News Alert

Agape Press, 11/1/02:  Excerpts from “Rethinking Veggie Tales” by Cathy Mickels

Christian pollster George Barna’s research has concluded doctrinal confusion abounds today within the Christian church….Furthermore, Barna stated, “because we remain a largely Bible-illiterate society, few are alarmed or even aware of the slide toward ‘syncretism’—a belief system that blindly combines beliefs from many different faith perspectives.”

Although Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie, is being marketed as the retelling of the Book of Jonah, Big Idea Productions, the producer of VeggieTales, has instead trivialized and rewritten this Old Testament story by turning a serious book about sin, repentance, and God’s grace into a Hollywood comedy….

Just as VeggieTales’ producers have taken liberty with the description of sin and the depiction of a prophet of God, they have also added an interesting character named Khalil—a name meaning “friendly” in Arabic with deep roots in the Islamic faith....“a vaguely Muslim traveling salesman.” (The Washington Times, “Vegetables Tell Bible Tales,” 10/5/02)...

But perhaps the most disturbing part of the script is the presence of Khalil in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights with “the prophet Jonah.”...[O]n the third day, Jonah and Khalil were both spewed out of the fish, landing in the sand together to carry out their mission; hence distorting the miraculous event Jesus referred to as “a sign”: the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus….

In a recent interview with one of the Veggie creators, Phil Vischer shed light on their bottomline. It’s entertainment….

As Christians, our opportunity is to communicate to our children and the nation that we are unwilling to compromise the integrity of Scripture and the memory of the man Jesus himself referred to as “the prophet Jonah.”

[TBC: See http://headlines.agape press.org/archive/11/12002CM.asp for the full article]