Chick tract
Encyclopedia
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
-themed tracts
Tract (literature)
A tract is a literary work, and in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the 21st century, these meant small pamphlets used for religious and political purposes, though far more often the former. They are...
created by American publisher Jack Chick
Jack Chick
Jack Thomas Chick is an American publisher, writer, and comic book artist of fundamentalist Christian tracts and comic books...
. Chick tracts use a comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
format. They are often controversial for their enthusiastic endorsement of fundamentalist Christianity
Fundamentalist Christianity
Christian fundamentalism, also known as Fundamentalist Christianity, or Fundamentalism, arose out of British and American Protestantism in the late 19th century and early 20th century among evangelical Christians...
and condemnation of ecumenical
Ecumenism
Ecumenism or oecumenism mainly refers to initiatives aimed at greater Christian unity or cooperation. It is used predominantly by and with reference to Christian denominations and Christian Churches separated by doctrine, history, and practice...
, liberal
Liberal Christianity
Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically and biblically informed religious movements and ideas within Christianity from the late 18th century and onward...
, and prosperity
Prosperity theology
Prosperity theology or gospel is a Christian religious belief whose proponents claim the Bible teaches that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians. Most teachers of prosperity theology maintain that a combination of faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will...
Christians, the Catholic Church, and religions other than Christianity.
The tracts are small pamphlets, approximately three by five inches in dimensions, and approximately twenty pages in length.
Chick publications
Chick Publications is the publishing company that Chick created to produce and market his tracts, along with comic bookComic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s, and poster
Poster
A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...
s though the best-known products are still the Chick tracts.
While some tracts express views that are generally accepted within Christian theology, e.g. the Incarnation of Christ
Incarnation (Christianity)
The Incarnation in traditional Christianity is the belief that Jesus Christ the second person of the Trinity, also known as God the Son or the Logos , "became flesh" by being conceived in the womb of a woman, the Virgin Mary, also known as the Theotokos .The Incarnation is a fundamental theological...
, other tracts have controversial views and criticisms against cultures, religions and theological concepts. The Southern Poverty Law Center
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
labels the organization as a hate group
Hate group
A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society...
.
Chick Publications has its headquarters in Rancho Cucamonga
Rancho Cucamonga, California
Rancho Cucamonga is a suburban city in San Bernardino County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,269, up from 127,743 at the 2000 census. L. Dennis Michael was elected as Mayor on November 2, 2010. Jack Lam is the City Manager...
, while it has an Ontario, California
Ontario, California
Ontario is a city located in San Bernardino County, California, United States, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Located in the western part of the Inland Empire region, it lies just east of the Los Angeles county line and is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area...
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." 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.
Style and recurring themes
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 ChristianityChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
or a contrast between those who accept Jesus and those who reject Him; a convert receives entry into heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
, while a non-believer is condemned to hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, in a recycled scene in which God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
(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.
Several tracts follow a spiritual warfare
Spiritual warfare
Spiritual warfare is a range of activity by various Christian groups whereby Satanic demons are combatted, using a variety of methods depending on the group, but typically through prayer.-Range of practice, history, and methodology:...
theme; during scenes of human interaction, the presence of angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
s and demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s 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
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
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
Scythe
A scythe is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass, or reaping crops. It was largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor machinery, but is still used in some areas of Europe and Asia. The Grim Reaper is often depicted carrying or 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
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
. In most of these tracts it is a standard sinner's prayer
Sinner's prayer
A sinner's prayer is an evangelical term referring to any prayer of repentance, spoken or read by individuals who feel convicted of the presence of sin in their life and desire to form or renew a personal relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ. It is not intended as liturgical like a...
for salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...
. In the tracts dealing with Catholicism or Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, 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
Speech balloon
Speech balloons are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comic strips and cartoons to allow words to be understood as representing the speech or thoughts of a given character in the comic...
present during conversation. Profanity
Profanity
Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
is often used in the words of demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s 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
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and pedophilia
Pedophilia
As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...
. In addition the comics included supernatural elements, occult rituals, torture, and cannibalism.
Tracts
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, 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
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
(an example is Allah Had No Son ), or groups that might be considered "cults" within Christian circles, such as Mormonism (an example is The Visitors ).
