Jack Chick's View on Catholicism

[Monk Brendan]

I didn't attack anybody. I simply stated some historical facts.

By attacking the Catholic Church, you attack all of the Catholics on this forum.

I did NOT make any images or cartoons. I did NOT quote anybody out of context. I did NOT goad anybody.

True, but the LINKS to the cartoons were there.

 

[MarysSon]

Even if Chick believed he wasn't lying, then what we are left with is a man without the intellectually curiosity to investigate things for himself... and a lot of twisted suspicion of millions of ordinary countrymen.

I was influenced by this stuff somewhat when I was a young teenager. I didn't encounter alot of Chick's stuff, but it did influence me. Anti-Catholicism was alive and well in many Protestant circles back then, moreso than today (and it's still around). Catholics worship Mary, etc. etc. Until I read the Didache, I Clement, etc., and realized American pop evangelicalism bears no resemblance to early Christianity. Then I spent over a decade disillusioned with religion, not sure what to think, because I had been deceived so much by so many people, or so I felt.

The one thing Jack Chick was NOT was stupid.

He knew what he was doing and had an agenda. You can''t spew the kinds of outrageous things that he did without knowing your audience. He was one of the most prolific publishers of his time. He was a shrewd businessman who knew how to manipulate people.

 

[Vicomte13]

I want to express my complete disgust for Jack Chick and his anti-Catholic tracts. I've seen a few beyond the ones that are listed in the OP, and they are always defining the RCC as evil, satanic, etc.

It's true! I had an acquaintance once who, to try to save me from my EEEEEEVIL Catholicism gave me some Jack Chick tracts.

From then on, I identified myself to him as a "mackerel-snapping Mary-worshipping kisser-of-the-Devil's-anus"

No - he was evil.

I personally know at least 10 people who were seduced out of the Church because of Chick's lies. There is nothing funny about that.

If YOU can resist Chick's "buffoonery" - then more power to you.
Unfortunately, there are millions of people who supported his lies because of their ignorance.

Again - there's nothing humorous about that.

See, this is why the West secularized. We had to. After we wiped out a third of the population of Germany in an endless and pointless Christian civil war between Catholics and Protestants, as a civilization we grew up and imposed the Peace of Westphalia, the centerpiece of which was: you are whatever religion your local prince is - and if you can't stand that, move.

After Christians just killed and butchered their way through their disagreements for so long, and so terribly, the seriousness of the whole thing diminished and people turned to their states to pull out the fangs of religion and neuter it, housebreak it, make it subordinate to the civil authority (which, through democratic revolution, we ultimately made subordinate to our votes).

This is a good thing, all in all...unless one really misses the smell of burnt flesh.

So yeah, there's something humorous about being a "mackerel-snapping, Mary-worshipping kisser-of-the-Devil's-anus". It's great that today they can toothlessly rage at us Catholics and we can mock them back with glee. What makes it great is that religion itself has been properly segregated into its proper sphere, and is now completely deprived of the ability to pick up the sword and start wielding it.

Muslims haven't gotten there yet, which is why their countries are all barbaric, and why they scramble so desperately to get to the West.

Chick is funny because he is powerless and can just draw funny pictures of devils in his impotent rage.

If somebody is really ignorant enough to believe that and follow it, that fellow was going to fall into a ditch anyway and get taken by the next charlatan who came along.

Chick's dead, so now presumably he knows what's what - if our religion is true anyway. Perhaps God also has a sense of humor. We've got to hope he does anyway.

You take Chick and the people who actually believe idiocy like that seriously. I don't. I don't because I know that our secular state is very strong, and that people who rage in the fever swamps like Chick don't have the intellectual capacity to learn modern technology, science, engineering, finance - the real sources of secular power - and so can't get anywhere near power. All they can do is rage in the swamps. And really, who cares? They aren't a threat.

If a Catholic, who ought to know better, is so ignorant as to abandon reason to live in the fever swamps with Chick, well, chances are that Catholic had a rotten upbringing and poor education, and really we needed to shore him up more with practical financial and social support so that he didn't go running off into insanity.

Chick is obnoxious. So are a lot of Christians. Fortunately, our civilization has evolved to the point where our religious rages are toothless, which lets us laugh at it. If religion still had the power of the gun, well, then we'd still have to fighting to break that power so that we could live in peace.

Chick being annoying is still peaceful. He's like some religious rapper. Just change the channel.

 

[Vicomte13]

The one thing Jack Chick was NOT was stupid.

He knew what he was doing and had an agenda. You can''t spew the kinds of outrageous things that he did without knowing your audience. He was one of the most prolific publishers of his time. He was a shrewd businessman who knew how to manipulate people.

And now he's dead. And Catholicism is alive and well - but he's not. So it was all for nought.

