The man behind “Bob the Tomato” is no joke.

It’s come down to this: he taught us when we were kids that God is bigger than the boogeyman, and now that we’re adults he’s teaching us that God is bigger than the adult Boogeymen.

Once again, I appreciate the enlightening and relevant history lesson. As a Black follower of Jesus, this, at first, encouraged me, and then made me, once again, feel lost to labels within Christianity. Belief-wise, I fall into the Neo-Evangelical camp, but this politicized anti- everything Republican propaganda machine labeled "Evangelism" often excludes me and many times does injury to aspects of my life or, in my experience, the spreading of the redemptive Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the things that I think is discouraging is that talk of Christian history is (understandably) often shown through the scope of White history. Meanwhile, it's challenging to grapple with and reconcile this history to the Black Christian and church experiences, past and present. Similarly, because of my experiences, I wonder about the reckoning of religious beliefs and history as it affects oppressed people of colonized nations especially as they find themselves wearing new labels of immigrant, asylum seeker or minority in this country where American Evangelicals supported Trump and don't understand how people can come from the Middle East or south of the United States border and identify as persecuted Christians, also. In my imagination, I'd find that jarring and befuddling. To receive Evangelical help "over there" but watch Evangelicals stand opposed to it over here. That, to me, sounds more like a Fundamentalist idea than an Evangelical one of community service and outreach. All of these labels frustrate me. I understand how they work for society, but honestly, one of the many things I like about how Jesus went through the world was that people had a hard time labeling him. His lifestyle and operation manual wasn't of this world. I think I'd appreciate it if Christ followers were so different in the world, that our exhibitions of compassion and mercy, our company, our character, integrity, love, intelligence and wisdom, defied understanding and labeling. As it is, we're rejected summarily by society based on a label that people thinks explains us and our beliefs, when people's ideas of us sound more like descriptions of Pharisees than followers of Jesus. At any rate, I got a little lost. I suppose I was trying to ask for a video looking at these things from the perspective and development of Christianity within communities of color. I think this would be helpful for Christians of color like me as well as Christians who are White and may be baffled by why people are discrediting the faith of Pastor Warnock in GA. From my experience in predominately White Christian schools or churches, I felt uncomfortable with the amount of awe people expressed towards the practice of my faith or knowledge or Scripture. I often felt like I was looked upon or treated like I was there as some sort of mission field who needed to be saved from Blackness, Gospel music, and dancing, rather than a sibling and equal in the faith. There's a weird, unhealthy marriage of (American) Whiteness and Christianity, here in America that I think makes it hard to see other people as equally saved or Christian. There's a real lack of understanding of how Christianity developed among people who aren't White that may also contribute to why we don't understand each other's expressions of Christianity, especially when it comes to politics or applying the Bible.

I grew up in a Christian household with Awana and Veggie Tales. I've since identified as agnostic for the better part of the last decade. That being said; Phil, I have a ton of respect for you and what you literally preach. I have two young daughters who watch Veggie Tales because the message there is very important. There aren't other sources of media that teach a heightened sense of morality in the way you were able to. I've watched countless of the videos on your channel and shared them, especially during the beginning of this summer. Your ability to convey a conversation is fantastic and I wish I saw more of that in the world. ~Joseph

How dare you..... speak the absolute truth and cause many evangelicals to self-reflect on their engagement with problematic views and actions contrary to that of Christ and His teachings. You’re doing God’s work. Carry on, sir. 🙌🏽

I’m a 70 year old atheist, usually watch Christian sites for just a chuckle, you are awesome, very informative, mind blowing, I really enjoy your honesty, please understand that this is a compliment

Once again, “Bob the Tomato” talks sense and brings clarity by connecting facts that people like me were only vaguely familiar with before now. As an evangelical who grew up learning about loving others as myself at Billy Graham crusades, I have felt bewildered, frustrated and betrayed by the embrace of the often hateful language of the political hard right by my fellow evangelicals. Understanding how the blending of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians for political gain occurred, has helped me feel less bewildered. So thank you!

As an atheist I found this video to be really good! I'm happy to find someone willing to look at the history of their beliefs. Very well presented!

21:49 please do videos on all of the topics - we need them 🥺

Phil you are a brave man. I respect and admire it. I also fear for you because of it. You are in my prayers brother. Thanks for sharing.

