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Chapter I: Introduction

  “You’re Going to Burn!   Burn Forever!”:   My First Encounter with Jack Chick (Critiquing Are Roman Catholics Christians? )               In my childhood days, I attended a Baptist church—a Southern Baptist church, to be specific.   But I hated it.   I am more of an introvert than an extrovert, and being an introvert put a “target on me” that my peers in Sunday School exploited—not only my peers, but also one of my teachers.   While I found Sunday School to be horrible, the actual “worship service” itself was even worse.   The pastor just went on and on talking about things that I did not understand, nor care about, to the point where I would constantly ask my parents, “Is it over yet?” [1]   After begging my parents to no longer take me to that church, and all the reasons why, we stopped going—and my Sundays became a “breath of fresh air.”       ...

Chapter II: Who was Jack Chick?

              For the majority of his professional life, Jack Thomas Chick (1924-2016) was a recluse.   He gave very few interviews to any publication outside of his own (Chick Publications).   Very few photographs of him were known to have existed during his lifetime, which led to speculation that his name was actually a “pen name” for a number of different authors/cartoonists. [1]   Based on what I have seen from Chick Publications, or the few outside interviews given by Chick, I am going to provide several points—which will be in bold —about what I can access about him and give some commentary: He was a King James Version-Only [KJV-Only] advocate, despite the King James Version [KJV] of the Bible not being a good modern-day translation.   This point is expressed on Chick’s website, [2] and it is a point advocated by many Fundamentalist Evangelical Protestants.   However, there is a proble...

Chapter III: What were/are Chick Tracts?

              Chick Tracts were, and are, [1] morality plays drawn in the style of a comic strip—which is why I refer to them as “Chick tracts/comics.”   They feature themes that one might suspect among Fundamentalists Evangelical Protestants (opposition to Catholicism, opposition to the LGTBQ lifestyle/community, opposition to any form of Science that does not hold the world to be 6000 years old, etc…). [2]   But besides these common themes, they also feature conspiracy theories—such as the Catholic Church is responsible for the creation of Islam, Communism, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly called Mormons), the Ku Klux Klan, and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (commonly called Jehovah’s Witnesses). [3]             David W. Daniels, Jack Chick’s successor, states, contrary to popular opinion, Chick tracts/comics are well resear...