Reference: https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0046
Yes, this is an actual publication by a christian organization; it's not a parody.
Yes, this is an actual publication by a christian organization; it's not a parody.
I do not believe that anyone ever converted to Christianity as a consequence of reading any of Jack Chick’s gospel tracts. But I do believe that thousands of Christians were converted by them into something else — something more like the ugly dishonesty and nasty triumphalism that were those tracts’ main attributes. He helped persuade such Christians that bearing false witness against their neighbors should be the hallmark and cornerstone of their religion.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2016/10/24/haw-haw...
If he was just an angry bitter old man, it'd be easier to pity him: how awful to live your life in that headspace, right? But he did damage, too, and that's harder to just feel sorry for.
The same actors previously played in a series about an RPG world. The video is hilarious while technically not a parody: it was enough for them to stick to the plot.
I did enjoy Cthulhu Tract as a parody of whatever Chick Tracts are.
They aren't that odd for the time. They pretty much reflected fairly common fundamentalist attitudes at the time they were written, including the anti-Catholicism; that's subsequently become muted mostly because the politically-focussed Christian Right realized that right-wing Catholics could be useful political allies, but calling them Satanists made it hard to work together.
Yes, none of those were uncommon for fundamentalists of the time (the fundamentalist/evangelical split is perhaps the most opaque to outsiders because they seem very similar from the outside, but fundamentalism was a theological reaction against theological trends within evangelicalism.) All of them have subsided, at least in visible terms, because of political convenience in the last couple decades, but even in the early 90s I saw a lot of it, quite openly, from large fundamentalist-aligned organizations.
Chick tracts were notable in their presentation, but not do much their ideas.
I think I'd rather get the fabled apple with a razorblade in it than Christian gospel in my trick or treat pail.