"I think we're gonna get letters about this."

Long time agnostic, sociologist, American, millennial, member of the LGBTQ+ community here. I have known many Christians of various denominations, nearly all of them great friends. But I'm unsure if I've met any Evangelical Christians and I'm pretty sure I've never knowledgeably discussed Christianity with any Evangelical Christians. I'm grateful for your clear explanations on this history, because I have been very skeptical and confused about how the escalation and narratives of us vs. them in the media have been going. TikTok videos by supposed former Evangelicals my age who have left the church inspired me to try to learn more about how the various Evangelical communities in the US came to be. You have a new follower, and I appreciate the ability to learn. Thank you.

I'm calling myself a Neo-Evangelical from now on so I can use it as a spring board for conversation!

Thank you for producing this, Mr. Vischer! I've been wondering what "Evangelicalism" meant for a long time now. It all makes sense now. It's a terrible shame that the title has been so terribly tainted. I too believe it can be and hope to see it redeemed some day, hopefully sooner than later.

As a black man, I really appreciate you Phil. And I appreciate Veggie Tales too lol!

I'm not as hopeful as you Phil. The term Evangelical is foreign to me now. I cannot identify with what it is today. I think "Christian" is sufficient.

LOVE these Christian history lessons. Please keep it up!

Damn you’re making me want to be a Christian LOL

From one of those pesky Mainline Modernists, I'd like to say to Phil blessings and Godspeed on this project. It's super important!

I love this content so much... especially coming from the guy who helped educate all six of my kids (from the late 1990s to 2015) with VeggieTales, LarryBoy and the whole crew. I'm pretty sure we saw them all. Probably within the last five to six months, I never knew this "war" was brewing like this - to this degree - amongst believers in Christ. Terms like C.R.T. crossed my path in reading. And I'm like, "What's this all about?" And once I ventured down this road, running into other terms like "woke," "deconstructionism," etc. I realized and started to understand just how politicized "Evangelicals" have become. It's like there's Christians on one side of the aisle screaming at the other Christians on the other aisle, "Vote Republican to prove you are Christian, or vote Democrat to prove that you're not." It's so disturbing to hear things like that. But since becoming a subscriber to this channel, it has been a breath of fresh air to my soul. Thank you so much for the content...and telling the whole objective story of America's history - the good, the bad and the ugly. So refreshing...

As a non American, thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering why the US Trumpist evangelicals are being reported as in bed with with the prosperity gospel, when many evangelicals elsewhere in the world would see those movements as complete opposites.

This is helpful, because we don’t learn this in church. It’s good to learn the history know understand the differences which explains why there is division among evangelicals.

Although I admire Phil's optimism on the return to it's roots, I believe the term is lost and not recoverable.

I am an atheist, and your videos are inspiring. You are the voice that the christian community needs, and I appreciate the work that you are doing, and I think it is what we need to bring the country together.

Sadly, I feel like fundamentalism has become more and more dominant every year, especially during the Trump years. Really hope evangelicalism can make a comeback, and fortunately I’m seeing those of us in the younger generation much more in line with the evangelical way of thinking

21:49 I'd really like if you made a video about "desire to declare war on our enemies" because I grew up a very homophobic person. Even today I struggle with it, on occasion. I wish I could get rid of those behaviors, because it feels hateful and wrong. At the same time, I can't help but reflect on how I was always taught that it WAS wrong. I've been hoping for a reasonable documentation about how a Christian is supposed to react to modern LGBT, from someone who knows their stuff. You seem like the perfect candidate for that job, Phil! I need to learn the reality no matter how harsh it may be!

Episode 383 of the podcast is one of my favorite episodes ever. Glad you decided to make a video on this topic! Super helpful and important to know the history. Would love to see more videos like this.

Every time you upload a video, I know some crucial tea is about to get spilled. Such a great gift of yours, Phil! Keep up all the good work. God bless~

Phil Vischer, God made you special and he loves you very much. ❤

21:50. Yes please! Make a video for each of these. ☺ These Vids are awesome! The podcast is also fantastic. Thank you

Hey Phil, I grew up with veggie tales, it helped shape my faith from a young age. Seeing these videos helps me walk through the complications of the modern world with a familiar face, thank you for this ministry.

