Chick tracts are short evangelical-themed tracts created by American publisher Jack Chick. Chick tracts use a comic book format. They are often controversial for their enthusiastic endorsement of fundamentalist Christianity and condemnation of ecumenical, liberal, and prosperity Christians, the Catholic Church, and religions other than Evangelical Christianity.
The tracts are small pamphlets, approximately three by five inches in dimensions, and approximately twenty pages in length.[1]
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Chick Publications is the publishing company that Chick created to produce and market his tracts, along with comic books, books, and posters though the best-known products are still the Chick tracts.[2]
While some tracts express views that are generally accepted within Christian theology, e.g. the Incarnation of Christ,[3] other tracts have controversial views and criticisms against cultures, religions and theological concepts. The Southern Poverty Law Center labels the organization as a hate group.[4]
Chick Publications has its headquarters in Rancho Cucamonga,[5] while it has an Ontario, California mailing address. All of Chick Publications' tracts, and several excerpts from his full-length comics, may be read without charge at the Chick website. Many older tracts are out of print; however, Chick Publications will print a minimum 10,000 tract special order of any out-of-print series.
On the company's website they also note that "Our ministry is primarily publishing the gospel tracts of Jack T. Chick, but we do occasionally publish a manuscript in book form."[6] They state that if the content "educates Christians in one of the areas for which we have a tract, we would love to see it" and cite several examples; the online store lists nearly a dozen book categories.[6]
The tracts typically follow the themes of fear of incurring the wrath of God and suffering an eternity of agonizing punishment, or redemption in the afterlife, or set up a confrontation between an evangelical Christian and a non-Christian or non-evangelical Christian in order to spread a religious message. Most Chick tracts end with either a non-Christian being converted to Christianity or a contrast between those who accept Jesus and those who do not; a convert receives entry into heaven, while a non-believer is condemned to hell, in a recycled scene in which God (portrayed as a giant, glowing, faceless figure sitting on a throne) condemns or welcomes a character. In one tract, Things To Come, God appears with a visible face.[7]
Several tracts follow a spiritual warfare theme; during scenes of human interaction, the presence of angels and demons manipulating the situation is sometimes revealed to the reader. The actions and conversations of the spiritual beings go unnoticed by the human characters. Additionally, Satan himself has appeared occasionally, portrayed as a devil bearing horns and a beard, and the Grim Reaper, in a black robe and wielding a scythe, is sometimes seen during (or before) a character's death.
Chick tracts end with a suggested prayer for the reader to pray to accept Christ. In most of these tracts it is a standard sinner's prayer for salvation. In the tracts dealing with Catholicism or Islam, the prayer includes a clause to reject these religions. Included with the prayer are directions for converting to Christianity. Occasionally, there is a scene in which Satan tells the reader that there is nothing to worry about, followed by a Christian character warning the reader not to listen to him.
The comics are often drawn simplistically yet effectively, with dialog and thought bubbles present during conversation. Profanity is often used in the words of demons and non-Christians, obscured completely by random punctuation marks.
Strips, Toons, and Bluesies, written by Douglas Bevan Dowd and Todd Hignite, stated that "it's safe to assume Chick saw at least some" Tijuana bibles since the books and, according to Dowd and Hignite, Chick tracts were "strikingly similar" to Tijuana bibles; like Tijuana bibles the tracts mostly targeted youth of lower socioeconomic classes and "were loaded with stereotypes." The book stated that Chick tracts contained "way-out, wild" portrayals of recreational drug usage and portrayed "the sexual revolution," male and female homosexuality and pedophilia. In addition the comics included supernatural elements, occult rituals, torture, and cannibalism.[8]
Chick has written tracts on many different subjects.
Several of them involve the eternal fates of those who accept and reject Christian salvation. His best known tract, This Was Your Life,[9] is one example, telling the story of a man who dies and faces his final judgment before God. Some of his salvation-oriented tracts deal with members of non-Christian religions, such as Islam (an example is Allah Had No Son [10]), or groups that might be considered "cults" within Christian circles, such as Mormonism (an example is The Visitors [11]).
