The Holy Post podcast has become quite a popular “Christian” podcast partly due to the fact that Veggie Tales creator, Phil Vischer, is one of the hosts and is a popular face on the show. Those who raised their children on Veggie Tales may view Vischer as a benign, pro-Christian morality advocate with an orthodox biblical worldview.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As we’ve covered at The Dissenter over the years, Vischer has departed sound, biblical orthodoxy and abandoned objective reasoning, rational thought, and a biblical worldview in exchange for such things as “nuance,” and “ambiguity” on issues of Christian doctrine and morality.

Whether it be Vischer saying that Christians shouldn’t oppose transgenderism, patronizing black people by saying that he can handle criticism, but black people can’t, opposing the Florida anti-grooming bill, pondering whether or not overturning Roe v. Wade is a “worthy cause”, wondering whether or not Latinos are actually white because many of them vote Republican, arguing in favor of voting Democrat, or outright saying that people who want to send their kids to good or private schools are “wicked,” one thing is for sure, Phil Vischer is not the man we want behind the theology of a cartoon we put in front of our children.

This leads us to the latest blathering coming out of Vischer’s Holy Post podcast. While Vischer himself was not a part of this particular clip, it should be noted that it is aired on his podcast. Part of the following is courtesy of Protestia.

In a recent episode of the Holy Post Podcast, guest Dr. Amy Kenny proffered up a novel interpretation of the relationship between deity and disability, claiming that Jesus’s resurrected body is ‘disabled.’

Kenny, whose she/her personal pronouns are in her bio, is a Shakespeare scholar and lecturer at the University of California. She is also the author of the book My Body is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church, whose thesis is that disabilities are a reflection of God’s image and, therefore, should be celebrated and shepherded. They are not something that requires prayer or healing but rather instead need gracious accommodation.

This view of disability creates more than a few idiosyncratic beliefs. Throughout her writings and interviews, she repeatedly declares that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are disabled in some manner. Kenny further speculates that disabilities may very likely still exist in heaven: such as lameness, blindness, and deafness.

In her book, she offers the possibility that God may communicate with mute people in heaven with ASL (American Sign Language) and that the disabled may be navigating heaven in their wheelchairs, never able to walk. She doesn’t say to what degree this theology translates to mental disabilities compared to physical ones, and whether or not we ought to pray for those disabled by traumatic brain injuries or schizophrenia, or whether or not persons with Down Syndrome or severe mental impairment will likewise remain that way in heaven, or whether they will be healed.

Speaking to Kaitlyn Sheiss, she elaborates on why she claims that Jesus was disabled:

I get a lot of pushback on this because it makes people very uncomfortable and as you say, and to me that reveals that discomfort with disability more than anything else.

Jesus’ resurrected body is disabled. He says to Thomas, ‘put your hand in my side, touch my scars’ see them, blessed are you who have seen but blessed are those who have not seen and believed. And as disabled people, we know that all too well; people touching us without our consent, people poking and prodding us, people wanting to examine our bodies for proof, and not believing and gaslighting when a story is told, as it is here with the women sharing that they have seen the resurrected Christ and Thomas saying ‘nope’.

And this, I think it’s also really important, because we say that we believe that Jesus has defeated the dominions of darkness and defeated death itself, and that death has no sting, but it was a whoopsie that he came back disabled? I mean, that doesn’t make sense.

So I think that what we are uncomfortable with is the idea that the risen Christ would choose a disabled form. And what that reveals to me is that it gives me the freedom and hopefully it liberates us all, because it makes me realize yet again that my redemption and the marks of my healing are not things to be hidden or erased or eradicated. My disability isn’t something to be ashamed of, because it emulates the risen Christ.

And that disabled body is the mark of all of our healing.