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Chick tract
Series of gospel tracts From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Chick tracts are short evangelical gospel tracts in a comic book format, originally created by American cartoonist Jack Chick in the 1960s. His company Chick Publications has continued to print Chick's work, as well as tracts in a similar style by other writers. Several tracts have expressed controversial viewpoints including strong anti-Catholic views and criticisms of other faiths.
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Chick Publications
Chick Publications produces and markets the Chick tracts, along with other comic books, books, and posters.[1] Chick Publications has its headquarters in Rancho Cucamonga, California,[2] and a mailing address in Ontario, California. Chick Publications has produced over 250 different titles, about 100 of which are still in print and available in over 100 languages.[3]
Format and design
The tracts themselves are approximately 3 by 5 inches (8 by 13 cm), and approximately twenty pages in length.[4] The material is written in comic book format, with the front panel featuring the title of the tract and the inside back panel devoted to a standard sinner's prayer. The back cover of the tract contains a blank space for churches distributing the tracts to stamp their name and address; Chick Publications is willing to print custom back covers, but at least 10,000 tracts must be ordered.
In Strips, Toons, and Bluesies: Essays in Comics and Culture, Douglas Bevan Dowd and Todd Hignite compare the format of Chick tracts to that of Tijuana bibles, and surmise that Chick was familiar with that medium and wrote with a similar audience of lower-class youth in mind.[5]
An article in Print magazine refers to the tracts' graphic design as "disturbing and compelling, precisely because they were so undesigned."[6]
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Themes
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Chick tracts end with a suggested prayer for the reader to pray to accept Jesus Christ; some include the question "Did you accept Jesus Christ as your own personal Saviour?" with yes or no checkboxes.[7][8] In the tracts dealing with "false religions", the prayer includes a clause to reject these religions. Included with the prayer are directions for converting to Christianity, which is also repeated on the inside back panel along with steps to take should the reader convert to Christianity.[9][10]
Media, such as television, film, and rock music (including Christian rock) are depicted as part of a satanic conspiracy to promote acceptance of homosexuality and evolution, among other issues.[11]
Some tracts, like Let's Fly Away[12] and The Throw Away Kid,[13] portray the subject of child abuse. The earliest on the subject is Somebody Loves Me, which focused on a young boy being bludgeoned to death by a drunken guardian after not getting enough to pay on the rent.[14] Some others, like The Outcast[15] and The Secret,[16] portray subjects of domestic abuse; one of the latest tracts, God's Little Angel (published by David W. Daniels), had a non-explicit reference to this issue when the mother answers her little daughter's question about their separation from her abusive husband/parent and refused to return to him.[17]
Other tracts portray themes of the apocalypse, particularly the Futurist interpretation of the Bible. Some of the tracts that explicitly describe this belief in detail include Almost Time,[18] The Beast,[19] Camel's in the Tent,[20] Global Warming,[21] The Great Escape,[22] The Last Generation,[23] Love the Jewish People,[24] The Only Hope,[25] Somebody Angry?,[26] Then What?,[27] Things to Come?,[28] Where Did They Go?,[29] Where's Your Name?,[30] Who is He?,[31] and Why Should I?.[32] In the tract The Great Escape,[22] for example, the land of Magog from Ezekiel is claimed to describe current day Russia, Gomer is claimed to be Germany, and the figure Gog of Magog is described as the political leader of Russia, although it is not specified which. In another tract, The Last Generation,[23] a future which fits the Futurist belief of the pre-apocalypse is described. Here, Christianity is punishable by death, and the children's schoolteachers are witches whose teachings include witchcraft and reincarnation. Chick's eschatological beliefs include "the Catholic Church [creating] a one-world government and [ruling] the world via the last pope, who is possessed by Satan."[7]
An article in Pop Culture and Theology contends that the tracts are "almost a direct descendant of the conspiratorial John Birch Society's worldview, where evil communists lurk around every corner to deceive and brutalize pristine, Eisenhowerian Americans. These comics are likewise, by every definition, little conspiracy theories."[33]
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Controversies
