Phil Vischer was the co-creator of one of the most successful direct-to-video animated series of the 1990s, “VeggieTales.” Between 1996 and 1999, revenue from the series and spin-off projects grew from 1.3 million to $44 million.
The production company formed by Vischer and Mike Nawrocki, Big Idea, ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2003. Fisher then founded Jellyfish Labs and created a 13-part series using puppetry to teach children the Bible.
According to Vischer, who has an active presence on the social media platform X, recently generated a lot of online debate by posting, “If you believe the eternal God, creator of the universe, is a male (or female) of a gendered species, you have departed from Christian orthodoxy.” That was on November 9.
In a comment offered in response to one of his readers, Vischer clarified his statement. “…calling God ‘male’ or ‘female’ is a categorical error. Gender/sex is a feature of the created world.”
Out of Vischer’s 80k+ followers, the post generated 1.5K likes and 381 comments as of this writing.
That post was followed on November 10 with an image of a lengthy statement of Vischer’s theological understanding related to God and gender, which he wrote: “Because 250 characters isn’t enough and Elon Musk doesn’t need any more money.” It was offered to conclude the online debate that the original post had generated. He wrote, “And that is all I have to say about that. Goodnight, friends!”
While maintaining a moderate evangelical Christian approach to LGBTQ+ issues, such as opposing same-sex marriage, Vischer drew fire from fellow evangelicals in 2022 when he simply referred in a social media post to “LGBT brothers and sisters.”
Newly elected U.S. Senator from Texas James Talarico — and Presbyterian seminarian — also drew controversy during his campaign when his 2021 statement, “God is non-binary,” made during a debate in the state legislature, became a point of attack for his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton.
Scholars like Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter, and author of “God: An Anatomy,” have demonstrated that understandings and presentations of the Hebrew God’s gender shifted dramatically in the sixth century BCE when the decidedly male Yahweh started the journey to a non-gendered, spiritual entity.
That the current understanding of the relationship between God and gender would become, in Vischer’s words, “a thing,” as he wrote in his social media post, puzzled the VeggieTales creator. “‘God is a biological male’ is a weird hill to die on,” he wrote.
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