At one point Vischer poked fun at the presence of Christian author and radio show host Eric Metaxas and MyPillow pitchman Mike Lindell at the event.
“Never has so much potentially toxic masculinity been mixed with the hugging on pillows,” Vischer told listeners.
Among his listeners is Lauren Mulford of Sanger, Texas, who said she started listening to the “Holy Post” last fall, just before the election, after a friend recommended it.
“It was such a nice reprieve from the hysteria was going on in a lot of evangelical circles,” said Mulford, who was waiting out the winter storm last week in Texas with her husband and their six kids.
She watched “VeggieTales” a few times while growing up but really got into the show in college, where friends were big fans. Her kids now watch “VeggieTales” and she still enjoys watching it with them.
Casey Erickson and her family, who live outside of Dallas, are longtime fans of “VeggieTales” as well as ” What’s in the Bible,” Vischer’s video series that walks kids through the books of the Bible. She often listens to the “Holy Post” while she is shuttling her kids around.
She said the podcast has introduced her to a number of books on race and Christian nationalism that she hadn’t been aware of, such as Jemar Tisby’s “The Color of Compromise,” Esau McCaulley’s “Reading While Black” and Kristin Du Mez’s “Jesus and John Wayne.”
Michael Agapito, a seminary student who works at a Baptist housing ministry in Champaign, Illinois, has fond memories of watching “VeggieTales” with his parents, who are immigrants from the Philippines. The show, he said, encouraged kids “to think biblically about morals.”
“It taught you things like how to forgive other people and love your neighbors, which are still important today,” said Agapito.
Growing up in the evangelical church, Agapito also heard a lot of culture war rhetoric, which clashed with some of the messages “VeggieTales” taught him. He believes many of his peers have become disillusioned about church. They still believe in traditional theology, he said. But they are also concerned about issues of race and social justice.
“The ‘Holy Post’ speaks to that,” he said.
Vischer feels a sense of loyalty to the evangelical world he was raised in and where his family has a long history. His great-grandfather R.R. Brown was a famed radio preacher and founder of the long-running Okoboji Bible Conference in Iowa. Vischer is a longtime member and former elder at Wellspring, a multiethnic Christian and Missionary Alliance church in Wheaton, Illinois.
