Jack Chick thoughts

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There’s a lot more meat on that bone than you’re acknowledging.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
While they often do contain anti-Catholic views and are definitely “fire and brimstone”, some of them seem like they could actually help people. There’s one called “Holy Joe” about a soldier who is constantly praying and trying to do good works and bring his fellow soldiers to Jesus. He gets laughed at and abused and finally his sergeant sends him on a dangerous mission hoping to get rid of him. Joe goes on the mission and promptly gets killed. The sergeant and another soldier who rejected Joe’s attempts to bring him to the Lord find Joe’s body. The sergeant is overcome with guilt and remorse and asks Jesus to help him because he’s a bad sinner. Right then the sergeant and other soldier are killed. They are judged and the sergeant, because he reached out to Jesus, is saved and the other guy who rejected Jesus is thrown into hell.

Hokey, yes, but this is the sort of simple message that could possibly get through to someone.
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Agreed in a way.

Not all his tracts were anti-Catholic (specifically aimed at getting Catholic to convert). Some of them (like “Holy Joe”) are just aimed at somebody becoming what I call a “Chick Christian.” And, for someone not presented with the opportunity to be a Catholic, at least they’ve “got something.”
BoomBoomMancini said:
Also, to give Chick his due, he apparently was sincerely trying to win people to Christ as he understood him. Don’t get me wrong, I think Chick was as crazy as a rat in a coffee can and as credulous as someone on roofies, but at least his heart was apparently in the right place. Presumably God took that into account when he met Jack.
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This is what I think, too.
Arkansan said:
If they commit a mortal sin and don’t receive absolution or have perfect contrition, they will be damned. That is Catholic teaching.
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That’s true for us, but the question is whether God would apply that rule to the sergeant in the comic. He really felt that he was doing the right thing at the end, becoming a “saved Christian,” and there was no Catholic priest or confessional around.
 
signit said:
That’s true for us, but the question is whether God would apply that rule to the sergeant in the comic. He really felt that he was doing the right thing at the end, becoming a “saved Christian,” and there was no Catholic priest or confessional around.
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“Doing the right thing” isn’t sufficient for sins to be forgiven. It’s necessary to have sufficient contrition (and we know what the requirements for that are). Invincible ignorance excuses wrongful actions done under its influence, it doesn’t supply defects in an act done wrongly (e.g. one who attempts to enter a marriage while unaware of an impediment is excused from sin, but his marriage is still unreal, in the same way, one who believes that his sins can be forgiven through faith alone (or even imperfect contrition alone) isn’t actively committing a sin, but that doesn’t mean that his existing sins are forgiven).
 
That a person would have elicited perfect contrition if he had known it were necessary, is no more relevant than the fact that an obstinate sinner would have repented had he known that he were about to die.
 
JamalChristophr said:
Well, I can’t think of a nice thing to say about Jack Chick, so I won’t say anything. 🙂
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Then you don’t think hard enough 🙂

Chick tracts are extraordinarily hilarious. I find myself checking back at least once a month for whatever new laughs his site offers.

Once you get past the notion that you cannot take his content seriously, the entertainment value of his comics becomes apparent.

Come on, don’t tell me you don’t draw some measure of pleasure at his “all Protestants have their names in a big computer in the Vatican” claim. 😃
 
Ncors said:
What do people make of this? Does God really have wrath that he unleashes on people? What if you pick the wrong religion when you’re born? I read his comic about the devout Catholic man being sent to hell because he followed the church rather than God and Jesus. What am I supposed to make of this? How am I supposed to know what’s right? What if God is showing me the right thing but I suspect it’s the devil trying to trick me? I’m so scared of hell and being separated from God.
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Now, on a more serious note, to the OP: if you’re weak in faith, remember that you must stay away from material that endangers your faith; to refuse to avoid this knowing your weaknesses can constitute a sin against faith and the First Commandment.
 
In fairness to Chick, he did have artistic ability to create very cheap tracts that were quite readable, starting around 1970; at a time when Catholic evangelism and apologetics was almost non existent. Chick represented a kind of fundamentalism that was far more prevalent several decades ago than it is now.

I know people nowadays use the word “fundamentalist” to describe almost anyone who is mildly conservative, but in, say 1960, this word had a very specific meaning. The vast majority of fundamentalist churches and organizations have either disappeared, or morphed into moderate evangelical or non denominational churches.

