Who actually believes Jack Chick?

  • Thread starter Thread starter the2112
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

the2112

Guest
Seriously, who could possibly believe that the Catholic Church has the name of every Protestant in the world in a giant computer, and created and controls Islam, Jehova’s Witnesses, Mormonism, the New Age Movement, the Illuminati, the Ku Klux Klan, and Communism; especially when many of those organizations/religions are anti-Catholic? Not to mention a Protestant publication (Christianity Today) proved Jack Chick’s homeboy Alberto Rivera to be a fraud, and Jack Chick’s other homeboy John Todd also turned out to be a fraud and outright criminal.

I could see someone believing the lies of Loraine Boettner’s “Roman Catholicism”, as they are kind of “believable.” However, Jack Chick’s claims are so out there and ridiculous, and have even been proven wrong by Protestants, I just wonder what would have to be going through someone’s mind to even begin to actually believe Chick?
 
the2112 said:
I just wonder what would have to be going through someone’s mind to even begin to actually believe Chick?
Click to expand...
Personally, I’d rather pray for them to learn the truth than try to analyze them. And I’ll include in my prayer thanks to Our Lord for giving me the great grace of being a Catholic.
 
I work in the fast food industry and yesterday, while taking payment through our drive-thru window, I was handed a Chick tract:eek: It was a local Baptist church.

No worries, I tore it up and threw it in the trash before anyone could see it.😉
 
I think that either Chick is a clever troll and that’s all he is, or his material is simply designed to pander to an ignorant public willing to suspend disbelief. Think about his audience. He is trying to convert atheists and agnostics to his flavor of Evangelical, King-James-Only Christianity. In order to “win souls for Christ” but not immediately lose them to the True Faith, he faces two obstacles. One is instilling faith in Christ, and the other is the Catholic Church. So at the same time he inspires faith by teaching the Bible, he also has to insert falsehoods about the Bible and Catholicism in order to keep people scared enough not to investigate and learn the Truth.

Chick operates chiefly on a basis of fear. Many of his tracts depict the dire consequences of sin and Catholicism in stark terms. They show people going to Hell or tormented by demons. They show evil Catholic clerics plotting the downfall of the human race. The only people that would be influenced by Chick tracts are superstitious or ignorant.

Personally, I am coming to think that Chick’s depiction of Evangelical Christianity is some kind of enormous parody and he’s trolled the world. I think it’s hard to explain this man’s reclusiveness and mystery, someone who supposedly preaches that Christians should love each other and have fellowship, without wondering what he really does believe in.
 
Nita said:
Personally, I’d rather pray for them to learn the truth than try to analyze them. And I’ll include in my prayer thanks to Our Lord for giving me the great grace of being a Catholic.
Click to expand...
And praise God for the gift of discernment that allows us to distinguish between good and evil!
 
I think some people believe it because they want to. Otherwise, they might have to consider that the Catholic Church may be the one true church. :eek:
 
the2112 said:
Seriously, who could possibly believe that the Catholic Church has the name of every Protestant in the world in a giant computer, and created and controls Islam, Jehova’s Witnesses, Mormonism, the New Age Movement, the Illuminati, the Ku Klux Klan, and Communism; especially when many of those organizations/religions are anti-Catholic? Not to mention a Protestant publication (Christianity Today) proved Jack Chick’s homeboy Alberto Rivera to be a fraud, and Jack Chick’s other homeboy John Todd also turned out to be a fraud and outright criminal.

I could see someone believing the lies of Loraine Boettner’s “Roman Catholicism”, as they are kind of “believable.” However, Jack Chick’s claims are so out there and ridiculous, and have even been proven wrong by Protestants, I just wonder what would have to be going through someone’s mind to even begin to actually believe Chick?
Click to expand...
um, for those who may not be in the know, namely, me, how about a brief recap as to who Jack Chick is. This doesn’t sound good…
thank you
 
cheezey said:
um, for those who may not be in the know, namely, me, how about a brief recap as to who Jack Chick is. This doesn’t sound good…
thank you
Click to expand...
He’s a fundamentalist Christian who is extremely anti-Catholic, who makes up (or has heard) weird claims about the Catholic Church (and society in general) and puts them in a comic format in an attempt to discredit the Church. The issue is, his claims are so outlandish, but some people still believe him.

