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 researched.[4]  Based on my own experience with Chick tracts/comics, I find Daniels’s statement to be very questionable.  But if I am willing to give Daniels the benefit of the doubt, and they are “well researched,” if that research consists primarily of using individuals/source materials that has long been discredited, someone having an “axe to grind” against a particular topic, etc… it does not matter how much “research time” has been spent.[5]

            Now that I have discussed some of Chick’s background and some of the themes of his tracts/comics, let me now turn to the tract/comic I want to dissect:  Are Roman Catholics Christians?

 


 

[1]They are still being produced by Chick’s successor, David W. Daniels.

 

[2]What is ironic are some of the groups that Chick tracts/comics do not attack.  Here are two examples, the Orthodox Church and the Church of England.

 

There are very little doctrinal differences between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.  Yet, some members of the Orthodox clergy are just as anti-Catholic as some “fundamentalist hillbilly preacher,” so that might be why they are not on the list.

 

The Church of England is almost a liberal form of Catholicism.  Yet, the Church of England produced the King James Version of the Bible, so that might explain why they are not on the list. 

 

[3]Notwithstanding that these groups were, and some still are, historically anti-Catholic.  Communism, in of itself, is anti-religious. 

 

[5]For example, let us say that a person writes a paper for their Astronomy class, and uses Ptolemy, the ancient Greek astronomer, as their primary source of information.  The professor is more than likely going to give the student an ‘F’ on their paper, or, at best, a ‘D,’ because Ptolemy’s arguments have long been refuted.  Ptolemy, for example, held that the Earth was the center of the solar system.  

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