# Let's Fly Away-- 1 Day Early! Jan. '13 Chick Tract! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 31, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703 "2012-12-31T19:39:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/41 "2013-01-03T02:39:20Z")
Remember, as [del]Jesus[/del] Jack tells us, shy people can’t witness. You’ve got to be an obnoxious turd. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/42 "2013-01-03T02:47:44Z")
I do find myself wondering: How many people are there who think like Chick? I mean, I’m sure there are a **lot** of people – well, a lot of Americans, anyway – who share his conviction that getting personally saved by Jesus is the only way to avoid Hell. There was a time when that was a commonplace too obvious to bear mentioning, it drove the whole Missionary Cause in the 19th Century, and that belief, while much less widespread today, has by no means vanished from society. But, how many are there who share his views on the Satanic nature of Catholicism, Freemasonry, D&D, etc., etc.? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/43 "2013-01-03T02:51:56Z")
I’m also reminded of C.S. Lewis’ [_The Screwtape Letters._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screwtape_letters) In that story, there’s no easy grace. Even after the Patient “becomes a Christian,” his salvation is not assured, he needs to work at keeping his soul in a state of grace, and to the end Wormwood never need lose hope of snaring his soul. But in Chick stories, you get saved once, you get saved once-and-for-all, that’s it, you’re going to Heaven. And getting saved is **easy,** you only need to pray that prayer at the end of the tract and pray it with sincere feeling. Which is the more Christian message, I wonder? ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/44 "2013-01-03T03:20:02Z")
Actually, as a former Chick-ie, it’s really not a once-saved-always-saved belief despite how it comes across. Trust me, in good old Jack’s world view (and those that think so extremist like him), you don’t behave like his Shiny Happy Religious Nutjobs continually, you’ve either never really been saved or your backslidden. Which leads to all sorts of fun conversations about who is “not really a Christian” or “not Christian enough.” Eek! But, starting the ball rolling really _is_ as simple as the tracts claim, according to them. If Hitler had truly repented in time, he could be harping it up in heaven as we type. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/45 "2013-01-03T03:32:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I do find myself wondering: How many people are there who think like Chick? I mean, I’m sure there are a **lot** of people – well, a lot of Americans, anyway – who share his conviction that getting personally saved by Jesus is the only way to avoid Hell. There was a time when that was a commonplace too obvious to bear mentioning, it drove the whole Missionary Cause in the 19th Century, and that belief, while much less widespread today, has by no means vanished from society. But, how many are there who share his views on the Satanic nature of Catholicism, Freemasonry, D&D, etc., etc.? Well the latter beliefs are pretty much limited to certain Independent Baptists, who are pretty much the most hardcore fundamentalists (or rather fund’ists as **FriarTed** would call them) around in the United States and often behave like an atheist caricature of one (the people who burnt non-KJV Bibles a few years back were IB for example). Here for example is a slightly less conspiracy minded (although still strongly anti-Catholic/Freemason/D&D etc.) IB website:[http://www.wayoflife.org/](http://www.wayoflife.org/) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/46 "2013-01-03T03:50:26Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > (The real Christians went underground when Emperor Constantine made a false conversion and created the RCI, and did not re-emerge until the time of Martin Luther – I read that in one of the Crusaders Comics.) > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Well the latter beliefs are pretty much limited to certain Independent Baptists, who are pretty much the most hardcore fundamentalists (or rather fund’ists as **FriarTed** would call them) around in the United States and often behave like an atheist caricature of one (the people who burnt non-KJV Bibles a few years back were IB for example). Here for example is a slightly less conspiracy minded (although still strongly anti-Catholic/Freemason/D&D etc.) IB website:[http://www.wayoflife.org/](http://www.wayoflife.org/) Ah, yes! That’s where that comes from! The [Independent Baptists!](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Independent_Baptist) > [@](#): > > Though the Baptists began in 17th-century England, many Independent Baptists hold to a myth of “Baptist succession-ism”, whereby modern Baptist congregations are said to derive from the very earliest Christian churches by a succession of shadow churches outside of Roman Catholicism. While there were groups of Western Christians independent of the Catholic Church, they were fiercely persecuted in the West and were generally doctrinally rather unlike any modern Western church. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/47 "2013-01-03T04:01:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I’m also reminded of C.S. Lewis’ [_The Screwtape Letters._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screwtape_letters) In that story, there’s no easy grace. Even after the Patient “becomes a Christian,” his salvation is not assured, he needs to work at keeping his soul in a state of grace, and to the end Wormwood never need lose hope of snaring his soul. But in Chick stories, you get saved once, you get saved once-and-for-all, that’s it, you’re going to Heaven. And getting saved is **easy,** you only need to pray that prayer at the end of the tract and pray it with sincere feeling. > > Which is the more Christian message, I wonder? Being raised in a fundamental, evangelistic/Pentecostal, born-again, ‘the-End-Times-are-nigh!’ home, with many family and friends who are still devout (with fundamental baptist on my wife’s side), I can attest that there are easily _millions_ of Americans who at least subscribe to the core doctrine, but there is probably a typical bell curve as far as whack-job, bible-thumpin’, hellfire & brimstone zealots on one end and your passive, put-your-church-face-on-for-Sunday-to-make-an-appearance on the other end. Otherwise, the majority believes in the typical _700 club_/Kirk Cameron version of the rapture, End Times, divine intervention/healing through prayer, the prophesies in Rev. believing Jerusalem and modern day Israel under Palistinian attack being the lynchpin of the rise of the Antichrist (hence the crazy support for Isreal from the Christian-Right), etc. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/48 "2013-01-03T04:05:09Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > But, starting the ball rolling really _is_ as simple as the tracts claim, according to them. If Hitler had truly repented in time, he could be harping it up in heaven as we type. According to the bible, yes he would. The requirements are belief and repentance. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/49 "2013-01-03T04:59:20Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > According to the bible, yes he would. The requirements are belief and repentance. That does seem to be the point of both the parable of the prodigal son and the parable of the toilers in the vinyard – that late-repentant sinners will be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven on the same terms as those who have always been pious and righteous; and if the righteous don’t like it, tough, salvation is all-or-nothing and is God’s to give. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/50 "2013-01-03T05:06:17Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Otherwise, the majority believes in the typical _700 club_/Kirk Cameron version of the rapture, End Times, divine intervention/healing through prayer, the prophesies in Rev. believing Jerusalem and modern day Israel under Palistinian attack being the lynchpin of the rise of the Antichrist (hence the crazy support for Isreal from the Christian-Right), etc. See [Christian Zionism.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism) Which, well, let’s face it, seems ultimately to be based on the idea of herding all the world’s Chosen People into a single kill-zone, from which they have no escape but conversion to Christ . . . (If I were Jewish, I think my reaction to all that would be, [“Stop helping me!”](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHelpingMe) But Jewish-American neocons more often just bite their lips and nod.) ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/51 "2013-01-03T05:41:54Z")
Let’s see… Three major religions. All derived from the same, violent, blood-thirsty, Abrahamic God.\* Vying for a tiny city and holy dirt in the middle of the desert, of whom all three claim divine rights and ultimately feel uncompromisingly justified by any means to obtain control for their faith and people’s destiny—each with a great deal of violent history, religious vehemence, huge militaries, munitions, believing God is on their respective sides. Yehhh. I don’t see this ending with hugs. \*unless you’re on his side and play by the rules. Then again, sometimes not. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/52 "2013-01-03T09:16:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > (If I were Jewish, I think my reaction to all that would be, [“Stop helping me!”](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHelpingMe) But Jewish-American neocons more often just bite their lips and nod.) While Israeli Jews mainly just snicker and think “suckers!” ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/53 "2013-01-03T10:39:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I dunno, but I doubt he’s lying. Sorry. I don’t think Chick is capable of telling the truth. > [@](#): > > If you pay any attention to the documentary, you’ll find everybody agrees that this is a guy who cares **nothing** for his personal reputation. Nope. I watched that documentary and what I gleaned from it was that Chick has others convinced that he cares nothing about his personal reputation. However, he does guard it rather closely; so closely, in fact, that not very much is known about the dude. Seems to me that Chick cares rather a hell of a lot about his reputation. > [@](#): > > He shuns the spotlight, he won’t be interviewed or photographed, and he didn’t even want to call his company “Chick Publications,” that decision was made for him. There could be any number of reasons for shunning the spotlight. Actually, it would’ve done his crew a world of wonders if they’d’ve adopted the same method. Look at what’s turned up in their backgrounds! On top of that, I don’t buy that the decision for the company name was made for him. You do know that the company name must appear on documentation Chick would’ve had to sign to establish the company, don’t you? If he didn’t want it named that, he’d’ve registered it with a different name. As I said just above, I don’t think Chick is capable of telling the truth. > [@](#): > > No self-aggrandizer – it’s not about him, it’s about his message. As for assassination attempts, well, I didn’t say he’s free of paranoid delusions. In fact, I doubt he **ever** lies, even when he tells falsehoods – he’s more the type who is so gullible and so crazy that he can make shit up and sincerely believe it. Can’t buy that portrayal either. Sorry. The man must know by now how false the biographies his sources are and yet he still shills their lies. He does that intentionally and for a profit. Mind you, I don’t know it’s a large profit or not but it is, after all, profit. That is wilfull and intentional dishonesty. Chick is a lying sack of dung. Who would be behind an assassination attempt on him, the Roman Catholic Church? Of course, Chick and his believers would say that is utlimately the case. It’s ridiculous and everything else he spouts is. There simply is no proof that anyone tried to off Chick. And I don’t care how much people like that diploma mill jackass “Dr. Dino” and the like who are in love with Chick’s dishonesty and hateful tracts think he’s such a good guy. He simply is not a decent human being. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/54 "2013-01-03T11:52:08Z")
p.s. If Chick were truly serious about not wanting the company named what he obviously agreed to (i.e., decided), all he would have to do is change the company name. It’s not that hard a thing to do in California. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/55 "2013-01-03T15:45:21Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > See [Christian Zionism.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism) Which, well, let’s face it, seems ultimately to be based on the idea of herding all the world’s Chosen People into a single kill-zone, from which they have no escape but conversion to Christ . . . (If I were Jewish, I think my reaction to all that would be, [“Stop helping me!”](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHelpingMe) But Jewish-American neocons more often just bite their lips and nod.) Jews don’t believe that the “kill zone” is actually going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/56 "2013-01-03T16:03:13Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Jews don’t believe that the “kill zone” is actually going to happen. Really? The whole of Israeli and Israeli-sympathetic politics appears to be shaped by exactly that fear. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/57 "2013-01-03T16:10:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Really? The whole of Israeli and Israeli-sympathetic politics appears to be shaped by exactly that fear. 😕 No, Jews really don’t believe in the Christian notions of the Apocalypse. If they did, they would be called “Christians”. They have a certain amount of fear of warfare with their neighbours it is true, but it is one informed by some 60 odd years of more or less continual troubles with them, including at least 4 major wars, not by Millenialism. One of these things is based on evidence and reason and one is not. Christian fundamentalists cannot tell the difference - and apparently, neither can you. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/58 "2013-01-03T18:22:15Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > I’ve read a lot of JTC tracts, but somehow [The Last Generation](http://chick.com/reading/tracts/0094/0094_01.asp) escaped me. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to deride the thing since it does it so perfectly all by itself while increasing in lunacy with every panel. Just as I thought, “how can this get anymore laughably ludicrous?” I’d reach a panel with the Nazi kid holding out obnoxiously cute photos of a puppy or kitten with a ball of yarn to sacrifice on Halloween; the pointy, insanely ridiculous outfit of CAPTAIN HEALER!; or the suggestion to use the dad for food after they kill him. > > One world government, witches, New Age Naziesque forces, “free drugs”, microchips to increase the pain, the Healers (my personal favorite), child nazis, torture chambers powered by 1950s technology, Christian genocide, hammy characters and a convenient rapture at the end. This one really has it all, slathered all over with WTF. > > I’ve been witness a lot of crazy, but _this_… holy fucking shit. See below for a link regarding the blue/green versions. (Blue is 1972, green is 1992 and current re-release.) * * * ETA: One reviewer said that she thought the man you reference as CAPTAIN HEALER 😃 looked like a bad _The Flash_ villain. (Silver Age, no doubt.) > [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > OK, I’ll bite. What’s the “telling revision”? I should have said revisions. I could easily recall one difference that made it even more creepy, but I went to [chickcomics.com](http://chickcomics.com/) (a review and dealer-promotion site) for specifics. (Go to the site, find “Main (Tracts) Page” under Site Contents, scroll down to the specific tract, and then for additional information click on “Review” after the second date: 1992. This will give more details on the variation.) It made for a bit less emphasis on ecological disaster but put more emphasis on the barbarity of future youths: _On page 8, the green version has Bobby holding pictures of a puppy and kitten and saying, “My teacher said these are great for Halloween sacrifice!” (The early blue version says, “The teacher gave us pictures of these two extinct species.”)_ However, Bobby’s fascination seems purely academic/sensationalistic in the early blue version. When his father warmly relates his affection for a particular pet he once had, Bobby is surprised and disgusted at the thought of such affection, even going so far as to call his father **sick**. I suspect that this has to do with an alleged “prophecy” in 2 Peter, listing “without natural affection” as one of the symptoms of the last days. Oddly enough, my limited skimming of the “Left Behind” series showed the exact opposite angle! ISTR that in one crisis situation the evil leadership expressed exactly equal concern over animal life caught in the danger zone as humans. (I have the suspicion that this is related to an alleged “prophecy” that future false religion would forbid eating meat and **force** vegetarianism on everyone. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/59 "2013-01-03T18:36:43Z")
> [@Trans Fat Og](#): > > Oddly enough, my limited skimming of the “Left Behind” series showed the exact opposite angle! ISTR that in one crisis situation the evil leadership expressed exactly equal concern over animal life caught in the danger zone as humans. (I have the suspicion that this is related to an alleged “prophecy” that future false religion would forbid eating meat and **force** vegetarianism on everyone. Well, guess who else was a vegetarian? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703/60 "2013-01-03T18:55:45Z")
OT - 'cause I just discovered this, > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > … the parable of the toilers in the vinyard – that late-repentant sinners will be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven on the same terms as those who have always been pious and righteous … I have it on good authority (:dubious:) that you’re completely wrong, > [@](#): > > … {David} Barton also enlists Jesus in the war against unions and collective bargaining. Two years ago Barton devoted his Wallbuilders Live radio show to celebrating a Supreme Court decision that upheld an Idaho law ending state withholding of public employee union political funds. Barton’s co-host Rick Green called for activists to “spark a fire” and encourage other states to take up the effort to disrupt unions’ political activities. Barton called the Supreme Court’s decision “the right historical position and the right biblical position,” and went on to explain why the Bible is anti-union. > > According to Barton, a parable from the 20th chapter of the book of Matthew about the owner of a vineyard making different arrangements with workers was about “the right of private contract”—in other words, the right of employers to come to individual agreements with each employee. Jesus’ parable, he said, is “anti-minimum wage” and “anti-socialist-union kind of stuff.” … [RIGHT][LINKY](http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/4366/jesus_hates_taxes%3A_biblical_capitalism_created_fertile_anti-union_soil/)[/RIGHT] Soo I’ll be starting a new church so businesses can claim a religious exemption from [del]Obamacare[/del] labor laws . . . join now while it’s still cheap! CMC [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-fly-away-1-day-early-jan-13-chick-tract/645703.md?page=4)