At first I was going to put this in MPSIMS, but then, I thought, since this is a somewhat religious subject, maybe it goes here. But I’m not sure, so I apologize to the mods if this isn’t the correct thread to post to and someone has to move it.
Reading things like
Angels?
I just want to know. Does Jack Chick actually believe that people literally sell their souls to the Devil? Signing contracts in blood and all?
I suppose you could e-mail him and ask.
I followed the link and have another question. In The Traitor, which is billed as a true story, the god(dess) Kali appears, has supernatural powers and endows her priest with the ability to do astral projection. So, is Chick saying that there are other gods and goddesses, or are they all just satan in disguise?
“We’re gonna ROCK, ROCK, ROCK, ROCK with the ROCK!”
Gee, Jack, with lyrics like that, how can you lose?
Anyway, of COURSE Jack Chick believes that people literally sell their souls! On p. 204 of the 3rd Edition D&D Fiend Folio, it tells you exactly how fiends make bargains for the souls of mortals. And, since Jack Chick has repeatedly assured us that everything about the occult in D&D is absolutely true, he has no choice but to believe! That reminds me; I have to send Jack a copy of the new 3.5 Edition rules changes. After all, we wouldn’t want him to publish anything inaccurate, would we?
I’d imagine that Jack doesn’t literally believe in blood contracts selling souls to Satan except in rare cases of actual Satanism- and in those tracts in which he used that theme, such a contract is nullified by renunciation & trust in the Blood of Jesus.
RE gods & goddesses in the Chickiverse- all demons in disguise
I think it’s a literary device, and he doesn’t belive it literally. He also uses it in “The Contract”
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0078/0078_01.asp
(Guy signs a contract with the devil. His cousin says it’s a bad idea because the devil now has his soul. Guy accepts Jesus on his deathbed, goes to heaven, and the cousin relies on his good works and goes to hell.)
The Devil, in the last panel there says “You fool! I don’t need a contract…I’ve got everyone anyway…except those who accepted Christ as their savior.”
So, it looks like Chick really doesn’t believe in congracts with the devil.
The idea of selling one’s soul has it’s basis in Christian theology from the idea that magicians and diviners performed their miracles not on their own, but thru supernatural agency, they were in league with the devil or demons (see James Lewis’s Satanism Today, 2001). Also check out the writing of Christian theologians like Origen, Aquinas and Augustine.
The legendary/folkore aspect of selling one’s soul to the devil goes back to a 6th century story based on a bishop named Theophilius (See Rosemary Guiley’s Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft 1999). It can see shown that the legend of Theophilius is influential in the legend of Faust. Most, if not all modern stories about Satan and especially about selling one’s soul to the devil can be traced to Faust.
It’s a fact, some Chicks ARE crazy. It’s a shame that otherwise rational people allow unfounded sets of beliefs cloud their judgement.
And I suppose you could post a totally useless reply. Oh wait, you already did.
Wait wait wait…D&D has been around how many years now, and it’s only up to 3.5? Wow.
Anyway, I bet Jack would have felt right at home during the Salem Witch Trials. He was defiantly born in the wrong century 
I’ve read that one before, but reading it again, now I’m confused. If Satan never needed a contract, then why did he have John sign one?
That’s not a very nice way to talk about women
I’m puzzled why the reply was useless. It is not as if Chick is the CEO of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate who is so busy he has an executive secretary to read his pre-filtered mail. Going to the source for this type of question actually seems pretty logical.
Had your question been whether people like Chick believe that, then finding his particular belief might not answer the question. (He might not believe in physical contracts while maybe others do.) However, since the OP was specifically addressed to whether Chick believed in contracts, asking Chick makes sense.
That wasn’t a useless reply.
This is a useless reply.
Jack Chick is a woman?
:eek:
I’m thinking it’s a narrative device. He’s taking the traditional “deal with the devil” story and putting a theological spin on it. It’s true the devil’s motives aren’t internally self consistant (although maybe he hopes that the man he signed the contract with will feel such despair he won’t turn to Christ), but I think that’s just because he’s fitting a theological point within the existing framework…
You’d expect the person who signed the deal with the devil to go to hell, because that’s how stories like this usually turn out, but the tract says that God is stronger than the devil, and faith in Jesus will get you to heaven. Likewise, you’d expect the “good” cousin to go to heaven, but in fact, he goes to hell.
From the above tract, in Jack Chick’s own words:
“Satan created all the gods of India. They are demons who will rob your soul and take you into hell. Satan controls All false gods by telling the great lie … that after death the soul is reincarnated.”
So, it sounds like in the magical mystical world of the Chickiverse, there are other gods, but they’re all minions of Satan.
I think the most remarkable thing in the tract the OP links to is the shameless self-promotion. The girl actually slips the rock guy a Chick tract, and he reads it and rethinks his pro-Satan positions. So now Chick is promoting the usage of Chick tracts in the tracts themselves. Well, I guess the self-promotion isn’t entirely out of place, we are talking about a religion whose god was also a shameless self-promoter (2 of the 10 commandments are me, me, me, gimme, gimme, gimme style after all.) Still, that’s just cheesy. It’s like a meta-reference on a message board…
Gotcha ya!
And since when is Kali more powerful than Shiva and Ganesh. Man, these Hindus have alot of gods, just when you think you have it figured out they throw you for a loop. Can we get an “ask the Hindu” thread one of these days, for the majority of us who will never open a page of the Bhagavad Vita?
I started to read the Bhagavad Vita but stopped dead when halfway through chapter one was the statement that students should not question the teacher.
My flirtation with Hinduism stopped abruptly.
Anyhoo, on the subject of other gods, I’m intrigued by these verses from Exodus 7:
10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake.
11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts:
12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.
So the Egyptian magicians could turn staves into snakes using “their secret arts” ? Wow, that’s pretty cool, considering that even with all our modern science, we can’t turn a stick into a snake.
If the Egypitians had such transmutational abilities, it’s hard to believe that 700 years later they could be clobbered by the Assyrians. You’d think if they continued to develop their “secret arts”, they’d have been able to smoke the Assyrians with conjured proto-WMDs and whatnot.
Miracles from God only come along rarely, but if you can change a stick into a snake at will, hey, that’s pretty damn neat! Sign me up!