My answer to why people believe him and pass out his tracts is for a few possible reasons:
  1. Some people are extremely ignorant and gullible
  2. Some people are extremely anti-Catholic and will grasp on anything to discredit the Church, even if it is entirely made up (which is a very un-Christian thing to do)
  3. Some people just want to troll
 
agnes_therese said:
I think some people believe it because they want to. Otherwise, they might have to consider that the Catholic Church may be the one true church. :eek:
Click to expand...
I don’t think the OP is asking why people don’t believe in the Catholic Church, but why some believe the particularly wacky version presented by Jack Chick, through the medium of sensational cartoons (samples here). It’s a good question.

Most people don’t do the work to check facts, because it takes time and effort; and believing what we read may affirm our prejudices or stroke our egos. There’s also a dark side to our nature that is drawn to the grotesque.

Granted, one should know that a sensational cartoon is probably not a reliable source of information; but then, people believe what they read in tabloids or heard on TV; just look at some of the threads on these forums.

So I think the main factors are ignorance, laziness, and prejudice, not to mention sheer stupidity; but don’t assume the latter. There are very intelligent people who believe very stupid things.
 
bzkoss236 said:
He’s a fundamentalist Christian who is extremely anti-Catholic, who makes up (or has heard) weird claims about the Catholic Church (and society in general) and puts them in a comic format in an attempt to discredit the Church. The issue is, his claims are so outlandish, but some people still believe him.

My answer to why people believe him and pass out his tracts is for a few possible reasons:
  1. Some people are extremely ignorant and gullible
  2. Some people are extremely anti-Catholic and will grasp on anything to discredit the Church, even if it is entirely made up (which is a very un-Christian thing to do)
  3. Some people just want to troll
Click to expand...
Thank you. Now I can read on…🙂
Is he of any particular and further denomination? Not that that matters much…
 
Elizium23 said:
I think that either Chick is a clever troll and that’s all he is, or his material is simply designed to pander to an ignorant public willing to suspend disbelief.
Click to expand...
The mainstream media does this all the time.
 
He figured out a way to make money with anti-Catholic propaganda.

That’s all.

Thread close, please? He doesn’t need free advertisement 🙂
 
Jack Chick is awseome!

I’ve had several non-Catholics who were given his tracts bring them to me to ask if this or that fallacy of the Catholic Church was really true. I have avoided explaining why Jack Chick was wrong but pointed out authentic Catholic teaching or Bible verses which support Catholic theology and every single time, the person walked away with at least an understanding of what the Church really believes and how Jack Chick misrepresented authentic Church teaching.

Chick tracts have been a great evangelization tool for me.

-Tim-
 
That’s a good point Timothy! It’s cool that they are smart enough to bring 'em to you to get the truth like that.

I have discovered that we Catholics have a rather excellent source for tracts that refute such stuff with facts and have fer better art. (Not really that hard to do though is it?)

Check out these Catholic Tracts that are published by Grotto Press.

As for people believing his stuff…it takes all kinds and like many people in our society today who function with a sort of comic book mentality, some people assume that because he professes to be a Christian and quotes the Bible that his information is trustworthy.

The same is true for other anti-Catholics like Mike Gendron and Jason Hauser, who seem to enjoy setting up Catholic straw men in order to make themselves appear knowledgeable while knocking them down and getting paid for it.

See any of the following articles from my blog.
 
I knew some evangelical fundamentalist refugees from Egypt who had a lot of his tracts and I think they believed a lot of them, although I don’t think that they had some of the ones you were talking about… they had a lot of anti-Islamic ones. I know that when they learned that I had joined the Catholic Church they wanted to have me over and talk me out of it. I never ended up going; I would have but I wanted to think of a way of communicating why I believe what I believe; English is not their first language and they aren’t super-educated so I thought it would be difficult to get my points across.

Personally I was semi-traumatized by Jack Chick comics as a child. I remember looking at some when we went to the Christian book store, they were extremely disturbing.
 
If you are very lucky, you can find the first two editions of “Alberto” it’s nice to show them to people who have the current run and show them side by side the changes Alberto made to his story from one version to another.

Far better than pointing out that his history of illegal activity and having a girfriend who was impregnated by him in the US and later a wife when he claimed to have been a Jesuit “Priest-Bishop” of the “Old Roman Catholic Church” as those who believe his story are convinced that the authentic history is found in the comic books and not in public documents which they are sure the Jesuits planted.
 
I love Jack Chick comics/tracts. They are classic works of Americana art. Chick is like the Christian R. Crumb

Now do I believe in the messages his tracts preach? Only bits and pieces, theres alot of lies mixed in with some truth in his comics. I read them like they are fiction for the most part.

All in all they are fun reads and nice conversation pieces.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top