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The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated Chick Publications as a hate group due to the anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and homophobic rhetoric found in Chick tracts.[34][35]
The Hindu American Foundation has stated that "Chick Publications promotes hatred not just against Hindus, but also towards Muslims, Catholics, and others".[36]
Churches have been criticized for distributing Chick tracts. In October 2011, the Northview Baptist Church in Hillsboro, Ohio, gave out copies of the Chick tract Mean Momma[37] along with candy at Halloween.[38] The church received complaints from parishioners, and its pastor 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."[39]
Avon and Somerset Police investigated the distribution of Chick publications in Bristol, England, in July 2020 as hate speech due to the tracts' homophobic and anti-Semitic messaging.[40] Some tracts were banned from being republished for their notorious nature. At least 24 tracts are not available on the Chick Tract website as of 2024. One notable tract, Wounded Children (1983), depicts Satan robbing a young boy's innocence while exposing him to pornography and homosexuality before reaching adolescence.[41]
Anti-Catholicism
Catholicism is a frequent target of Chick tracts. Chick tracts have been referred to as "arguably one of the most successful contemporary attempts to construct Roman Catholicism as a social problem".[7] No fewer than 20 of the tracts are devoted to Catholicism, including Are Roman Catholics Christians?[42] (arguing that they are not), The Death Cookie[43] (a polemic against the Catholic Eucharist), and Why Is Mary Crying?[44] (arguing that Mary does not support the veneration Catholicism gives her).[45] One notable tract, Mary's Kids, focuses on an elderly Catholic member who disapproved of her son marrying a Pentecostal woman and then teaching their young daughter about the Virgin Mary. The mother convinces the elder that Mary was not a perpetual virgin after confronting her about the fact that her Catholic priests were sex offenders.[46]
Several Chick tracts have featured the ideas of anti-Catholic conspiracy theorist Alberto Rivera,[11][47][48][49] such as claims that the Catholic Church created Islam, Communism, Nazism, and Freemasonry.[50] For example, in the tract Love the Jewish People, one line reads: "In 1933, Catholic Germany, serving under the Vatican, launched a 20th-century inquisition, murdering 6 million Jews."[24] 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".[51] Michael Ian Borer, a sociology professor at Furman University, described Chick's strong anti-Catholic themes in a 2007 American Sociological Association presentation[7] and in a peer-reviewed article the next year in Religion and American Culture.[52]
American Catholic apologetic group Catholic Answers has published a critique of Chick's anti-Catholicism entitled The Nightmare World of Jack T. Chick.[53]
In Chick's view, "right theology and a knowledge of evil's true nature are the proper defense against the satanic onslaught of a godless (Catholic) media."[11]
Anti-Islam
Islam is also regularly targeted by Chick tracts, and more than ten tracts have been published on the subject. The most notable of these[citation needed] is Allah Had No Son, first published in 1994.[54] In this tract, a Muslim is converted to Christianity when he is told that Allah is a pagan moon god. The tract Camels in the Tent claims that Muslim immigration will lead to the establishment of Sharia law in the United States and the forceful conversion of non-Muslims to Islam.[55] Islam is portrayed in the tracts as a false religion created by the Roman Catholic church, which is under the influence of Satan.[8]
Chick tracts' depiction of Islam has been frequently criticized.[citation needed] In December 2008, a Singaporean couple was charged with sedition for distributing the Chick tracts The Little Bride[56] and Who Is Allah?.[57] The tracts were said to "promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between Christians and Muslims in Singapore".[58][59] The Chick Publications website has consequently been blocked in Singapore.[60]
In 2014, the Chick tract Unforgiven[61] was distributed by Bible Baptist Church in Garden City, Roanoke, Virginia, drawing outrage from the area's Muslim community. Hussain Al-Shiblawi, a local man interviewed by WDBJ-TV, explained that while the pamphlets he received from the church every Sunday were usually inspirational, this tract upset him: "It basically indicated that the people are violent, the religion itself is violent, and the facts in here are not true." Bible Baptist Church said that they did not write the tract and simply distributed it.[62]
Anti-homosexuality
Chick tracts are unequivocal and explicit in their opposition to homosexuality, and repeatedly employ two anti-homosexual themes: the belief that God hates homosexuality and considers it to be sinful, and the idea that the true nature of homosexuality is revealed in the Christian interpretation of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Book of Genesis.
