(h/t Dan Hammer) 

Oh, this is like a surreal blast from the 80’s Vacation Bible School past. And look, I don’t want to be too hard on this video. It’s a product of its time and evangelical culture. I get it. The kid is adorable and, you know what? Teaching kids to trust God like they trust mommy and daddy isn’t the worst thing you could do.

But what ultimately stands out to me is the way this video advocates for an authoritarian “trust and obey” approach to faith with an alarming disregard for things like relationship and ethics. In the universe of this video, God (like daddy) doesn’t have time to explain himself, so you just have to fall in line and obey, even if it makes no sense. And that highlights the fundamental problem with this ostensibly “Christian” video, that it envisions Christianity as unquestioning allegiance to the Bible (“His Word”) instead of a relational, lifelong attempt to discern and follow the way of Jesus. For the makers of this video, “obey the Bible” and “follow Jesus” are the same thing. But they’re not.

You can have a relationship with your mommy and daddy, for better or for worse, but you can’t have one with a book.