Chick has also written tracts on topics unrelated to salvation, such as abortion (an example being Who Murdered Clarice? .
However, several of Chick's topics, even within Christianity, are topics of hot debate. Several topics are presented below:
Anti-Catholicism
At least twenty Chick tracts have Catholicism as their subject or as a major theme, including Are Roman Catholics Christians? (arguing that they are not), The Death Cookie (a polemic against the Catholic EucharistEucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
), and Why is Mary Crying? (arguing that Mary does not support the veneration given to her by Catholicism).
Chick also expounds his anti-Catholic views in several comics and other books, including defending the controversial Alberto Rivera
Alberto Rivera
Alberto Magno Romero Rivera was an anti-Catholic religious activist who was the source of many of fundamentalist Christian author Jack Chick's conspiracy theories about the Vatican....
.
In The New Anti-Catholicism, religious historian Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins is as of 2010 the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University . He was Professor and a Distinguished Professor of History and Religious studies at the same institution; and also assistant, associate and then full professor of Criminal Justice and...
describes Chick tracts as promulgating "bizarre allegations of Catholic conspiracy and sexual hypocrisy" to perpetuate "anti-papal and anti-Catholic mythologies".
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 and in a peer reviewed article the next year in Religion and American Culture .
Catholic Answers web published a response to the claims of Chick Publications against Roman Catholics and a criticism of Chick Tracts in general called 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".
Anti-Homosexuality
Chick tracts are unequivocal and explicit in their opposition to homosexualityHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, 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
Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources....
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
Gay Liberation
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...
movement, but with the images altered to make the gay men look more dissolute or stereotypically feminized.
Anti-evolution
Chick has published several anti-evolution tracks, but Big Daddy? remains "the most widely distributed antievolution booklet in history"However, critics point out that the Big Daddy tract mainly uses Kent Hovind
Kent Hovind
Kent E. Hovind is an American young earth creationist. Hovind speaks on creation science and aims to convince listeners to reject theories of evolution, geophysics, and cosmology in favor of the Genesis creation narrative as found in the Bible...
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 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 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. ("the U. S. Supreme Court case of Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard
Edwards v. Aguillard, was a legal case about the teaching of creationism that was heard by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987. The Court ruled that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools, along with evolution, was unconstitutional because the law...
found that teaching Creationism alongside Evolution in the classroom was unconstitutional, violating the establishment clause.")
King James Only
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.Satan is behind it all
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.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
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Christianity, most prominently Rivera and Schnoebelen. Many of Chick's critics consider these sources to be frauds or fantasists. One such case was "The Prophet" where the fantastic tale related by Alberto Rivera
Alberto Rivera
Alberto Magno Romero Rivera was an anti-Catholic religious activist who was the source of many of fundamentalist Christian author Jack Chick's conspiracy theories about the Vatican....
of how the papacy helped start Islam turned out to have no basis in reality.
Parodies and popular culture
Some cartoonistCartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
s have published parodies of Chick tracts that mimic their familiar layout and narrative conventions. Examples include "Devil Doll?" by Daniel Clowes
Daniel Clowes
Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books....
, Antlers Of The Damned' by Adam Thrasher
Space Moose
Space Moose was a Canadian underground comic strip that appeared in the University of Alberta's student newspaper, The Gateway, between October 3, 1989 and 1999. Almost all of the strips were penned by Adam Thrasher, a student at the university. For career-related reasons, many archives refer to...
, Jesus Delivers! by Jim Woodring
Jim Woodring
Jim Woodring is a Seattle-based cartoonist, comic book author, artist and toy designer. He also produces fine art works in a variety of other media, including painting and charcoal....
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
Zine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
The Imp
The Imp (zine)
The Imp is a zine about comics that was written and published by Daniel Raeburn during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Each issue of the zine examined a single cartoonist or type of comic in depth, often incorporating interviews done by Raeburn with or about the subject...
, which consists of a lengthy essay
Essay
An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...
on Jack T. Chick's work and a concordance
Concordance (publishing)
A concordance is an alphabetical list of the principal words used in a book or body of work, with their immediate contexts. Because of the time and difficulty and expense involved in creating a concordance in the pre-computer era, only works of special importance, such as the Vedas, Bible, Qur'an...