Despite Chick’s anti-Catholicism, he had some redeeming qualities lacking in many Protestants and Catholics today. He believed in absolutes of right/wrong, good/evil. He believed the Bible is the Word of God, although IMHO he underestimated how much of his Biblical world view was filtered through a particular school of interpretation.

There still are some people around with his combination of strengths and blind spots; but fewer each year.
 
I read one of His comics on Mary and I also saw that one bout hell. I think the one on hell neglects the fact that we can show our faith in Jesus through our works. Those who have been faithful to the Church teachings have the fruits of the Spirit. If we try our best to seek Him, surely He will help us in our desire to please Him. Hebrews 11: 6 …He rewards those who diligently search for Him.
 
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Hyper-legalistic answers like this always leave me cold. I’m not trying to do some kind of hippie “hey man, whatever you want to do, God’s cool with it because he just wants you to be, like, a good bro.” thing. Sin is real and the need for repentance is real.

That said, I don’t think you can reduce Gods mercy, Gods justice, and the ultimate destiny of a particular soul to four or five “yes/no” questions. God has access to ALL the information. There are so many factors we can’t even begin to account for in determining someone’s culpability for a particular act.

God accounts for everything. How the individuals knowledge, intention, deliberation, sincerity, brain chemistry, etc all interact is simply beyond our understanding. But God sees all the cards.

All this to say, I simply can’t believe that every non-Catholic in history is in hell, even the ones who sincerely tried to follow God, albeit with a genuine but mistaken understanding of God.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
How is the one I just mentioned scandalous to our Catholic faith?
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That one pamphlet might not contain any direct accusations against the Catholic faith; but Chick Tracts as a whole are virulently anti-Catholic, and someone who doesn’t know that might not realize the different between “Holy Joe” and “The Death Cookie”.
Arkansan said:
And are then damned for want of absolution.

Giving people false confidence has all sorts of problems.
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True repentance brings forgiveness even if someone doesn’t have the chance to receive the Sacraments.
The Sergeant truly repented and prayed, asking God’s forgiveness. In the absence of opportunity to be baptized, that is enough.
Arkansan said:
If they commit a mortal sin and don’t receive absolution or have perfect contrition, they will be damned. That is Catholic teaching.
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Is it not clear in the pamphlet that the Sergeant is being portrayed as having perfect contrition?
Arkansan said:
That a person would have elicited perfect contrition if he had known it were necessary, is no more relevant than the fact that an obstinate sinner would have repented had he known that he were about to die.
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Of course if his contrition had not been perfect contrition then the Sergeant would not have been saved.

Which requirement of perfect contrition did the Sergeant fail to fulfill?
The fact that he didn’t get baptized after his repentance can’t be the problem, since he was denied the opportunity. The fact he didn’t go to Confession can’t be it since he was denied that opportunity as well; and in any case Baptism had to come first and would have been sufficient.
 
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Heh. Don’t you think a rat trapped in a coffee can would get agitated? 😮😁
 
There was one Chick tract called “Lisa,” in which a father was raping his young (like, 6 yo) daughter, and pimping her out to the neighbor. The family doctor realized what was happening after Lisa was found to have herpes, and rather than calling the police or doing anything at all to help this girl, he starts preaching to the father about how raping your kid is a sin, and you need to let Jesus come into your heart, etc. The father repents, and the doctor lets him take the daughter home.

This is all played 100% straight by Jack Chick. In his mind, a person who’s repented of child rape is not only off the hook for jail time, but is allowed continued, unfettered access to that child.

A lot of Chick tracts endorse this idea that no matter how much of a monster someone is, their need to face temporal justice doesn’t have to be addressed as long as they repent. So yeah, I wouldn’t say Chick tracts are harmless at all.
 
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Unfortunately, those type of tracts are probably representative of the actual thinking in many areas of the USA about 30 to 50 years ago.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Unfortunately, those type of tracts are probably representative of the actual thinking in many areas of the USA about 30 to 50 years ago.
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Many of these tracts were published in the 2010s. Jack didn’t die till 2016, and his company is still putting them out.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Yes, but as has already been discussed on this thread, Jack Chick is old and his work reflects the thinking of earlier times, probably how he himself was raised.
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The people reading them most likely don’t know that, though, so we still can’t regard them as harmless.
 
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