VeggieTales was a huge and wonderful part of my life, and although I never imagined I would someday disparage any aspect of a classic episode, today I'm going to critique the main moral message of a VeggieTales show. But don't worry. Even though this a rather shocking route to take on my blog, I do have a now-classic quote from Phil Vischer to back me up:
"I looked back at the previous 10 years and realized I had spent 10 years trying to convince kids to behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity. And that was a pretty serious conviction. You can say, “Hey kids, be more forgiving because the Bible says so,” or “Hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so!” But that isn’t Christianity, it’s morality...
And that was such a huge shift for me from the American Christian ideal. We’re drinking a cocktail that’s a mix of the Protestant work ethic, the American dream, and the gospel. And we’ve intertwined them so completely that we can’t tell them apart anymore. Our gospel has become a gospel of following your dreams and being good so God will make all your dreams come true. It’s the Oprah god. So I had to peel that apart. I realized I’m not supposed to be pursuing impact, I’m supposed to be pursuing God. And when I pursue God I will have exactly as much impact as He wants me to have."
Madame Blueberry, the tenth VeggieTales show, was released in 1998. I grew up with it, as did most of my readership, but in case there's anybody out there who isn't familiar with the story, I shall explain the basic plot: Madam Blueberry lives in a treehouse with Bob and Larry, her butlers, and is experiencing such discontent that it has turned into depression. She is "blue" because she is a materialist who believes she can never be happy until everything she owns is just as nice as what her neighbors possess. Enter the slick salesmen from Stuff Mart, the enormous new store down the road that sells everything you can imagine.
Convinced that a trip to Stuff Mart can fill the emptiness in her heart, Madame Blueberry sets out with Bob and Larry to purchase everything she fancies. In the end, she has such a vast lot of new purchases that her treehouse abode cannot contain them all; it becomes so overfull and heavy that it falls out of the tree and crashes. Madame Blueberry has lost her house, her belongings, and her new purchases, and in the wake of such devastation, she learns that "a thankful heart is a happy heart" and that she should value her friends more than she values material gain.
When I was babysitting last year, I watched Madame Blueberry with the wonderful girls I was taking care of, and I enjoyed the show immensely. From the opening titles, it was very nostalgic for me, and I enjoyed the appealing animation, music, dialogue, and clever mockery of consumerist messages. It's a very good children's show, and brought back great memories. In the end, however, I saw that it was lacking. The message of thankfulness is one so familiar that we rarely think critically about it, but in most cases, it misses the heart of the gospel.
Thankfulness is extremely important. God demands it, and it does change the way we view our lives. The statement "a thankful heart is a happy heart" is fairly true; we will certainly find ourselves more content when we focus on gratitude rather than miserable longing for what we do not have. However, true Christianity is so much more than this: it recognizes God as greater than anything the world has to offer, and urges us to turn away from the idolatry that distracts our hearts. Madame Blueberry learned to be thankful for her friends instead of only caring about her material possessions, but what would happen if she lost her friends? If they abandoned her, then she would have to find some other earthly thing on which to fix her highest affections.
The video had a good moral message and talked about being grateful for our "God who really cares and who listens to our prayers," but despite the Christian aspects, the message was not centered on the gospel. Instead, the logic went like this: if you want to be happy, then you need to start being actively thankful for the things you already have. Once you learn how to be grateful for God and the good gifts He has given you, you will be satisfied. This is a promise that sounds nice, but falls short. Being thankful will not make you happy or fix all your problems.
Recognizing the good things in your life will not erase all your discontent, and will only make you feel guilty, ungrateful, and spoiled, because you cannot enjoy these things enough or be adequately thankful for them. There is no way to be adequately thankful all the time, and creating this rule only gives us more ways to fall short. But Jesus lived the life we could not live; He was perfectly thankful in our place. As long as we look at our own lives, even with the best and most grateful of intentions, we are too focused on our personal affairs to have a proper perspective. We find peace not through being grateful, but through experiencing a relationship with the God who made us.
When we know that Jesus paid for our sins and that His perfect righteousness is credited to us, we are freed from the bondage of having to constantly perform, striving for approval and satisfaction by meeting an unspecified level of goodness. When we experience God's love and acceptance on a day-to-day basis, our view of life changes, and we no longer demand fulfilling happiness from our material possessions or from intangible blessings like friendship. If you are as "blue" as Madame Blueberry, the only lasting and meaningful change you will find does not lie in a momentary attitude change, but a new perspective on life. Dissatisfaction with what you have does not merely point to a lack of gratitude, but to the fact that you are aiming in the wrong direction. You can never find happiness in what you possess, only in the one who made the God-sized hole in your heart.
Recognizing the good things in your life will not erase all your discontent, and will only make you feel guilty, ungrateful, and spoiled, because you cannot enjoy these things enough or be adequately thankful for them. There is no way to be adequately thankful all the time, and creating this rule only gives us more ways to fall short. But Jesus lived the life we could not live; He was perfectly thankful in our place. As long as we look at our own lives, even with the best and most grateful of intentions, we are too focused on our personal affairs to have a proper perspective. We find peace not through being grateful, but through experiencing a relationship with the God who made us.
When we know that Jesus paid for our sins and that His perfect righteousness is credited to us, we are freed from the bondage of having to constantly perform, striving for approval and satisfaction by meeting an unspecified level of goodness. When we experience God's love and acceptance on a day-to-day basis, our view of life changes, and we no longer demand fulfilling happiness from our material possessions or from intangible blessings like friendship. If you are as "blue" as Madame Blueberry, the only lasting and meaningful change you will find does not lie in a momentary attitude change, but a new perspective on life. Dissatisfaction with what you have does not merely point to a lack of gratitude, but to the fact that you are aiming in the wrong direction. You can never find happiness in what you possess, only in the one who made the God-sized hole in your heart.
"You move us to delight in praising You; for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You." - St. Augustine
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