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
Fred Van Lente
Fred Van Lente is an American writer, primarily of comic books and graphic novels.-Career:Van Lente is the co-founder, along with artist Ryan Dunlavey, of Evil Twin Comics, which produces his and Dunlavey’s non-fiction comic books, the first and most famous of which is Action Philosophers.Recent...
and Steve Ellis
Steve Ellis (comics)
Steve Ellis is an American comic book artist and illustrator who has worked for Wizards of the Coast DC Comics, Wildstorm, White Wolf, Moonstone Books, and Marvel Comics.-Early life and education:...
is a Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
-themed comic that parodies Chick's visual and proselytistic
Proselytism
Proselytizing is the act of attempting to convert people to another opinion and, particularly, another religion. The word proselytize is derived ultimately from the Greek language prefix προσ- and the verb ἔρχομαι in the form of προσήλυτος...
style as though it were promoting the theology of a cult from one of H. P. Lovecraft's
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
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
Necronomicon
The Necronomicon is a fictional grimoire appearing in the stories by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in...
and other fictional Mythos-linked books
Cthulhu Mythos arcane literature
Many fictional works of arcane literature appear in the Cthulhu Mythos. The main literary purpose of these works is to explain how characters within the tales come by occult or esoteric knowledge that is unknown to the general populace. However, in some cases the works themselves serve as an...
. 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
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
' planet-eating cosmic god Galactus
Galactus
Galactus is a fictional character appearing in comic books and other publications published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist and co-plotter Jack Kirby, the character debuted in Fantastic Four #48 , the first of a three-issue story later known as "The Galactus...
, published online by the website Your Mom's Basement. In it, a bunch of children ask Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four
The Fantastic Four is a fictional superhero team appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The group debuted in The Fantastic Four #1 , which helped to usher in a new level of realism in the medium...
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
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
for humorous effect only.
Chick Tracts depict Paganism
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
and Neo-Paganism as a form of Satanism
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
. 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
Church of All Worlds
The Church of All Worlds is a neopagan religious group whose stated mission is to evolve a network of information, mythology, and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaia and reuniting her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and...
, 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.
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
Lance Bangs
Lance Bangs is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and music video director who has created videos for Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Green Day, the Arcade Fire, the Shins, The Thermals, Belle & Sebastian, Menomena, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, R.E.M., Mike Watt, Death Cab for Cutie, The Black Keys, Kanye West, and...
's 2003 documentary Let America Laugh details comic David Cross
David Cross
David Cross is an American actor, writer and stand-up comedian perhaps best known for his work on HBO's sketch comedy series Mr...
and his tour of small alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
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.)
Criticism
Chick's critics (such as talkorigins.org, Hindu American Foundation, Catholic Answers, etc.) accuse him of misrepresentation.The Hindu American Foundation
Hindu American Foundation
The Hindu American Foundation is an American Hindu human rights group advocating on behalf of the Hindu community in the United States. Dr...
put out electronic PDF paper called Hyperlink to Hinduphobia: Online Hatred, Extremism and Bigotry Against Hindus 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
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
crisis (the tract was originally about herpes). 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. Chick Publications depict Paganism
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
and Neo-Paganism as a form of Satanism
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
, a position Neo-Pagans and other observers strongly dispute.
The Chick Publications website is blocked in Singapore
Censorship in Singapore
Censorship in Singapore mainly targets sexual, political, racial and religious issues, as defined by out-of-bounds markers.-Implementation:The Media Development Authority approves publications, issues arts entertainment licences and enforces the Free-to-air TV Programme Code, Cable TV Programme...
. In December 2008, a Singaporean couple was charged with sedition
Sedition
In law, sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority to tend toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent to lawful authority. Sedition may include any...
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".
On October 31, 2011, the Northview Baptist Church in Hillsboro, Ohio
Hillsboro, Ohio
Hillsboro is a city in and the county seat of Highland County, Ohio, United States. The population was 6,605 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Hillsboro is located at ....
gave out copies of a Chick tract, Mean Momma, along with candy for Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
, only to receive complaints not only from its parishioners, but also from people worldwide via the church's Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
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."
Further reading
- 'Jesus was Not a Weak Fairy: Chick Tracts and the Visual Culture of Evangelical Fear', chapter in