A Christian Response to Phil Vischer’s Video on Racism

Did you see Phil Vischer’s video on racism?

Phil Vischer’s video on racism in America went viral this week. Hundreds of thousands of people watched it within 24 hours. 

Well, who is he? He is one of the founders of Veggie Tales. Many Christian moms in America recognizes his voice as Bob the Tomato. 

Who am I? and Where did I go?

Because we know Bob, we’ve welcomed him into our homes and planted our kids in front of his videos, we have a tendency to transfer some of our trust for Bob from Veggie Tales onto this video. Even if you don’t recognize him, a professionally crafted video is very persuasive in our visually consumptive culture.

While there is nothing wrong with someone famous having an opinion or expressing it, we do need to be cautious mentally not to mindlessly trust his opinion, or anyone’s for that matter.

Nor should we automatically dismiss every idea from people with whom we theologically disagree. We have to be willing to listen and consider truth wherever we find it.  

We should test everything against scripture. 

And well-known people, especially Christians, should exercise responsibility in sharing opinions as trusted figures.

I shared the video on my personal Facebook page after a cursory viewing of it. 

While somewhat simplistic, Vischer made some good points about some things that most Americans today don’t know. 

Why watch Phil Vischer’s video on racism?

Too often, Americans think blatant racism ended with the Civil Rights Movement, and unless personally affected by it, we don’t spend a lot of time looking below the surface of our experiences for things we don’t even know to look for.

And as a Christian, I am horribly saddened and ashamed that the Church dropped the ball following the Civil Rights Movement. We (I wasn’t born yet, but collectively) should have used the momentum to make lasting legal and heart changes in many areas. For that the Church should grieve and mourn and repent.

Christians of all ethnicities stopped where we should have started.

We missed opportunities to create a unified body of Christ in our country.

At the time I shared it, I didn’t have time to fully fact check the video or respond. I since have spent a fair amount of time researching his facts, researching racial inequality in general, and seeking how Christians should respond to the racial crisis in America.

After watching a follow-up video he made with his team, I believe his desire was to bring light to injustices so Christians can walk compassionately with persons of color. This is Biblical. 

He sees places the Church and Christians have been inconsistent and wants to address those issues. Hurray! We need convicting. 

However, I have some real concerns about Phil Vischer’s video on racism after some reflection, which is why I felt compelled to write this.

As a Christian, the fact that Phil Vischer doesn’t primarily point to God, Jesus, or sin in this video is troubling. Because sin is definitely 100% of the issue here and Jesus is 100% of the answer.

For the founder of a Christian children’s empire, the fact that he never addresses Biblical unity or justice or righteousness (minus a few verses at the very end) is glaring. The Bible is very clear that Christ’s death on the cross in payment for our sin, not only created a pathway for our unity with God, but also tore down the barriers to unity with each other.

Galatians 3:28 ESV There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Secondly, as Christians, our role in presenting a case for ANYTHING should be careful commentary that presents the best and most full case on an issue as possible. 

Racism is not an episode of Veggie Tales.

You just can’t summarize a complex issue in 20 minutes. And to be fair, I don’t think Vischer was trying to.

Nor does my article propose to be a full discourse on every issue he presented. My goal is to point to our need to glorify God as Christians when we are discussing such a nuanced topic.

When we get things wrong or mischaracterize them, God is not glorified. 

Clarity and truth suffered in this video because Vischer makes broad statements that overly simplify complex issues in ways that shape his message somewhat unfairly at times. The video omitted some important facts and dynamics that could have crafted a more full picture.

One article, written by a pastor named Gabe Hughes, suggests that Vischer’s worldview affected the facts he chose to present and the way he presented them. And that his worldview has seemingly come under the influence of some people and organizations that point away from historical Christianity. I don’t 100% agree with Pastor Hughes on everything, but he makes some excellent points and offers some good food for thought in his article. And we all should be doing more thinking using a Biblically, historic, Christian worldview, which is certainly what Hughes argues.

Well, can’t he just make a video about human issues without getting all preachy? 

We shouldn’t separate our faith from our functioning in this world. I’m currently reading Nancy Pearcey’s book Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity. She makes a great case that Christians are supposed to live our faith in every aspect of life. If we have the Truth, everything we do should be an outflow of that truth.

So when any video or article ignores some very significant dynamics and lays most of the fault for our current situation at the feet of racism, we need to take a beat to consider it’s accuracy. 

Racism is one, but not the only issue at play in our culture or even in some of the issues he mentions. It is not the only human dynamic at play, much less the only spiritual dynamic.

We cannot look at race or justice or sin without acknowledging the very real spiritual warfare happening around us. We’ve got to respond through a Bible centered worldview, which would include being justice minded. 