Chick has also written tracts on topics unrelated to salvation, such as abortion (an example being Who Murdered Clarice?.[12]
However, several of Chick's topics, even within Christianity, are topics of hot debate. Several topics are presented below:
At least twenty Chick tracts have Catholicism as their subject or as a major theme, including Are Roman Catholics Christians?[13] (arguing that they are not), The Death Cookie [14](a polemic against the Catholic Eucharist), and Why is Mary Crying?[15] (arguing that Mary does not support the veneration given to her by Catholicism).[16]
Chick also expounds his anti-Catholic views in several comics and other books, including defending the controversial Alberto Rivera.[17][18] Chick also asserts that the Catholic Church, in a grand conspiracy, created "Three Deadly Daughters," namely Islam, Communism, and Nazism.[19]
In The New Anti-Catholicism, religious historian Philip Jenkins describes Chick tracts as promulgating "bizarre allegations of Catholic conspiracy and sexual hypocrisy" to perpetuate "anti-papal and anti-Catholic mythologies".[20]
Michael Ian Borer, a sociology professor of Furman University at the time, described Chick's strong anti-Catholic themes in a 2007 American Sociological Association presentation[21] and in a peer reviewed article the next year in Religion and American Culture.[22]
Catholic Answers web published a response to the claims of Chick Publications against Roman Catholics and a criticism of Chick Tracts in general called [23] detailing the inaccuracies, factual errors, and how a "typical tactic in Chick tracts is to portray Catholics as being unpleasant or revolting in various ways".
Chick tracts are unequivocal and explicit in their opposition to homosexuality, and repeatedly employ two central themes. The first is that the nature of homosexuality is revealed in the conservative Christian interpretation of the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah story. The second is that God hates homosexuality. The earliest anti-gay tract, The Gay Blade (1972), borrowed several of its frames from a 1971 Life Magazine photo-essay on the Gay Liberation movement, but with the images altered to make the gay men look more dissolute or stereotypically feminized.[24]
Chick has published several anti-evolution tracks, but Big Daddy? remains "the most widely distributed antievolution booklet in history"[25]
However, critics point out that the Big Daddy tract mainly uses Kent Hovind as a reference, despite the fact that Hovind has no degrees from accredited institutions in the relevant fields, that the thesis referred to is considered to be of very poor quality, and that his claims are at odds with the published statements of experts in the field [26][27][28][29] In fact, Big Daddy is presented as a "typical of the genre" example of just how "misleading and dishonest" creationist presentations are. Some of the examples of the "deceptive and misleading" distortions, misrepresentation, and fabrications presented in Big Daddy are "Nebraska Man" (the misinterpretation of which was corrected after only a year), "New Guinea Man" (which only exists in creationist literature and is actually Home sapiens), and the implication that "Cro-magnon" man is different from Homo sapiens[30] Many of these points are reiterated in the satire tract Who's Your Daddy?
Hovind's referenced claim in Big Daddy, "It has never been against the law to teach the Bible or creation in public schools," is both misleading and false as "the U. S. Supreme Court case of Edwards v. Aguillard found that teaching Creationism alongside Evolution in the classroom was unconstitutional, violating the establishment clause."[31][32][33]
The Chick tract Sabotage is described by theologian James R. White as "a classic rendering of King James Only propaganda", wherein the protagonist loses his faith, and becomes a "drugged-out hippie" on being told that "the Word of God is found only in the original manuscripts, and they've all been lost", only to have his faith restored by a King James Only advocate.[34]
Chick portrays a world full of paranoia and conspiracy where nothing is what it seems and nearly everything is a Satanic plot to lead them to Hell.[35][36][37][38]
Chick's claims about Catholic, Masonic, Satanic, etc., conspiracies are based in large part on the testimony of people who claim to have been members of these groups before converting to Evangelical Christianity, most prominently Rivera and Schnoebelen. Many of Chick's critics consider these sources to be frauds or fantasists.[29] One such case was "The Prophet"[39] where the fantastic tale related by Alberto Rivera of how the papacy helped start Islam turned out to have no basis in reality.[36]
Some cartoonists have published parodies of Chick tracts that mimic their familiar layout and narrative conventions. Examples include "Devil Doll?" by Daniel Clowes, Antlers Of The Damned'[40] by Adam Thrasher, Jesus Delivers! by Jim Woodring and David Lasky, Demonic Deviltry by "Dr. Robert Ramos" (actually Justin Achilli of White Wolf Game Studios), and A Patriarchy's Nightmare by Keith Mayerson.
Issue #2 of Daniel K. Raeburn's zine The Imp, which consists of a lengthy essay on Jack T. Chick's work and a concordance of terms and concepts used in his comics, has dimensions and covers that imitate a Chick tract.
Hot Chicks is a collection of nine short films, each based on a Chick Tract. The film played at the 2006 Los Angeles International Film Festival, the New Fest in New York, and others. The films are word for word (and often shot for shot) adaptations of Chick Tracts. The Tracts adapted are Bewitched?, "La Princesita", "Somebody Goofed", Titanic, "Cleo", "Doom Town", "Wounded Children", "Angels?", and "Party Girl."
