This morning’s Vent was great — though bad news involving the Veggie Tales was told. Many interesting posts followed the video and are worth checking out. To be fair, I thought I should also mention the BigIdea’s defense of itself.

It would seem to be great news that the Christian loved animated videos are now on Saturday mornings for all children to enjoy. However, it also appears that the BigIdea company have sold out their Christian values for Godless ones:

The conservative media-watchdog group issued a statement Sept. 20 blasting NBC, which airs “VeggieTales,” for editing out some references to God from the children’s animated show.

“What struck me and continues to strike me is the inanity of ripping the heart and soul out of a successful product and not thinking that there will be consequences to it,” said L. Brent Bozell, president of the Parents Television Council. “The series is successful because of its biblical worldview, not in spite of it. That’s the signature to ‘Veggie-Tales.”‘

Of course NBC has its reasons for editing God out of the beloved shows:

The show was edited to comply with the network’s broadcast standards, said NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks.

“Our goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible with these positive messages while being careful not to advocate any one religious point of view,” she said.

Well Rebecca, as nice as it is to hear that NBC has standards (I was completely unaware of this) — it isn’t Islam that promotes these positive messages. It’s Christianity — you know, that other religion that doesn’t chop your head off, advocate honor killings, blow itself up to kill as many innocent people as possible, yada yada yada ….

Then, there’s the creator of Veggie Tales who had noooo idea that God would need to be edited out of the series:

“VeggieTales” creator Phil Vischer, who was responsible for readying episodes for network broadcast, said he didn’t know until just weeks before the shows were to begin airing that nonhistorical references to God and the Bible would have to be removed.

Had he known how much he’d have to change the show - including Bob and Larry’s tagline, “Remember kids, God made you special, and he loves you very much,” that concludes each episode - Vischer said he wouldn’t have signed on for the network deal.”I would have declined partly because I knew a lot of fans would feel like it was a sellout or it was done for money,” he said, adding that “there weren’t enough shows that could work well without those (religious) references.” All programs set to air on NBC must meet the network’s broadcast standards, said Alan Wurtzel, a broadcast standards executive.

Yeah, right Phil. We know this had nothing to do with the money (wink wink).

“There’s a fine line of universally accepted religious values,” he said. “We don’t get too specific with any particular religious doctrine or any particular religious denomination.” Vischer said he understands the network’s position.

Well, alrighty then — as long as you understand NBC’s position Phil. I think if Phil really understood their position, he might understand that the goal of NBC is contrary to the goals of Christianity. NBC wants people to believe that there is good outside of God — and that’s a lie. Let’s just watch and see how Bob and Larry play out on the Godless station.

On the other hand …. NBC continues to prove her right.

Update: I received a letter from the American Family Association today and feel bad about acting so judgemental towards Phil Vischer. It was just a little self righteous of me. He is just making a living and it is NBC that is developing all these standards.

NBC says comments such as “God made you special and He loves you very much” were offensive and censored them from the show.

It appears than NBC believes they can lie their way out of any situation:

In response to the outrage over the allegations that NBC was ordering the removal of any references to God and the Bible from the animated series, the network first issued a flat denial. As reported in Broadcasting & Cable, NBC had to “clip off the beginning and ending tags, which are Bible verses, but they were also arguably the easiest cut to make.”

But Vischer disputes the network’s excuses :

The creator of Veggie Tales, Phil Vischer, said NBC’s excuse for censoring the Bible verses was not true. Vischer said, “Well, that’s kinda funny, because as the guy required to do all the editing, I know that statement is false…The show wasn’t too long, it was too Christian. The show was already cut down to the proper length, so timing had nothing to do with it.”

To keep updated on the Veggie Tales situation and more you should just go to AFA. They are an excellent organization when it comes to keeping Christian families informed and helping them to take action against evil.