Iāve only known one person who was a believer in Jack Chick, and that was this woman in my hometown (who has since died), and she once slipped a Chick tract into the freight truck delivering freight to my dadās hardware store. She was known to be incredibly eccentric, incredibly religious, and seemed to live a "Iām not worthy of anything nice or new " lifestyle; she always bought second hand clothes that really stood out (her children, now all adults, have tried to buy her new clothes, but she refused to wear them), and one time she picked a broken string of Christmas lights out of my dadās hardware store dumpster, which she then tried to buy replacement bulbs for from my dad (he assured her itād be cheaper to buy a new string of lights, but she refused). She also had a ton of kids (many of whom turned against her), and apparently didnāt believe in medicine. Her youngest daughter (who I once got in a big argument over the āSatanicā nature over Harry Potter and Pokemon, as she claimed it was) has cerebral palsy that could have been fixed when she was little, but her mom just took it as the will of God and did nothing. She did the same with another one of her kids who ended up dying very young because she considered his condition the will of God. While I donāt think this lady is unintelligent, I think she was so wrapped up in the fundamentalist mindset that she was willing to believe anything fundamentalist in nature.
As for my idea of the kind of people who believe Jack Chick, and Iām sorry that this sounds extremely judgmental (but face it; it could be true in some cases), are people who are maybe a little mentally slow. They may have the mind of a child, and are therefore entertained and believe Chickās comics like a child would. And if you consider the amount of education level of some people, particularly in some parts of the Bible Belt (again, sorry Iām being judgmental and stereotyping), this might make a little bit of sense. I have heard people in the South can be EXTREMELY anti-Catholic, so it wouldnāt surprise me if this is where Chick tracts are the most popular.
Anyway, thanks for the replies so far! Lol I LOVED that parody of the Chick tract (Who Will Be Eaten First?). I once saw another parody that had a picture of Chickās faceless God with the caption, āPULL MY FINGER!ā. And yes I have heard that Jack Chick is believed to be Christian Crumb, or at least just the pen name of an author or number of authors. He is EXTREMELY reclusive, doesnāt give interviews, and only two pictures of him are apparently known to exist, so it makes sense he may not even exist.
Whatās interesting about who Jack Chick is trying to convert to Christianity, Karl Keating points out in āCatholicism vs. Fundamentalismā that Chick tracts actually donāt convert a whole lot of people. They mostly only appeal to people whoāve been fundamentalist anti-Catholics for their entire lives. Keating says the anti-Catholics who do convert people away from the Church are far more stealthy, and theyāre the ones you need to watch out for, as they use deception and lies about the Church, too (not as crazy as Chickās, but theyāre still misrepresentations; most of which come from āRoman Catholicismā by Loraine Boettner, or to a more extreme extent āThe Two Babylonsā by Alexander Hislop, which Chick actually uses as a source).
As for Jack Chick himself (or even if he exists), I wouldnāt be surprised if he knows heās lying and hired Todd and Rivera on purpose because he knew they were quacks. In fact, hereās a theory I just came up with. Jack Chick supposedly wasnāt religious when he was young, but he claims he became religious later in life. But maybe thatās a total lie, and heās REALLY an Atheist, and made all the tracts as an experiment to see just how stupid some fundamentalists are, and as a result make fundamentalist Christianity (and as a bonus make the Catholic Church in the view of fundamentalists) look bad, which Chick tracts ultimately have done. But even if that isnāt true, the one thing that is most likely motivating Chick is the fact heās sold half a billion tracts, and whether heās lying or not, we can definitely say heās laughing all his way to the bank.
It was a local Baptist church.
) as if they were gospel truth (pun intended). But then again, this is the world where there are people who believe that stuff that happens in the movies are actually real, so I guess reality is stranger than fiction.