God’s word is clear about our responsibilities as Christians to behave justly. 

The GI Bill and VA loans were administered in ways that were terribly racist.1  Redlining, home loans and housing issues for blacks were racist in practice legally for around 90-100 years following slavery 1. They were often racist effectively until 1980-90s. 4 

This racist administration of various laws and policies kept many people of color from owning homes or living where they wanted to live. These issues likely contributed to the disparity of outcomes for African Americans in our country.

We can’t have a century of legal racism following two+ centuries of slavery and think there are no modern effects on people or our culture or our country.

Sometimes Christians are guilty of wishing away the effects of sin without taking the necessary steps to repair what was broken. 

Another way Vischer’s video gets it right is that the legal system in America needs some reform.

He cites incarceration rates of African American males as 1 out of 4. According to sources I found, it is actually 1 out of 3! 3 And when we account for all other variables, race does seem to be a factor in longer sentences 5. 

Additionally, Vischer correctly states the data shows that people of color are stopped more often (although the racial disparities are shrinking). While this doesn’t prove systemic racism, it does show a cultural bias that race might play a part in.

But relationship doesn’t necessarily equal causation. A range of reasons could be factors in the racial disparity.  

Certainly something is wrong in how America administers justice that needs addressing. 

I would love to see our country look at more Biblical ways of enacting restorative justice that honors both victims and criminals as image-bearers of God. Programs that treat people with dignity and respect while helping them deal with the root causes of their actions would go a long way to reduce our prison populations. (Of course when we have for profit prisons, people are incentivized to keep the prisons full, but that is another topic.)

And this is where we need to look at what Phil Vischer’s video on racism misses. 

Racism and bias is only part of the story when we look at our country and legal system. We also need to address family structure, drug use, personal responsibility, sin, welfare, and a myriad of other pieces of the puzzle. 

To suggest that every racial disparity we see in our justice system (or country) is the result of racism is disingenuous. 

America absolutely needs to address fairness in our justice system and the ways that our current system might need reform. But Christians need to do so through a Biblical lens that applies God’s principles to find solutions. 

Not every racial incident is motivated by racism. (an excellent article from Stand to Reason)

And, some of the facts in the video about drugs and sentencing leaves out some pretty important information.

This is especially crucial for Christians in the public sphere right now. All sides of the media spin stories and statistics to match a narrative.

Christians should seek to be truth tellers above supporting any narrative.

God’s truth will be evident when we seek the whole truth. All truths are God’s truths. 

Clearly, Vischer’s intent was not to write a treatise on racism in America that encompassed every possible relevant fact or idea. Yet, he could have added some relevant information without adding much more time that would have increased clarity. 

For example, he mentions harsher drug laws, but fails to mention these laws were not written by racists, but by black leaders trying to reverse a trend of crime and violence in their communities. 

When drug use and crime surged in the 1980s, the Congressional Black Caucus and black community leaders fought for harsher sentencing for drug crime and specifically crack 2. They supported it as an imperfect but necessary measure to combat violence and crime in black communities. Should these sentencing laws need to be revisited now? Absolutely. But they were not based in racism at inception.

Vischer points to things like incarceration and sentencing and wealth disparity, but implies all of the inequality is based on race and racism.

There is a wealth disparity in America. Absolutely true. However, the statistic Vischer uses seems to be overly-simplified based on the median wealth of whites versus blacks.  

Because home ownership is the largest factor in the wealth statistic, we cannot entirely discount the racial housing issues of the past. However, we also can’t hold them completely responsible for current low home ownership rates in the African American community. 

Age and family structure plays a large part in family wealth. Older, two parent households are likely to have more wealth.

“[T]he poverty rate among black married couples has been less than 10% every year since 1994 . . .” excerpt from Thomas Sowell’s book Discrimination and Disparities as discussed in this interview.

So while the data shows racial disparity, it doesn’t necessarily show racial causation. 6 The issue of wealth inequality is much more complex than race. Education, academic effort, welfare, family structure, and personal lifestyle choices are a large parts of the equation in economic disparity. 9

Racial disparities aren’t always the result of racism. 

And Thomas Sowell argues that people use statistics to mischaracterize wealth inequality to fit their narrative 7. He also says in an interview for an article that people aren’t really looking for causes, but for someone to blame. Our current climate proves this is true.

People don’t want to rationally look for evidence. They just want someone to blame for any real or perceived inequality. 8 

So what’s the take-away regarding race in America for Christians?

Phil Vischer’s video on racism brought up some legitimate reasons why people are angry regarding racism in America. We need to address those truths and see how our country’s past still affects our culture.

We have to be willing to do the slow and hard work to change racial relationships in our country and world. 

It is also a good idea to consider our own personal biases in light of scripture and try to seek true unity as members of the body of Christ.

