [i.e. humans], and they are just vegetables... [This] was the rule laid down by [Veggie Tale creator Phil] Vischer’s mom Scottie Mae, who has a PhD in Christian Education and certainly knows what she’s talking about. She gave her son the twin ground rules for his VeggieTales against letting the veggies themselves become Christians or depicting Jesus as a vegetable and [Veggie Tale's production company] Big Idea stuck to them. You’ll note that while VeggieTales recreates many Bible stories over the course of its run, it stays out of the New Testament and, so, relatively Jesus-free."
Why then would a Christian Children's show have a rule about not showing Christ? Why would people who want others to come into a saving relationship with God deny that relationship to the stars of their show? Let me offer my perspective as an ex-Evangelical Christian, and also reveal why "conservative" CS Lewis is surprisingly "woke" in the process. Let us compare two works of Christian non-human fiction: Veggie Tales and the Chronicles of Narnia. But first, let us discuss a tension between two core Jewish insights about the Divine Nature.
Insight 1 is Iconoclasm: Ultimate Reality is utterly transcendent and categorically different from the whole order of created beings. Thus, making any “images” of the Divine is to limit and diminish God, and thus commit idolatry. Thus the first two of the Ten Commandments: No other gods before God and no idols.
Insight 2 is Iconographic: Ultimate Reality is mirrored in persons, specifically human persons. We are “made in the image of God”. Thus, you want to see God, look at your neighbor. A few centuries after these texts were written on the Divine Image in human persons, an obscure Rabbi would come along and people would say he is the Archetypal Image of God in human form. So much so that most of his followers would later say he is the “Incarnation” of God in human form.
Some early Christians went with insight 1 and refused to make any images of God at all, or even any realistic human art, because they said this was in danger of idolatry. They even refused to make images of Jesus or the Apostles. If you must make an image, make it a plain cross or a Chi Rho or an Ichthus Fish. This view was largely discarded as heresy, until it was picked up by much of the Western Reformation in the 1500’s. Modern Evangelicals, and others who make professionally “branded” Churches that look like office buildings, are inheritors of this tradition.
In distinction to this, the majority of Christians across the ages have run with insight 2. If human persons are naturally images of God, and if Jesus is the Archetype of that image, then it is proper to picture Jesus as God in icons. And if we can make icons of Jesus, of course we can make icons of Mary, who mothered God. And if we can make images of Jesus and Mary, we can make images of all kinds of Saints who uniquely focus the presence of God in our midst. And then the Renaissance comes, and a secularized version of this comes along: If we can make images of the Saints, then all kinds of images and paintings and drawings and sculptures of humans can be made. Because all life is sacred and beautiful and worthy of artistic rendition. As long as we are not making an image and telling people to value it above all and worship it, then we are not doing “idolatry”.
Note that both of these insights are grounded in the Bible and take it seriously. It’s not that one is the Biblical view and the other is not. They are BOTH in the source text and constitution of the Bible. This is important to remember when people start talking about what view is more Biblical or more Christian.
As an aside, we live in a country that puts an All-Seeing Eye on our money and then stamps “In God we trust” on the money, as if money is the god we trust in. This absolutely cannot be squared with any view of Scripture, and yet it is embraced by a ton of Christians. Especially those who view themselves as most Biblical. But I digress.
Anyway, the Evangelicals who made Veggie Tales are inheritors of the Iconoclastic insight. And thus it is blasphemy— although cute blasphemy— to picture Jesus as a vegetable. As if God could be a vegetable! And it is blasphemy for Veggies to enter into a saving relationship with God through Jesus, because that would inherently diminish the importance of humans. This may not be the exact view of the artists who made Veggie Tales, but it is the view of those who advised them theologically. A variant of this argument is used against Gay Marriage: If we let LGBTQ people get married, so the argument goes, it inherently mars and diminishes Heterosexual Marriage. Or at least this is one place the Iconoclastic Insight can go to.
And note how this view acts as an effective barrier for considering certain kinds of people as bearing God’s image or being loved by God. Denying that God’s life can be depicted in human form is a powerful yet subtle way for insisting that human persons are not worthy of God’s Love or consideration. It allows for the controlling mechanism of shame and blame to burrow its way into the heart of religion. It can especially be used against people who are “not like us”, whether by coming from a different culture or religion or ethnicity or gender or sexuality. Iconoclasm in religion goes hand in hand with exclusion in society. I think all of this is functioning in the background of the rejection of God and salvation being pictured in Vegetable form: If God loves and saves vegetables, then God might want us to love and help THOSE people.
To be clear: I think the Iconoclastic insight is really important in many ways. Just not the ways that are usually important in American Evangelicalism. In my spirituality, iconoclasm gets applied to ideologies and socio-economic systems, particularly those that use exclusion and violence to harm God's children. Across history, it has been shown that it is really easy to value harmful systems of power over actual, real persons in need of compassion and care. So I reject as idolatrous all the kinds of systems of exclusion and oppression that we worship and serve and allow to dominate us. I’m iconographic in arts and social relations, and iconoclastic in economics and politics.
CS Lewis in many ways would be considered a “socially conservative” Christian today, and perhaps even an Evangelical Intellectual. Yet, he was raised in a religious ethos of Anglo Catholicism, and lived in the tension between the Iconoclastic and Iconographic insights. But he trended strongly toward the Iconographic. In fact, in his Space Trilogy and Narnia series, he goes a step further in the logic of Iconography. If God created other kinds of persons, then other beings are “made in the image of God” just as much as human persons.
Thus, they are also beloved by God. Thus, they may also enter into salvation (even if they are Vegetable Persons!). Thus, God is incarnated in Lion form as Aslan in Narnia, and the denizens of Narnia may enter into salvation through him. In fact, even some who thought they were serving Tash or other Lords, but who did so with love and compassion for others, were REALLY serving Aslan the whole time even if their minds were deceived. And for Lewis, every dimension or realm has an Incarnation— an Image— of God suitable to that realm. Jesus for humans. Aslan for Narnia.
Now this opens up a vista for seeing and embracing Divine Life in a whole bunch of different kinds of forms. Although Lewis was socially conservative and did not accept LGBTQ as compatible with Christian practice, he did accept the possible salvation of pre-Christian people, and adherents of other religions, and even aliens, all through a very inclusive vision of Christ that is rooted in the Iconographic insight. And I would argue that some of his conservatism was a product of his time, and that if he lived now, he probably would be more logically consistent with his own foundations. Because I think those foundations lead right to the inclusion of LGBTQ persons, as well as persons of every tribe and tongue in the circle of acceptance and compassion and care. And if we discover Vegetable Persons some day, this would extend to them too. In fact, if AI ever becomes truly sentient, I would even say it trends in the direction of accepting future “General AI” as persons worthy of dignity and respect.
And that, my friends, is why we have to make sure Jesus is never pictured as a Vegetable saving other vegetables. Because if you open that door, pretty soon you will have to let in just about anyone.
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