 

[MarysSon]

Paganism had patron gods. When Christianity was legalized, Constantine and his officials began merging their paganism into the church. The statue of the god Jupiter was given the name St. Peter and various other gods were given the names of apostles and other people from the Bible.

These apostles and saints then started to be prayed to. Nowhere in the Bible does it say to pray to dead people. In fact, the Bible refers to saints as people who are alive, not dead. The only place I've found in the Bible where somebody prayed to a dead guy was in the old testament when King Saul "contacted" the dead prophet Samuel. When he did, Samuel did NOT appreciate it.

And this is precisely the kind of ignorant drivel that Jack Chick spewed during his lifetime.

Your entire Constantine/Peter/Jupiter nonsense comes right off the pages of Chick's tracts. Chick, unfortunately got HIS nonsense from Alexander Hislop's "The Two Babylons". Interesting thing about that book - it also spawned another book called "Babylon Mystery Religion" by Ralph Woodrow, who thought the world of Hislop's book.

To his credit, however, Woodrow started doing some actual research on his own - and what he found shook him to the very core. Hislop's garbage had been completely made up and there was ZERO evidence for his claims ahgaint the Church. Woodrow took his book out of print and now runs a website apologizing for it: Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Association

So, the lesson for YOU is: Do your homework before you post this kind of embarrassing, unsubstantiated nonsense.

 

[MarysSon]

And now he's dead. And Catholicism is alive and well - but he's not. So it was all for nought.

Not true.

He led countless people out of the Church. His lies are STILL being spread. I read them every day on this and other forums.

Like any other evil - it lives on even after the death of it's creator.

 

[FireDragon76]

The one thing Jack Chick was NOT was stupid.

He knew what he was doing and had an agenda. You can''t spew the kinds of outrageous things that he did without knowing your audience. He was one of the most prolific publishers of his time. He was a shrewd businessman who knew how to manipulate people.

Yeah, that's what I didn't like when I was an older teen, I realized a certain kind of evangelical was dishonest in a way that was so profound, their conscience was seared and deadened. It felt like an insane, creepy, polemical worldview.

It reminds me of the end of The Screwtape Letters, where he proposes a toast. The final toast is a glass of wine made from the souls of religious controversialists and hypocrites whose real creed is spite and pharisaism, and what made it so tasty was the hate and bitterness.

 

[J-Man70]

By attacking the Catholic Church, you attack all of the Catholics on this forum.



True, but the LINKS to the cartoons were there.

I didn't "attack" anybody. I simply listed some facts I found in some historical books that did NOT include Chick tracts.

The only reason I put the links there was so those that didn't know about the tracts could reference them. I never said I agreed with them.

I believe Roman Catholics CAN be saved.

 

[sdowney717]

There were good reasons for the reformation by the reformers against the Catholicism of their day.
Most people will acknowledge that, especially those who studied what happened back then.

I should not have to link, but justification is by faith alone, and sola scriptura nail it also as truth.
https://www.hccfl.edu/media/173616/ee2luther.pdf

 

[J-Man70]

As for God having a sense of humor - I find it interesting when people make this claim because I've never seen any evidence of it.

Sure he does!!!

Pastor Willie George said that God made monkeys to show people that He has a sense of humor!

 

[J-Man70]

From my point of view, the OP is just trying to get in a thread of anti-Catholicism by posting a question about the author of this dreck, and by pointing to several Chick Tracts that are incredibly anti-Catholic, they break all of the rules about flaming and goading, and they WILL be reported, as the OP, through the tracts, has questioned the validity of the salvation of any Catholic on these fora.

You are 100% wrong!!!

I just wanted to know how people felt about Jack's anti-catholic publications.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

No he didn't. All he did was allow Christians to practice their faith without fear of persecution and restore properties which had been confiscated from Christians under the persecutions.

Nope. Definitely not Constantine. You need to brush up on your history

The church ruins discovered at Megiddo in Israel are believed to date from before Constantine which shows Christians were already constructing purpose built churches during lulls in the persecution.

I hope Jack Chick is not the source of your knowledge of Constantine.

I did a Mastorate paper in Early Christian history and that is what my texts told me about Constantine. It depends on what history you read and the extent of the research that you base your views on.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I believe Roman Catholics CAN be saved.

Yes but ... depending on what you mean by the last bolded statement there, that's a problem.

If you mean that Catholics are, by definition, "unsaved" (i.e. not Christian), even though they can be later, then you can't say that on CF.

More to the point, if it means that you set yourself up to judge the salvation of others, that is a judgement reserved for Christ alone, and what we are warned not to do.

Maybe you mean something else? Grammatically it could be argued that you mean maybe persons who are Catholic are saved.

