Here’s one. there are others here.
I’m Catholic, but I don’t get offended by them because they are too ridiculous. And I have encountered this kind of anti-Catholic bigotry elsewhere, so I know it’s out there…it’s just one of those things you hear from stupid people.
I have never actually seen a CT in real life. I found out about them when I was doing a little research on Catholic apologetics on the internet, and I have heard about them here on the SDMB. Are there places where it is common to run across them?
What offends me is the simple fact that too many people accept what’s written in Chick tracts. Sadly, they’re even passed out here in South Korea.
That Death Cookie one is especially hypocritical-couldn’t you turn every one of these anti- Catholic screeds against evangelical fundie Protestantism? Worth a laugh if nothing else-gotta find the Buddhist one for some additional ignorance on display…
MTA: The kind of God, who in the one where he condemns two missionary workers merely because they failed to mouth the words “Jesus Christ” when performing said works, is a God I would be an eternal foe of, to the end of eternity if need be. Fortunately the name Jesus Christ is not the eternal name, and this hapless caricature of God (also not the name) bears very little relation to the real thing (or at least must bear little relation). Works AND faith must both be present, at the very least, else we could have a world full of nothing but suffering (something much worse than this world), people committing horrible acts to each other all while proclaiming their faith in JC, safe in their salvation no matter what (and a Heaven full of such “souls” is not a Heaven I would ever deign to visit). Does this Chick guy (or whoever) really think such a world would be desireable, or that it is a logical consequence of their beliefs? I’d really like to know.
As someone who believes Jesus Christ (or the original “Messiah Yahshua”) IS the Eternal Name, outside of Whom there is no salvation- while also being a hopeful
Universalist- I do have to clarify that
“people committing horrible acts to each other all while proclaiming their faith in JC, safe in their salvation no matter what”
is NOT what JTC believes, and a reading of his materials will soon reveal that.
In fact, I don’t know ANY fundy C’tian who believes that. There may well be some but I’ve never met any.
Btw- I am Catholic-friendly, Charismatic & have been a Bircher- all of these qualify me as, at best, a stooge of the Catholic Conspiracy of the Chick-iverse. I’m sure that being an Old-Earth Creationist also puts me on his Bad List.
He hasn’t published much blatantly anti-Catholic stuff lately because his main source “ex-Jesuit” Alberto Rivera passed away about a decade ago. However,
see the tract “HERE HE COMES!”- in which Hans Peter Kolvenbach, the Jesuit
Superior General, and JP II are portrayed as the Beast and the False Prophet.
Aside from a few mouth-foaming fundy zealots, you will find few Fundamentalist Christians who actually go along with his whole schtick.
There was a guy who finally got an interview with Jack about a decade ago, and during that interview, it came out that a lot of Fundamentalist churches are actively opposed to his “ministry.”
He’s pretty much of a lone nut*–and he LIKES it that way.
- (I’m not sure whether his fairly small staff are true believers or simply take his wages and keep their mouths shut.)
I’m agnostic and I think religion is nothing more than a giant scam.
Having said that, Chick tracts are nothing but bigotry based on a giant scam.
I’m pretty much in agreement with RachelChristine. It’s kind of like having one of your family members spout racist rhetoric, just plain embarrassing all around. And it makes me a bit angry or sad that it might be hurtful to the real message.
I will admit that when I was very young the silly things were available at our local Christian bookstore for about a nickel apiece, so I bought a few and spread them around. But really the only ones I saw at the time were the basic witnessing ones; this is what you have to do to be saved, etc. When I took a look at some of the, shall we say stronger, ones I started to dislike the way they were presented. The more I saw of them the more I realized they were both hateful and stupid, not to mention counterproductive to any kind of real witness.
Chick’s pre-1974 was fund’ist but not crazy-conspiracy-net fund’ist. Yeah, their basic message was "turn or burn’, and so would annoy more liberal believers &
various unbelievers, but they didn’t paint elaborate scenarios of evil plotters who
infiltrated everything.
Then Chick met John Todd, self-proclaimed “ex-Council of 13 Grand Druid in the Illuminati”; after Todd, Alberto Rivera “ex-Jesuit” (I’m still not convinced Rivera
hadn’t been a Catholic priest, S.J. or not, but I am convinced he spewed more
b.s. than anything); along with Alberto, the delusions of “Dr. Rebecca Brown”- a license-revoked M.D. who battled a “Witchcraft/Illuminati conspiracy of
doctors” in her home state (which happens to be mine!) and rescued/medically-abused a former “bride of Satan”; and finally, William Schnoebelen- supposedly
former Mason/Mormon/Wiccan/Satanist/Illuminatus/Voodoist/vampire-AND-Catholic-priest- now apparently he was involved in all these things (except of course for the Illuminati) but always neglects to clarify that the Catholic Church
he held priesthood in was a GNOSTIC one, not the Roman one.
I don’t know how his business has stayed around. Since he published ALBERTO, no established chain Christian bookstore will openly sell his stuff. He must have a
few wealthy supporters who keep him afloat.
Why can’t we more moderate C’tians get a decent line of comic tracts going?
I can understand being offended by them, but I’m not. I’m more offended by the people I know who shove them my direction, everyone from friends to professors. I just get sick of taking them for no reason but to leave them in the trash somewhere or laugh at them. There is no use explaining that to these types of people though, it seems they are already a little off…
Brendon Small, who is offended by very little