Chick's first tract on the subject, The Gay Blade, was originally published in 1972.[63] This tract asserted the existence of the gay agenda and urged homosexuals to repent. The Gay Blade was revised in 1984, and is now out-of-print except by special order. According to Cynthia Burack, this tract borrowed several of its frames from a 1971 Life photo essay on the gay liberation movement, but with the images altered to make the gay men look more dissolute or stereotypically feminized.[64]
Later tracts on homosexuality depict gay rights activists as aggressive and prone to violence. In Doom Town, Chick claims that HIV-positive gay men plan to donate blood illegally to protest a lack of federal funding for HIV/AIDS research.[65] In Sin City, gay rights activists attack a pastor protesting a gay pride parade, beating him so badly that he is subsequently hospitalized.[66] Other tracts, such as Home Alone, have promoted the gay recruitment conspiracy theory and alleged that gay and lesbian individuals are more promiscuous than heterosexual ones.[67]
Chick's claims about homosexuality have angered gay activists. In 1974, members of the Gay People's Liberation Alliance and the Women's Coalition protested the distribution of Chick tracts at Iowa State University, claiming that they provided an inaccurate representation of gay and bisexual people.[68]
Anti-evolution
Chick published several anti-evolution tracts, but Big Daddy? (which also attempts to refute the existence of the strong nuclear force)[69] remains "the most widely distributed anti-evolution booklet in history".[70] Critics have pointed out that Big Daddy? mainly uses Young Earth creationist Kent Hovind as a reference for its claims, despite his lack of scientific credentials.[71][72][73][74]
Views on Satanism and Satanic influence
Gladys is an example of one of Chick's tracts on astrology, witchcraft, and Satanism.[75] The Poor Little Witch depicts child sacrifice and the ritual drinking of the child's blood by Satanists.[76] Catholic Answers stated that "Chick portrays a world full of paranoia and conspiracy where nothing is what it seems and nearly everything is a Satanic plot to lead people to hell."[53]
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Parodies and popular culture
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In film
- Dark Dungeons, a film adaptation of a Chick tract of the same name depicting Dungeons & Dragons as a front for Satanism, was released in August 2014. Producer JR Ralls was given the rights to the tract for free after contacting Chick.[77]
In print
Some cartoonists have published parodies that mimic Chick tracts' layout and narrative conventions. Examples include:
- Devil Doll? by Daniel Clowes, Antlers of the Damned[78] by Adam Thrasher, Jesus Delivers! by Jim Woodring and David Lasky, and Demonic Deviltry by "Dr. Robert Ramos" (actually Justin Achilli of White Wolf Game Studios).
- 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.
- Two parodies by "Jack C. Trick, LLC" and published by Trick Publications, entitled Chemical Salvation? (2006)[79] and ADAM & EVIL?! (2007),[80] tell the histories of LSD and MDMA respectively.
- A parody drawn by cartoonist Hal Robins, The Collector was included in chapter 13 of The Art of Jack T. Chick by Kurt Kuersteiner (2004, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.).
- The first edition of the Rick and Morty Season 1 Blu-ray came with a print version of The Good Morty,[81] a parody of Chick's work which appears in the episode "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind". The comic was written by series co-creator Justin Roiland and Ryan Ridley, and illustrated by Erica Hayes.[82]
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References
External links
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