Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Culture Wars

Revising the Bible, Part Deux

by Tim Lien

Warning: The following will most likely offend somebody. Even my wife has her reservations about this idea. She tells me I must “lighten-up.” (I had her permission to write those two lines). But my intent is not to make anybody mad, defensive, or destroy any DVDs. I simply want to raise some questions that we should work through as believers. In essence, I am asking: “What do you think?”

Recently, I posted a short article about Anglican vicar Rev. Harrison who recently released a new book, Must Know Stories, in which he re-tells the major stories of the bible, while spicing up already dysfunctional characters with even more dysfunction and fantastic embellishments. His work reflects the PoMo notion that truth only communicates principle, and mythical approximation can just-as-well communicate the “point” of the bible.

Now, it’s easy for me to make my point when somebody starts making our historical stories even more graphic and clearly perverts the original. But let’s go the other way. What if someone embellishes the truth, changes the characters, removes the graphic parts, and adds age-appropriate parallels? The product would be cute, cuddly, family-friendly, and, yet, very much fictional. Would you have a problem with that? If you don’t, you have an overwhelming evangelical consensus at your back. American Christians (across various denominations) love their Veggie Tales.
Truth in blogging journalism: we have a row of VT DVDs in our movie collection—and I am not exactly sprinting to throw them out. Guilty of ownership, your honor. My point is not to stop watching the VT, or even destroy our current collection.

My point: Even “cuteness” should be held to a high standard. Simply being cute doesn’t give us greater latitude with the truth. Cuteness should be accurate. Our critical filters should be activated when we watch wholesome-looking cartoon characters, just as much as when we watch every art film de jour.
My wife let me know of a good approach to viewing the VT videos. She would have her kindergarten class watch the VT episode, read the real Bible story, and then discuss its similarities and differences. She said they did a fantastic job of dissecting them. It would seem that this approach would equip our kids to be critical thinkers, without dismissing the merits of any form of media.

Now, the VT episodes are shown on Saturday morning with all the other cartoons. They have had to edit out all references to the Bible, resulting in a sweet, moral lesson detached from the historical and overall redemptive story of our “Sacred History”. And if that’s the case, VT is just Aesop reincarnated.