Thank you Phil. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! You’ve helped me immensely this year, with the inspiring video clips from Holy Post, as well as your very fun and informative podcasts. I appreciate you my brother in Christ!! 🕊🙏🏽☺️

The Best explanation ever....this is pure Gold

Omg this is a GREAT explanation!! Super important information.

Bless you, Phil. Keep up the good work! You've been a great influence on my childhood with Veggie Tales and the fact that you continue to teach and inspire now grown-up kids like me is wonderful.

I just learned so much!! Thank you so much to everyone who is a part of Holy Post. I’ve been so appreciative of all of your videos. Very grounding, educational, encouraging, and most of all a breath of fresh air in these chaotic and unfamiliar times. Thank you so so much for everything you do.

You really make me question checking the "evangelical" box on surveys And then you got to the part where you said "I haven't given up on the name evangelical"

Thank you for this. It’s so good to know that the history of Christianity in America has roots outside of the Southern fundamentalist tradition. I can now hold my head high as I proclaim that I too am an evangelical.

Whew! Phil, thank you for connecting so many dots; especially those that i didn’t know were in need of connecting.

Thank you!!! This brought me to tears, it was so deeply helpful to see the fuller picture and make some sense of how strange and displacing it feels to be a follower of Jesus in America right now. Your videos are awesome, please keep them coming!! So needed.

Thank you for this video and all the others you’ve made! It is helpful to learn an accurate version of Christian history. May God continue to bless your work.

I really love how you really look deep into the history and culture into these kinds of videos. Keep it up :)

This is the best videos on this topic i've ever seen. Thank you so much.

Your videos are awesome, informative, interesting, creative, and, at times, very funny. Keep up the great work.

Thanks for this very succinct and informative history lesson. I grew up in an "evangelical" denomination, but I now consider myself as an Anabaptist. It's good to know more about the roots of today's "evangelicals."

Thank you for this! I grew up evangelical, but I didn't know a *lot* of this. It explains a lot of divides in evangelicalism that have confused me for a long time.

I am not a believer in God by any stretch of the imagination. I am, however, interested in Christian history and politics. I found this video very informative and engaging and I thank you for producing it, Mr. Vischer.

Thank you!! Pls don’t stop making these videos 🙌

Phil, once again your research and nuance is appreciated. As a young evangelical in a turbulent culture, it’s often difficult to not be discouraged. Y’all do such a great job of holding fast to the Bible while being fairly critical. Thank you.

As followers of Christ, we MUST keep the perspective: The world 🌎 is the Mission Field & we are the Missionaries. Period!!!

Phil, you did it again! Another great video! Tremendous! Thank you for using your platform and talent for good and the gospel of Christ. (Sharing this as I did with others)

I don't base my faith on denominations or men. My faith is based on the infallible WORD OF GOD period. Those who have had a real experience with God and tasted the power of His Word, don't need a label, except Christian.

I'm watching after listening to you on Paulogia. Very informative! Happy to have been introduced to your channel!

I'm an ex christian who used to watch a lot of veggie tales. I appreciate the good content from this channel, keep making it, it's important. Even if it doesn't get a lot of view now, I have a good feeling these videos will eventually prove influential.

Thanks Phil, this is awesome! Looking forward to more video breakdowns

This makes so much sense. I learned about a lot of these events but never put it all together. Thank you so much!

Very interesting. Keep them coming!

Thank you this was well done and needed.

Thank you for this very thorough elaboration on Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism in 20th century America. I grew up in Romania and attended a fundamentalist baptist church. Thankfully, my parents valued higher education and sent me to Wheaton College. As an outsider to American politics but an insider of the Fundamentalist / Evangelical faith, I found myself in very interesting and yet conflicting conversations with my American friends. This video helped me better understand the development of Fundamentalism, Evangelicalism, politics, and will come in very handy next time the topic comes up. Thank you so much, Phil, for all the hard work that you put in creating this video. God bless you!

Great history lesson and easy-to-understand explanation of terms we hear in the news all the time. Thanks!

Excellent Phil (and Skye & John Fea). You’re probably getting flack for this. Glad to jump in here while comments are still positive. We need this checkered history to be well known if we’re ever going to think critically about our assumptions.

