Jack Chick presents: a God who acts more like Satan!

Great Debates
1

Just take a look at this web site. You will find the following scenarios in comic-book form:

A virtuous Muslim doctor dies and is condemned to Hell by the Christian god.

A prominent Buddhist dies and is cast into eternal flames by the Christian god.

A distinguished Jewish rabbi dies and is sentenced to burn for following the wrong religion…hmmm, where have we seen that before…

A Roman Catholic man dies and is sentenced to Hell for getting his Christianity wrong. When he pleads for compassion, he is told that it’s too late. Burn!

A murderer dies and goes to Heaven, because he thought the right thoughts and said the right things at the very last minute. The lawman who caught him dies and goes to Hell. All the good things he did in life don’t matter, he still has to suffer grisly, eternal torture and pain.

I don’t know how accurately Jack Chick represents the views of fundamentalist Christians, but this is SICK. This is Satan ruling the universe. This is a deity who sadistically and vindictively tortures all those who don’t feed his ego, whether they meant to or not. This is a supernatural demon for whom the principles of compassion, mercy and loving kindness mean nothing outside the context of his (yes, HIS) own aggrandizement. This is a crazy, paranoid egomaniac holding the keys of creation and existence!

Not that I believe that this kind of god exists, of course. (If it did, I would walk into that lake of fire with my fist in the air and my head held high.)

I believe this god is totally a human construct, which makes it even more sick and scary. People who believe in this sort of thing apparently believe in torturing and burning everyone who doesn’t hold the same beliefs they do. That explains why there are crusades, persecutions and abortion clinic bombings, but it doesn’t explain the original belief.

Why should anyone follow a religion that uses FEAR as its primary motivation? Who would convert to such a faith except for those whose lives are so seriously fucked-up already that they secretly desire punishment?

What is so great about a belief system that says it doesn’t matter whether you act virtuously during your lifetime? How moral is that??!

Maybe this explains why murderers, exploiters and abusers so often claim to be Christians: as long as they profess “the faith” before they die, they get a free pass. Have you ever noticed that fundamentalist sects aren’t so big on social justice? They ignore what Jesus said about changing society and changing the way we treat each other. It’s all about individual, personal salvation. Me, me, me.

I’m sorry, I’m just really, really offended.

2

Jack Chick is usually discussed in the Pit because he’s not taken seriously enough for Great Debates. I don’t think there are any currently active Chick threads, but one is started every time he comes out with a new comic

3

Well, move the thread if you want, but I guess this thread is really about Chick’s brand of fundamentalism. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’s unique.

4

If Jack Chick’s god exists it looks like the Cathars were right all along :slight_smile: .

One thing that surprised me - the comic I read was pro-Jewish (every nation that wronged the Jews declined/disappeared). My general (probably incorrect) impression of fundies was that they were neutral or anti-Jewish, but that probably comes from KKK programs on the History channel.

5

Bromley,

That bit about the nations going against the Jews declining/disappearing is another key part of some brands of fundamentalism. It lays the groundwork for them (the fundamentalists) laying claim to being the new Chosen People because the Jews forfeited that claim when they snubbed God in the Flesh.

Fundamentalists: Yet another reason why I am a Latter-Day Saint.

6

I’ve never seen a Jack Chick tract before, though I’ve heard of them. It’s quite the most entertaining thing I’ve seen for a long time. I particularly like the anti-Islamic rant . AKA “our fundies are better than your fundies”. :smiley:

7

(a) Jack Chick represents a fringe of Christianity – he’s even off the mainstream of fundamentalism, I don’t think he really is even a part of any organized denomination, is he?

BTW yes, Christian doctrine says that as long as you truly, really, completely, unconditionally BELIEVE and REPENT, even at the last possible instant, you are spared – but t’ain’t as stupidly simple as Chick makes it look in his tracts. Doctrinally “repent” does not just mean “be sorry” and “believe” does not just mean “fear punishment.”
(b) Bromley, most American fundamentalism tends to view the fate of Israel (both in the sense of the Jewish people through history and of the post-1948 Middle Eastern nation-state) as an essential part in the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Specially so in recent times with the prevalence of End-Times theologies.

The key here is the theory that the Jews/Israel are primarily an object, a tool to be used by God …or on behalf of God… to make a point. (Rather than just people with an interest in just carrying on with their lives.) Historically, too often “christians” felt that the point to be made was “here’s what y’all git for rejectin’ Jeezus!” :mad: In the document you read, Chick makes the point that “hey, THIS God will kick your nation’s ass if you mess with his followers”. (Besides, kooks like him can always claim it’s the “bad Jews” in the big conspiracy-to-rule-the-world that prevent all the “good Jews” from becoming all Christians :rolleyes: )

8

I was not complaining about the placement of your thread. I was pointing out where you might find more comments about Chick that you might find interesting.

9

No problem, and thank you, bro’. ('brew?)

10

Jack Chick is no more a Christian than any other Fundamentalist bigot.

11

Any God who would cast Ghandi into Hell is not worthy of worship.

12

Hey, did you see Gandhi in Hell in the “South Park” movie??

I am definitely going to forswear ever worshipping Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

13

He forgot to make the comic:

Jack Chick goes to hell for having the audacity to believe that he has the ability to know god’s mind and judge who is worthy of heaven and who is worthy of hell.

