Just thought I’d post this cause it’s fun. In the Jack Chick thread currently in the pit, the topic of when Jack was gonna get on the ball and do a Wicca tract came up.
Seeing as how I am both a Wiccan and a HUGE Chick fan (I’ve read every tract!) I can’t wait for this. I hope it’s as hateful and bizarre as I imagine it will be. This has the potential to be his best/worst in years.
Being inspired with the spirit of Cecil, I set about getting the Straight Dope[sup]TM[/sup] on the apparently missing Wicca tract. I wrote Jack’s People this letter:
A couple days later I got:
You know what this means don’t you? It means that coming soon to a Pit near you is Lucki’s Chicka Does Wicca Chickstravaganza[sup]TM[/sup]. It will be the biggest, funnest, hate-mongerinest thread party in town. I plan to find out in a month or so if they have a more exact date, so I can start the party a few days early, and make predictions about the Tract. A classic is on its way, I just know it!
I actually saw my first Chick Tract the other day. (Or at least the first one I recognized as such.) It was on the counter at my local convenience store, just lying there…no others around anywhere. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what the subject was.
I still find the page on ‘Scientific Errors In The Qur’an’ as the most amusing piece that site has yet to produce your tract will have a hard time beating it.
It has some truely great lines like
‘We pity those whose religion is only the product of an accident of birth and culture. They blindly follow whatever religion they were born into. How sad it is to have an unexamined faith; a faith that cannot stand up to reason and science’
I used to make fun of Jack Chick tracts all the time, and in fact collected them…in fact there are four or five of them in my desk (and I’m a christian!)
And then one day, I stopped and just chit chatted with a nice guy handing them out on the corner by my work. He was such a sweet old man, and he genuinely wanted people to love Jesus, and he looked sort of poor, but still smiling and when people wouldn’t take his tracts, he’d just say “Ok then, have a good day”.
And I told him I was already a Christian so I didn’t need one and he said, “Oh, that’s nice to hear”
Chick just makes me sad now, because I think of people who are so worried about the ‘young people’ or people who do want to minister to the confused, who WANT to be evangelists to people who need it, and they’ve been lead down this stupid, scary, fundamentalist road.
I think I disagree with Reeder–the response from Chick Publications Inc. didn’t say that “Matt” had inspired the new tract. Just that Chick was working on one that would serve his needs.
And if LC really did bring this fabulous monstrosity into the world…well, I guess I’m a little conflicted. Sure, she’s giving him more rope to hang himself with, but I kinda feel bad that there will be more of these damn things lying around. Trees will have to die for this, and the fires of intolerance get one more piece of kindling, and all. You understand.
Oh really?
Telling the Chick folk that you’re a concerned citizen (and a fan) and are keen to know a release date is just fine as a “false-flag” gambit as Tranquilis wrote. But, to also quote from the Straight Dope Mailbag: What is a Troll?
Are you seriously saying that you are concerned that folks are unknowingly loading up on devil power by studying Wiccan ways? Hmmmm?
However, please also understand that gentle teasing alone was the intent of my original comment and no offence was intended. Blessed Be.
Sure, there are lots of stupid people out there expousing dumb beliefs… but if you bait them into saying something dumb, you are just adding to the ignorance… You and I may agree that it’s dumb, but many others may accept it as truth!
Please wait until the stupid people themselves say something dumb, and then attack! It will go better…
You guys are missing the point. I am a huge Chick fan, not philosophically, but I love reading his tracts, they crack me up. I am a practicing Wiccan, and I’m very secure in my faith there.
I did not send anything trying to provoke a reaction and make them angry, I just wanted the information on why there was no Wicca tract yet, and how long it would be before there was one. To ease the process, I spoke to the Chick people in their own language.
If you go trolling on MB’s, it’s to piss people off and get reactions out of them. This was no such thing, it was a somewhat deceptive email message designed to get some information regarding one little piece of the work going on over there with the Chick folk.
I agree with Lucki. He wasn’t being deceptive for the purpose of stirring people up, he was just… going undercover. Nothing wrong with that.
At most I’d call it “baiting,” but not trolling. You folks who think he’s a troll are applying too limited a litmus test here, I think.
Nor did lucki’s efforts actually result in the creation of a new tract - it was already underway, as the reply clearly states. Jack Chick produces tracts like an old man’s ear produces hair - it’s automatic, no one’s really to BLAME for it.
Errr… I think we could consider old man Chick prime suspect, if not actually lay the blame at his door.
And, Lucki, I too enjoy reading the dashed things… it can be a bit like watching a train wreck in slow motion; despite knowing that you don’t really want to see this you just can’t drag your eyes away. Chick’s blatant disregard for thousands of years of history, mythology, philosophy… and logic is so fascinating, and in such a disturbing way as to be quite addictive.