The blog "Enter the Jabberwock" has a section called Chick Dissection, where the blogger takes select Chick tracts and comments on them panel by panel. Similarly, Boolean Union Studios has a section where the site creators comment on Chick tracts. The same website also features an animated version of Dark Dungeons.
Why We're Here by Fred Van Lente and Steve Ellis is a Cthulhu Mythos-themed comic that parodies Chick's visual and proselytistic style as though it were promoting the theology of a cult from one of H. P. Lovecraft's stories. Where a Chick Tract, for example, would typically insert an inter-title box containing a pertinent Biblical verse, "Why We're Here" instead references verses from the Necronomicon and other fictional Mythos-linked books. Another Cthulhu-based parody is Who Will Be Eaten First which teaches that the most we can hope for when the Elder Gods return is to be eaten first.
Galactus is Coming is a parody of Chick Tracts based on Marvel Comics' planet-eating cosmic god Galactus, published online by the website Your Mom's Basement. In it, a bunch of children ask Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four if Galactus is real and might eat the Earth one day, and Richards proceeds to explain in typical Chick fashion, only using references to classic Marvel Comics in lieu of biblical quotes. The blog entry presents the forged tract as a long-lost collaboration between Chick and Marvel Comics founding editor Stan Lee for humorous effect only.
Chick Tracts depict Paganism and Neo-Paganism as a form of Satanism. As a response to this, a comic strip in the style of a Chick Publication called The Other People was written by Oberon Zell Ravenheart of the Neo-Pagan Church of All Worlds, with art by Don Lewis, in which fundamentalist Christians ring the doorbell of a Pagan family, and get a Bible lesson from the Neo-Pagan point of view.[41]
Big Daddy was satirized by Who's Your Daddy?, Somebody Loves You was satirized by Somebody Loves You?, and Gun Slinger was satirized by The Good, The Bad, and the Fundy by the Jack T Chick Parody Archive. At least one satire website (Jack T Chick Parody Archive) has claimed copyright claims by Chick Publications to remove parody tracts.
Lance Bangs's 2003 documentary Let America Laugh details comic David Cross and his tour of small alternative rock clubs. The chapters of the DVD are taken from the titles of Chick tracts, such as Is There Another Christ?, Gomez Is Coming and This Was Your Life. (David Cross is a self-professed atheist.)
Chick's critics (such as talkorigins.org, Hindu American Foundation, Catholic Answers, etc.) accuse him of misrepresentation.
The Hindu American Foundation put out electronic PDF paper called Hyperlink to Hinduphobia: Online Hatred, Extremism and Bigotry Against Hindus[42] which contains a section on Chick's site that ends with the statement "Chick Publications promotes hatred not just against Hindus, but also towards Muslims, Catholics, and others as is evidenced by the following titles of their tracts: “Last Rites – When this Catholic dies, he learns that his church couldn't save him”; “The Little Bride – Protect children against being recruited as Muslims. Li'l Susy explains that only Jesus can save them”; and “Allah Had No Son – The Allah of Islam is not the God of creation”"
He has also changed the content of other tracts such as The Last Generation and his book The Next Step to reflect his increasingly anti-Catholic beliefs, and the content of That Crazy Guy! was changed after the rise of the AIDS crisis (the tract was originally about herpes).[43] Also, the ending to The Poor Little Witch (in which a little girl is murdered by Satanists after forsaking Occultism and converting to Fundamentalist Christianity) was changed because the urban myth, which states that "every year in the U.S. at least 40,000 people... are murdered in witchcraft ceremonies" (about twice the entire reported homicide rate for the USA), turned out to be false and was removed from the tract.[44] Chick Publications depict Paganism and Neo-Paganism as a form of Satanism, a position Neo-Pagans and other observers strongly dispute.
The Chick Publications website is blocked in Singapore.[45] In December 2008, a Singaporean couple was charged with sedition for distributing the Chick tracts The Little Bride and Who Is Allah?, said to "to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between Christians and Muslims in Singapore".[46][47]
On October 31, 2011, the Northview Baptist Church in Hillsboro, Ohio gave out copies of a Chick tract, Mean Momma, along with candy for Halloween, only to receive complaints not only from its parishioners, but also from people worldwide via the church's Facebook page, due to the tract's content, in which a mother, who tells her children that a preacher has been lying to them about the existence of God, lost all three of her sons in short order—one in a tornado, another in a car crash, and the third by hanging himself. The pastor soon apologized for issuing the tracts, saying that, "Our church does not endorse this type of extreme methodology that was represented in this particular tract, and we can assure you that we will not let this happen again... our church is a loving church that loves souls and wants to do all we can in our community to help as well as spread and share the Gospel message of Christ."[48][49]
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