Do Protestants take Chick tracts seriously?

[JonNC]

I really wish people would use the search feature before starting threads like this.
Jack Chick is part of the last disintegrating remnants of what was once fundamentalism in the US, KJV-only, independent Baptist. A small, cultic group getting smaller every day.
He’s nuts.
He’s crazy.
He doesn’t get any more notice among mainline Protestants than the local guy in your town wearing a sign and screaming to passerbys at an inter-section.
Seriously, can we stop giving this guy publicity on CAF?

In fact, I knew almost nothing of him…
until I joined CAF.

Jon

 

[estesbob]

In fact, I knew almost nothing of him…
until I joined CAF.

Jon

Are used to find them all the time and the restrooms of rest area on major highway . I always put them the appropriate use

 

[CompSciGuy]

Are used to find them all the time and the restrooms of rest area on major highway . I always put them the appropriate use

I guess if they put them in the restroom, then they’re asking for it.

 

[Kay_Cee]

My daughters used to come home from Trick or Treating on Halloween with Jack Chick tracts in their bags.

So apparently somebody in the neighborhood thought they were appropriate to pass out to little kids.

 

[Contarini]

To answer the OP: the majority of Protestants in the U.S. don’t take them seriously, and probably haven’t heard of them. But at least in my youth (the 1990s) the tracts were common in the South, and many people in a broadly fundamentalist or conservative Pentecostal/Holiness camp spread them. They weren’t, unfortunately, combined to IFBs.

I have not seen one for some years now. I think their popularity has declined. I just moved back to the South (where this kind of religion is much more common than elsewhere) last year, so I’m keeping a lookout

Edwin

 

[Matthew_Light]

Yup. I have never heard anything about Jack Chick except on CAF. Seems Catholics are more interested in him then non-Catholics are.

I remember seeing those pamphlets left behind on the bathroom sink when I was in college in the early 1990s.

It actually does capture a certain fear, paranoia and intolerance that some religious people have had with regards to anyone who sees things differently from them.

 

[Matthew_Light]

In general, even aside from Jack Chick, anti-Catholicism is alive and well and I am exposed to it regularly through my social network.

Ugh!

 

[Matthew_Light]

That’s because Jack Chick tracts are left on the car windshield of Catholics while attending mass.

How vile!

I wonder if his Bible contains 1 John 4:18:

“Perfect Love casteth out fear”

 

[JustaServant]

You’re not really wrong, but this kind of demographic is hardly nonexistent. I have been handed Chick tracts by Bob Jones students, I know megachurchhoers who are very much into Chick tracts, etc. In general, even aside from Jack Chick, anti-Catholicism is alive and well and I am exposed to it regularly through my social network.

I never said it was nonexistent. I said it’s disintegrating. Maybe you live in an area with a lot of IFB churches or IFB influence. But in the rest of the Protestant America, that influence is not as visible as Chick would like to think it is.
I spent many years among IFBs, I’ve observed first-hand their philosophy and tactics. Jack Hyles was the biggest propagandist for the IFB movement, he and his scandals did much damage to his own church and movement. His heir-apparent, Jack Schaap is currently cooling his heels in the pokey for raping a 16 year old girl.
These are the kinds of people who pass out Chick tracts.

 

[Contarini]

I remember seeing those pamphlets left behind on the bathroom sink when I was in college in the early 1990s.

Somebody put one inside a book in Duke Divinity School library (my wife, then my girlfriend and part of the library staff, found it around 2001-2). It was a relatively innocuous, and very funny one about Jesuits trying to infiltrate the translation of the KJV. I kind of wanted to keep it, but I think Chick tracts are so evil that I couldn’t quite bring myself to.

Edwin

 

[Ignatius]

I mean, I guess I could see someone mistakenly agreeing with him that Catholics worship Mary as a goddess, but are there Protestants who actually believe him that there is a large computer at the Vatican that keeps track of every Protestant on earth?

Absolutely, I have ‘friends’ who use material from Chick to help ‘save’ me. Amazing!

 

[Koineman]

There are a few that are decent that focus on presenting just the gospel and do an okay job of it, such as “This Was Your Life,” “Bad Bob,” and “The Sissy.” But all his tracts are tinged with decision theology, which is itself hugely problematic.

 

[Koineman]

Some of them are actually quite amusing, such as this snippet (see attachment).

The whole comic is here: chick.com/reading/tracts/0008/0008_01.asp

 

[Eric_Hilbert]

**Chick doesn’t need any more publicity.
Let’s move on to more formidable opponents. **