VeggieTales co-creator Phil Vischer says the Bible shows God is not male after Talarico backlash reignites
Bob the Tomato’s dad has entered the chat, and the chat is furious. VeggieTales co-creator Phil Vischer has spent much of the past week arguing that God does not have a gender, and he is still at it. What began as one reply on X has become a full-blown theological brawl, with Vischer firing off posts to angry Christians who think he has lost the plot.
The fight orbits an old and strangely durable controversy. Texas Democrat James Talarico, who holds a master’s degree in theology, said during a 2021 debate in the Texas House that God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between, and that God is nonbinary. Republicans seized on the statement during the 2026 midterm race and used it to paint him as radical in attack ads.
Now that the votes are in, the argument has come roaring back. It started when right-wing pundit Gunther Eagleman responded to Talarico’s win in the Senate race by reminding Texans that “God is not non-binary.” One user replied that God transcending gender has been Sunday school level theology for as long as Christianity has existed. That is where Vischer stepped in with a line that, per a post that has since drawn well over a million views, hit a nerve.
What Vischer actually said
His opening shot was short. “‘God is a biological male’ is a weird hill to die on,” he wrote. When the replies piled up, he kept going and got more specific.
According to Them, he later told followers that anyone who believes the eternal creator is a male or female of a gendered species has departed from Christian orthodoxy. His core argument is that God created biology and therefore cannot be governed by it. He argued that God created gender and thus existed before it, and that the title “Father” describes a role rather than reproductive anatomy.
He also took on the obvious rebuttal about Jesus. Vischer acknowledged that God entered humanity as a biological male in the person of Christ, but said it is a mistake to conclude that God the Father is eternally male. He added that treating maleness as divine and femaleness as merely created elevates what we consider masculine to the divine character of God and demotes femininity to something human. His shorthand for the problem is that bad theology creates bad anthropology.
Not exactly a Pride flag moment
Anyone hoping for a full-throated Talarico endorsement will be disappointed. Vischer said Talarico’s choice of terms was needlessly provocative and unhelpful, though he called the underlying inference that God is neither male nor female theologically accurate. Talarico himself, per the same reporting, called his own comments “provocative” and “annoying” during the campaign.
Vischer has also been clear that his view of God does not translate into a view of human gender that LGBTQ readers would welcome. He argued that teaching that God created gender actually reinforces the idea of immutable characteristics. In a separate reply, he said intersex conditions are a product of the Fall, comparing them to his own near-sightedness. That comment drew its own criticism and impedes any attempt to cast him as an ally.
The backlash, and the other side of the debate
Conservative outlets were not kind. The Post Millennial ran a piece headlined “Woke ‘Veggie Tales’ creator questions whether God is male”, and Star Observer reports Vischer has faced backlash from fellow Christians. Critics elsewhere have pushed back on the substance. The Daily Signal’s rebuttal to Talarico notes that the Bible consistently uses male pronouns for God the Father and for Jesus.
Vischer’s defenders note that this is a question Christians have argued about for a very long time, and not everyone treats it as heresy. One Baptist News commentary argues that failing to recognize God as male, female, and Spirit shows an immature theology. Vischer does not go that far, and he has been careful to say he is making an orthodoxy argument rather than a progressive one.
Whatever you make of the theology, the irony is hard to miss. The man who spent decades teaching kids about forgiveness through talking vegetables is now being roasted for it by grown adults on social media. Larry the Cucumber would probably have something wise to say about that, but at this point, Vischer seems to be handling it fine on his own.
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