Just right off the bat: Chick Tracts do not depict normal Christian values...

If you've never heard of Chick tracts...I don't encourage you to seek them out.

Essentially these tiny little books are meant to be a ministry tool that you can hand off to someone, leave on a restaurant table or whatever for someone to read and maybe recieve Christ as a result.

But they missed the mark...boy did they! The first one of these I read as a child was called: This Was Your Life!

The story basically read that a man who died was carried to the big court in the sky where they replayed his entire life and basically said that even though he was a good person, being good isn't enough. You have to believe in Jesus and believe that he died to save you from your sins.
And so the man who didn't accept Jesus was sent to...hell!

Of course they can't just leave it there so they are sure to include another guy who DOES accept Jesus and gets to go to heaven when death comes knocking.

Now all of this is true (as per my beliefs). In order to get to heaven and to be a Christian you have to accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. But that's where Chick Tracts end the normal ministry.

First of all I can never decide exactly what audience the Chick Tract creators meant to go for. I would hope adults but most of their comics involve shildren and teens, The downright creepy artwork and horrific plotlines suggest that this is all a scare tactic. 'Let's scare the devil out of people!'


Take for instance this tract: Dark Dungeons

This is one tract that just made me go WHAT? a whole lot.
In this tract, Debbie gets sucked into a D&D game with some other teenagers DMed by Ms. Frost. Now I'm no expert on all things geekery but if a middle aged woman is inviting a group of teenagers over to her house...shouldn't that throw up some red flags for a lot of parents? On top of that Ms. Frost could have found a million other middle aged adults to play D&D with but she went for the kids...seems like she had other plans. And she did.

Wait, what? Can't she just...make a new character? No? Why not? Because Ms. Frost is not a real DM! Duhn duhn duhn! She is actually a diabolical cult leader for an evil group of hooded figures!












That's right. D&D turned Debbie into a Wiccan...or a Satanist? They don't seem too concerned on the specifications....

And then of course, Debbie can now use REAL magic and turns her Father's brain into jelly in order to spend two weeks pay on D&D books...














The book also shows Marcie's suicide as a result of being kicked out of the group and features a good old come to Jesus book burning!

Are Roman Catholics Christians?

This particular tract ruined my friendship with a girl in 6th grade who's entire family was Catholic. To this day I wish someone hadn't just left this somewhere for me, a child, to find somewhere. I also wish I'd spoken with an adult about the proper way to evangelize before telling another child that her family might be condemned...oops.

Here are just a few other pictures that truly made me question the motives behind the chick tracts.

Fairy Tales

Finding out about Santa will turn your child into a murderous lunatic.


You can read this one for yourself in it's enirety here

You can then see the judge call the little boy a monster and 'throw the book at him'. Obviously the parents couldn't afford a good attorney to get him out on insanity. That's probably where he needed to be...





































The Walking Dead:

Happy Halloween! Now about your soul...

This one is recommended by The Chick Company to put into kids bags on Halloween. Now I'm all for opportunistic evangelism but I seriously don't think any parent, even Christian ones, will appreciate you dropping the fire and brimstone into their little coboy's pumkin bucket.

























This one you can read for yourself. It's recommended specifically for younger children. If I ever found this in a 5-7 year old's candy bag I'd be back at the givers house for a serious conversation in children's evangelism.
The Devil's Night

There are SO many ways to witness to children without depicting images that will give them nightmares of the worst kind. I can only assume Jack Chick believes that all unreached children are allowed to watch horror movies and already have numbed minds...

As of today, The Chick Company has come out with many tracts that are a lot less freaky but they still offer and distribute the disturbing ones just as frequently as any others. I encourage all Christians to leave the chick tracts alone and drop one of these in the bag instead.

I've been using the pocket testament for years now. The booklets are most often The Gospel Of John. The only thing that changes is the picture on the cover. It's simply a hook that makes someone want to take a closer look. For children they have 'God's Words To You'. It presents a clear message of salvation using illustrations and Bible passges from the Old and New Testaments.

Jack Chick scared the devil out of me and also made me fear for the souls of those around me. One trat in particular condemned the believer for not witnessing to his friends. This, paired with a skit called 'Letter From Hell' that I saw at the very same conference where I accepted Jesus spurred my very own 12 year old crusade for the souls of my fellow sixth graders. Needless to say I only got a lot of bad reception from the 'heathen' kids around me and to this day some of them still recall my words to them that they were going to go to hell. And to this day I never can shake that feeling that I may have singlehandedly pushed some very good kids away from ever considering Church and Christianity.