Erek

14

Whether there really is a god-creator or not, I have to believe that the Taoists have it right in the idea that “The Tao that can be described is not the true Tao.” Tao does in many ways correspond to western concepts of God.
People have been saying what “God” is and isn’t for centuries. What they’ve really been doing is putting a name to their personal ideas about what an omnipotent being would be (usually a being that supports they’re own stance and condemns anybody elses).

The obvious problem there is that by describing God people are limiting it. A truly omnipotent, omniscient entity would by definition be beyond description, and beyond human concepts like vengeance and wrath or even compassion and mercy. Those are ideas created by us for use when dealing with each other.

I don’t know if there was a creative intelligence behind the universe or not, but if there is, I think it’s best described as Life. A self sustaining need for existence maybe.

I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with a god as described by people like Chick.

15

I’ll have to agree wholeheartedly with photopat on this one.

Erek

16

Unfortunately, what the OP described is widely believed by fundamentalist Christians, at least all of them that I know. Oddly, they don’t live any more avoidant of sin than anyone else I know.

17

i agree completely. the god i was raised on was pretty close to the jack chick version of god, which is why i’ve never really understood the shock (or maybe amusement?) so many people seem to display when reading his tracts. i know my perspective may be skewed, but jack chick is just what fundamentalism is

needless to say, i am no longer christian.

18

Well, I am not sure about this, but I believe it stems back to the first american fundies (excluding the conquistadors), the Puritans. the Puritans were obsessed with all thing jewish, such as the Torah, Hebrew, etc. In their view, They were the ‘new jews,’ who had fled from their ‘Egypt’ (Europe) to their zion, New England. For nearly a century, new England was run as a theocracy, controled by the Puritans, who tried to create their Utopia.

BEcause of this, they desperatly tried to find Justification in the Old testament for their position, believeing that proof of christianity lied in the Old testament. They recognized that the Jews were the chosen people, but they thought that because they rejected Jesus, they had given that distinction up. Three guesses on who they believed inhereted that little claim to fame.

So yeah… They see in Jews a justification for themselves, but they still hate them.

19

This is all a bit off the top of my head, but here goes:

There are any number of distinct theologies which are often grouped under the general heading of “fundamentalism”. They do tend to share certain features, including a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible and its sufficiency or completeness as the source of doctrine and belief, but they difer quite a lot on the correct interpretation of the Bible.

Dispensationalist Christians believe that God’s overall divine plan has been carried out through successive revelations or “dispensations” through history. Thus, there was one dispensation (or set of rules) for Adam, one for Noah, one for Abraham, of course the one for Moses, and the big one in the New Testament. To dispensationalists, Jews may therefore in some sense still be living under a valid revelation, even though God has given a different dispensation to Christians (i.e., to the rest of the human race, really, since we’re in general talking about a subset of evangelical Christians here). This view is often associated with premillennialism; the belief that the supernatural Second Coming will precede the millennium or earthly Kingdom of God, with the millennium preceded by the rule of the Antichrist and various disasters. These eschatological events are usually seen as being just around the corner, chronologically speaking–we live in the “End Times”. Note that this general theology can sometimes have an apparent friendliness to Jews which disguises a deeper hostility–sometimes, Jews are regarded as having been kept around by God so that they can be converted to Christianity in the End Times, and support for the State of Israel may be more so that it can exist to be persecuted by the Antichrist and/or converted to Christianity in fulfillment of prophecy. However, I believe that at least some dispensationalists do have more genuinely positive views of Jews and of Judaism, regarding them as people in a valid relationship with the one true God, and not just as another bunch of non-Christians to be witnessed to.

Covenantalism (to which school of theology I believe the Puritans in general belonged to) on the other hand stresses the continuity of divine revelation throughout the Bible, to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, or the disciples of Jesus and Christians in post-Biblical times. In this view, Jews were once the chosen people of God, but that covenant has been entirely superseded by Christianity–hence the saying “the Church is Israel now”–and Jews should convert to Christianity, the same as everyone else. (In covenantalism there is still seen to be some discontinuity or newness in the incarnation of Christ.) Note that this view is not at all hostile to the Old Testament; quite the contrary, dispensationalists may be more likely to be “New Testament” Christians, dismissing Old Testament teachings, while covenantalists will, seeing themselves as the heirs of the Israelites, refer back to the Old Testament for divine teaching and guidance. (There is also “Christian Identity”, which claims that the modern day Jews aren’t actually the descendants of the chosen people of Israel at all, but are evil interlopers, and the “real” Israelites are “Caucasians”, but this is regarded as a mutant and heretical form of Christianity by the great majority of evangelicals.) Covenantalism seems often to be associated with postmillenialism, the view that the millennium will be an earthly kingdom of peace brought about by the action of Christians without big, gaudy, Rapture-style miracles, and will take place before the Second Coming. (There is a group, the preterists or “full” preterists, again regarded as heretical by most other Christians of all theological stripes, who don’t believe in the Second Coming at all, believing that New Testatment passages regarded as being references to it by most other Christians it are actually references to events in the 1st Century C.E.)

I don’t know to what extent modern evangelicals can necessarily be neatly grouped into these camps. In particular, many noteworthy politically active evangelical Christians seem to have a mishmash of not always consistent views (preaching that the End Times are at hand, while simultaneously seeking political power and attempting to institute cultural and social reform).

20

So, both Dispensationalist Christians and Covenantalists see Judaism as valid but essentially superseded by Christianity.

Shame they don’t take that logic one step further and convert to Islam :).