Good, and well made history lesson - thumbs up from an Atheist in Europe

As a student of comparative religions, I found this very informative. I will admit I had a lot of misconceptions due to the blurring of the lines. Thank you for clarifying. I have subscribed to your channel for more information

Another fabulous, informative video from Phil. Thank you so much! Keep doing what you’re doing.

Can you keep making videos on these issues like... every day? They're so informative and pull everything together. Watching these gives me hope that I'm not alone in this no man's land of homelessness many of us Christians have found ourselves in. Thank you!

Evangelicals are what happens when you mix religion with politics.

Wow! Best thing I have seen in a LONG time! So fun and fact filled! Many things I knew and many I hadn’t heard or pieced together. This is so well done and so needed. Very timely. I was a fundamentalist and now a modernist. I am very concerned for our kids and grandkids and the future of the church. Thank you Phil!

This was a great video. Currently doing a paper on Religious and I picked The Evangelical Movement. Very informational.

You should start making these with the Whats in the Bible puppets, Phil 😂

I always considered "Evangelical" as an alternative term for Protestant. Protestant is a poor term. It originally meant "in protest of the Pope" my faith goes far beyond anything to do with the Pope.

Thank you, Bob the Tomato, err... Phil Vischer. I appreciate this history lesson, and I admire the spot-on way in which you wove humor, insight, and some hard truths into your telling of it. If only ALL online discourse could be this enjoyable and thought-provoking, maybe we'd all stop and listen and consider others' perspectives more. Keep up the good work!

Mr. Vischer, just came over to your channel from watching your guest spot on Paulogia's channel. I didn't know you were doing things on KZfaq and am excited to see your content. Just wanted to say right out the gate, thank you for creating such a massive part of my childhood and being a contributing factor to the growth and development of computer animation.

It was honestly a crushing feeling seeing the Evangelical and Fundamentalist arrows merge back together. According to this video, I'd be a 'neo-evangelical', and I often find tension with my fundamentalist brothers and sisters over the very subjects of race and the importance of science and philosophy. I pray and hope that a third way can re-emerge yet again. Maybe the politics of our time might become the catalyst for some concerned Christians to draw some important distinctions and engage the world in a more loving and peaceful manner.

Great work Phil. Keep it up!

An atheist brought over by your visit to paulogia, real informative video and well presented, cleared up a lot of confusion ive had around the term, and seems my confusion wasnt exactly just on me. good work.

Thank you for this video. You provided great background information for understanding better the various Christian schools, colleges/universities, and churches that I have attended in the past.

I really love this guy

I've read and heard that being called "evangelical" goes all the way back to the Reformation, when Catholics were apparently calling Protestants evangelicals pejoratively to mock us for only keeping to the written gospel and not also the Catholic tradition. Whether that's accurate or not, I definitely found this to be a helpful, engaging and insightful walkthrough of Protestant history over the last 300 years. Thanks :)

So well laid out and presented. Very good, and factual info-clip. THANK YOU FOR THIS!!!!

Phil, thanks for breaking it down and making it plain. What you teach here gives clarity regarding the "hot mess" and helps me make sense of my frustration with this country. Thanks again

Have not heard "It's on like Donkey Kong" since the 80s! I'm so old!! 😀

That was so educational and interesting!

Excellent. I knew all of these pieces but you put them together. Well done.

This was great. Reminds me of why there was a time I could tolerate some believers. Now days those types are few and far between. Mad respect for your ability to communicate why this happened and for being one of those believers deserving of respect.

So we need to start calling fundamentalists what they are, fundamentalists.

The evangelical movement needs a lot more christians like you to undo the PR taint of Bob Jones, Jerry Falwell and and the far right. As an atheist, your channel gives me hope that, maybe, we're not enemies.

Man I love everything you Sky and Christian are doing. God bless you and keep up the good work.

I'm not sure why these videos were suggested for me but I'm glad they were. I've watched 4 so far, I'm not American or remotely religious but always willing to learn and I'm learning a lot! Thank you.

Great video. I’d love to see one the topic you mentioned on America’s fixation with the Nation of Israel.

This man is the bomb!