I think that statement can be made about any Church or denomination - some there are saved. Some perhaps not. Only God knows.

But you're inviting the other reading, and that's not good ...

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

Jack Chick is a well known bigot who knows very little Christian history.

His tracts are often flat out lies or distortions.

His work was good while he stuck with the gospel and to get sinners converted to Christ. When he started to snipe at the Catholic Church then that is where he went wrong. I read and used his early tracts and found them very effective for sharing the gospel. I also found his larger tract dealing with revival as Charles Finney taught it very effective in pointing out the particular issues that prevented revival and how we can promote it. I haven't read his anti-Catholic tracts. He may have made the same mistake as William Branham. While Branham kept within his calling as a healing evangelist, he was really effective in bringing souls to Christ. But when he decided to become a Bible teacher, something that God did not call him to, he went into error and died a premature death. It is important to remain within the prophetic calling that God has called us to and not try and extend it to stuff that He has not authorised for us. It can not only damage us, but can cause damage to the wider body of Christ.

 

[prodromos]

I didn't attack anybody. I simply stated some historical facts.

That were neither historical nor facts. If you disagree, then by all means present some evidence from primary sources.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

In the protestant reformation there was a tendency among reformers to try to out-do each other in their complaints about the Roman church. As the centuries ticked by these 'protests' became exaggerated, and Jack Chick was an example of this process of exaggeration.

The Prod/Cath divide is nowhere nearly as great as some wind it up to be. I think we should accept that the middle ages church needed a shake up, and they got it. Now we can move on as mature Christians, accepting each other without trying to crank up new hostilities, as Jack Chick tried to do.

Having had a strong foundation in Puritan and Elizabethan theology, I can quite agree with what you are saying. It was after I married a Catholic wife and did a Mastorate paper in Catholic theology that I have softened my attitude to that Church.

 

[MarysSon]

There were good reasons for the reformation by the reformers against the Catholicism of their day.
Most people will acknowledge that, especially those who studied what happened back then.

I should not have to link, but justification is by faith alone, and sola scriptura nail it also as truth.
https://www.hccfl.edu/media/173616/ee2luther.pdf

Unfortunately, Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide are Scripturally untenable.
You can cherry-pick verses to TRY to prove these false doctrines - but the fail in the context of Scripture.

As for the "good reasons" for the Reformation - there is never a good reason to splinter the Body of Christ.
The splintering continues to this day to the tune of almost 50,000 disjointed sects - ALL teaching different doctrines yet ALL claiming to have the "truth".

 

[prodromos]

I did a Mastorate paper in Early Christian history and that is what my texts told me about Constantine. It depends on what history you read and the extent of the research that you base your views on.

I doubt it. I believe you are confusing Constantine with Justinian

 

[Vicomte13]

Thank you for that inane and blind analysis.

To say that Chick's work is "harmless" is to not understand history - and you know what they say about that: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

As for God having a sense of humor - I find it interesting when people make this claim because I've never seen any evidence of it.

And thank YOU for that warm and charitable response.

I understand the past pretty well. And the primary lesson to be drawn from it the world over is that religion has to be kept firmly under the control of secular civil authorities, because religious people become fanatical murderers when they have power. So they can't ever have power.

Yes, I can see that you truly never have seen any of the divine sense of humor.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

I think Jack Chick's cartoons are a hoot. They're so obnoxious they make me laugh. I've met people who obviously think just like he did, and they make me laugh too.

His theology is like a Monty Python sketch, and what makes it funnier is that he apparently really BELIEVED the crap that he so earnestly wrote about.

Cartoons are meant as entertainment, and Jack Chick's cartoons entertain me because of their sheer buffoonery and fever-swamp craziness.

WHY do I think that?
Well, first of all, I have a sense of humor.
Secondly, I don't take ignorance seriously.
And thirdly, when an idiot obviously really DOES take himself completely seriously, as Chick did, and goes over the top and publishes things meant to be SERIOUS, as Chick did, and other ignorant people take it completely seriously, then I find the whole comic clown posse display to be really very funny.

Jack Chick is a hoot.

His early tracts were the most powerful and effective at presenting the gospel. Remember that he presented the work of demons as part of his message, especially the influence of demons depicted in his tract about revival in the church. If he was exposing the work of demons in society and the church it is understandable that he became a threat to the devil and so the devil would want him discredited. It seems that the way that happened was the Chick was diverted away from the pure gospel and into areas where God did not intend him to go. What the devil succeeded in doing is to present him as a buffoon writing silly cartoons. This is a lesson for all of us wanting to serve God effectively. When we become too effective, the devil will use tactics to discredit us and make us appear ridiculous to people so that our preaching of the gospel because ineffective and the threat to the devil is removed. Peter tells us to be sober and vigilant because the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.