However, many people are looking at American culture and society through a lens that has fundamentally redefined racism, making it not a hidden hatred in the sinful heart of man, but a societal ill. 

“Racism is what happens when you back one group’s racial bias with legal authority and institutional control.”  Robin D’Angelo author of White Fragility

This definition makes racism an evil only those in power can perpetuate, which is not true. All racial biases and prejudices are a result of sin.

Racism is not a whites only problem. 

As humans, we can codify sin and use power to enforce sinful ideologies, but sin is still an individual issue in the heart of every person. 

And yet, we should strive to remove any vestige of racism from our current systems.

A Christian response to every incident should be to expose truth, decry evil, and seek to glorify God in how we respond with compassion and righteousness. 

And that is where we need to be cautious as Christians that we’re focusing on the truth, not just hopping on popular bandwagons. Popular bandwagons supported slavery and racism, too. 

Christians should be more analytical and considerate in how we seek justice. 

For example, following this worldview that defines racism as having power behind biases, takes us down some rabbit holes that Christians should not traverse. 

Christians need to learn to think critically. 

Apologetics has really taught me to think carefully, using logic and reason to understand the reality of the world we live in.

We need to examine everything by God’s standards. Christians should no longer mindlessly consume any content without examining it critically. 

We should seek facts and use reason and the Bible to interpret those facts.

And be willing to be wrong because our narrative should be shaped by Truth. Our facts should not be selected to shore up our version of the truth.

Even the sources I’ve shared below should be examined carefully. Consider the worldviews of the authors and publishers. How does that affect which facts they use? How does worldview affect their solutions?

Atheism and humanism are going to seek solutions in governments and people, which have yet to solve any of these issues. 

Some of the modern popular movements are rooted in Marxism. Look at where that leads. Is that a road we want to go down as a nation? Can Marxism and Christianity co-exist? Read that. Good stuff. 

A Christian worldview understands the fallen, sinful nature of man. We recognize our need for God and accept the redemptive plan of salvation through the historical Jesus Christ. We rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit and Bible in our lives.

When we look at race and racism and anger and rioting through the lens of Christ, we see the threads of pride and sin. We feel the need for justice and compassion. But we mostly see the need people have for Jesus. 

None of this gets better without Jesus. 

In summary, what do we do with Phil Vischer’s video on racism?

We watch it and allow it to drive us into scripture and study. We consider the issues in a full and complex way, searching for the whole picture. And we let it drive us into conversation with others, with people who don’t look like us, who don’t think like us, and who don’t believe like us.

Because we can listen and be sensitive to the pain of others without accepting an entire worldview. We can chew and spit, keeping good truths and discarding falsehoods.

We can acknowledge racism still exists and that brothers and sisters in Christ are being wounded by it. Don’t look at the awful pieces of our past or present and turn a blind eye. But we shouldn’t stop there. Christ calls us to do more than care. Look for ways to bridge the divide in your family, community, and church.

Listen well, love better, glorify God in how you do all the things.

Sources

1 Blakemore, Erin. “How the GI Bill’s Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans.” History. 30 Sept 2019. https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits

2 Elder, Larry. “If Tough Anti-Drug Laws are ‘Racist’, Blame Black Leaders.” Investor’s Business Daily. 14 June 2018. https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/drug-laws-racism-democrats-support/

3 Race and Incarceration.” The Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights. 2020. https://www.prisonerhealth.org/educational-resources/factsheets-2/race-and-incarceration/

4 Shapiro, Ben. “Ben Shapiro Debunks Viral ‘Systemic Racism Explained’ Video” June 9, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBDfMQ27Asw

5 Ghandnoosh, Nagzol, Phd. “Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity in the Criminal Justice System.” Sentencing Project. 03 Feb 2015. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/black-lives-matter-eliminating-racial-inequity-in-the-criminal-justice-system/

6 Lisa J. Dettling, Joanne W. Hsu, Lindsay Jacobs, Kevin B. Moore, and Jeffrey P. Thompson with assistance from Elizabeth Llanes. “Recent Trends in Wealth-Holding by Race and Ethnicity: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances.” Federal Reserve. 27 Sept 2017

7 Sowell, Thomas. “Using Statistics to Lie about Inequality.” Investors Business Daily. 06 Sept 2016. https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/thomas-sowell-using-statistics-to-lie-about-inequality/

8 Henry, Jim. “Thomas Sowell on the Root Causes of Income Inequality.” World. 30 December 2014. https://world.wng.org/2014/12/thomas_sowell_on_the_root_causes_of_income_inequality

9 “Thomas Sowell on the Myths of Economic Inequality.” Uncommon Knowledge – Hoover Institution. 3 December 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS5WYp5xmvI