Your videos are so informative. And Wow, I just found out you are the creator of VeggieTales. I admire your commitment to serve God with the talents and gifts He has given you. God bless you.

This is the best overview of the “evangelical” movement I have seen or read. I even managed to focus on the history lesson for more than 20 minutes - which is unusual for me. From my perspective, fundamentalists and evangelicals share a common problem. It is easy enough for a person to say he takes the Bible “literally”. But every person I have ever met who claimed to take the Bible literally has simply agreed with what he was taught about which parts of the Bible are to be taken literally and which parts are not. Such people manage to place enough emphasis on the parts they take literally that they manage (or at least seem to manage) to ignore the parts they don’t take literally. In the sixteenth century, the puritans took such Bible texts as Galatians 3:29 literally. "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (See also Matt. 3:9, Rom. 9:6-8, Rom. 11, Gal. 3:7 & 9, Eph. 2:11-19) The puritans who aspired to build a puritan society in North America thought of themselves as Israelites and thought of North America (or at least their own colonies in North America) as the new Israel. They also applied the phrase “new Jerusalem” to their concept of an ideal society in North American, apparently not taking literally the description in Revelation 21:2 “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” In their quest to rid themselves of the doctrines of the Roman Church, the New England puritans were diligent to take the instructions of Exodus 16:23 literally “...To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning.” The New England puritans did no baking and no cooking on Sunday, having prepared their sabbath meals beforehand. Apparently they did not take literally the instruction in Exodus 20:8-11 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” The instruction about preparing meals before the sabbath day was in the context of the giving of the manna (Ex. 16) so there could hardly have been any question about which day of the week there was a double portion of manna or on which day the Lord rested, i.e. the day of the week when no manna appeared. In the nineteenth century, the law of the conservation of matter (aka the conservation of mass) was taught as a “scientific principle”. In an attempt to reconcile the creation account in Genesis with the law of the conservation of matter, Joseph Smith Jr. taught that the God of Genesis “created” things on Earth but only in the sense of rearranging existing matter. In a manner reminiscent of the theology of the puritans, Smith taught that believers (i.e. his followers) constituted modern Israel but made a distinction between them and “the Jews”. As I understand their teaching, LdS (Mormons) in the twenty-first century teach that the modern political nation in the Middle East should more properly be called Judea (because it is populated primarily by the “Jewish” descendants of the southern of the kingdoms that split after the reign of Solomon. It was also in the nineteenth century that John Nelson Darby developed a way to deny the “literalism” of the puritans with regard to the identity of Israel. While not explicitly denying that the church is “spiritual” Israel, Darby developed the doctrine that the promises to Israel and the prophecies about Israel should be understood as applying to “literal” Israel, i.e. the “literal” descendants of the patriarch, Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. Beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, fiat creationists could point to Colossians 1:12-17 as evidence that matter and energy are interchangeable and that, if the God of Genesis 1 was the source of unlimited power (energy), he could literally create matter by converting that energy into matter. “Giving thanks unto the Father...Who hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:...For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” In the twenty-first century, I think most people in the United States tend to understand the word “fundamentalist” and “fundamentalism” as relating more to enthusiasm for a particular interpretation of the Bible or the Qur’an than to the “literalism” that may have been part of the early development of such an interpretation. When that kind of religious enthusiasm is combined with enthusiasm for a particular political doctrine, it produces exactly what you described in your video.

7:50 This is, to me the SINGLE biggest problem with American Christianity today. It has slowly become an insular cult disconnected with not only the world outside the church, but ever since 2016, from reality itself. I don't really have words for how much that breaks my heart.

Wow, this is incredible. I’d like to see some sources and resources used for this video

Regardless of your religious beliefs, it's so refreshing to see a great and informative video about the history of Evangelicalism. Thank you Phil! I think a lot of people are concerned about where the church is currently heading.

I really needed this bit of encouragement today. Feels like I've been focusing on all of the negativity around the label of "Evangelical"

"Sir, I suspect that you wish to make me a Christian."

Amen and amen. Thanks for this. It answers a lot of what I have struggled with about the 2016 election and more. I’m with you let’s reclaim our name.

Please do a video on all those topics you mention. I SO want to learn and share with others.

Thanks for yet another important history lesson! God bless you, your team, and your work!