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Title: Happy Halloween
Source:
Chick.com
URL Source: http://chick.com/reading/tracts/0032/0032_01.asp
Published: Oct 26, 2014
Author: Jack Chick
Post Date: 2014-10-26 14:46:42 by redleghunter
Keywords: None
Views: 3000
Comments: 16
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 13.
#3. To: CZ82, A K A Stone, liberator, Civilwarbuff, Vicomte13, TooConservative (#0)
That time of year again. Enjoy!
Oh goody, Jack Chick! There is nobody who distills fundamentalist Protestantism down to a tee better than Jack Chick. Obviously the ultimate disposition of the kid who got killed will depend on whether or not he was a "good kid", his deeds. Chick outright says in the cartoon that my saying that is from the Devil. Obviously his opposition of that truth is really what is straight from the Devil. The great thing about Chick is that he makes the distinction between Catholicism and Protestantism absolutely black and white, without any nuance, and with nowhere to hide. He shows plain why it is possible for Catholics and Protestants to be civil and cooperate with each other in life, but that ultimately it isn't possible to reconcile, because our religions believe diametrically opposite things, which means that the other's gospel is in truth satanic. That's why I think Chick is great and why he amuses me so. To him, my beliefs are the devil on parade. To me, his cartoons are the devil at his funniest and most persuasive. Follow Chick, believe that what you do doesn't matter, just what you believe in your head, and wake up in purgatory (Gehenna is Purgatory).
I post these every year and you used to like them. Bad day? :)
I DO like them, very much! I still like them! This time I just pulled back a corner to show WHY I like them so very much: they are a stark and true characterization of THE cardinal difference between Protestant theology and Catholic theology. Jack Chick is certain he's right, and writes the sharpest cartoons that highlight EXACTLY the full implications of Protestant theology - showing believers as going to heaven or being thrown into the fire based solely on what they believe in their head about Jesus, and showing Catholics, in particular, as agents of Satan because Catholics teach as a firm fact that men are judged by their deeds. It's "faith" versus "works", in the most lurid detail. Now, being a Catholic, it means that I am at the "Devil's-anus-kisser" end of Chick's tracts. I think it's funny. One of the reasons I think it's funny is that in his earnestness to say that I am the Devil, Jack Chick in fact speaks and writes the lies of the Devil: the theology that he despises is The Truth, and the one he espouses so earnestly and vividly is the satanic lie. The crowning irony of it all is that Chick's false theology would condemn me to the flames of Hell as a Satan follower, while The Truth will merely land him in Purgatory, for a time, as an ardent believer in Jesus who led men astray by mangling his message. So, you see, there's hope for Chick and those deceived as he is, precisely BECAUSE there is the place he does not believe in, provided by God, so that people who make errors like that are able to be purified of their sins (of falling for and teaching such lies, unwitting that they are lies). Chick is a hoot. And what makes him such a hoot is the irony of all of those earnest people handing out his tracts and really believing waking up after death in Purgatory and thanking God that they were wrong and the place actually exists, just like Jesus said! This is not me in bad humor, this is me relishing the irony. That's why Chick delights me so. He's over the top, and he REALLY BELIEVES his nonsense - and so do most of the Christians of that genre I encounter on the Christian forum. His cartoons are perfect.
Chick tracts are Gospel based....well maybe most of them are. 23 frames to get out the same message proclaimed by the Apostles in the NT...God loves us; sent His Son; Son died for us, rose for us, ascended into Heaven for us, will come again. Of course we know there is more than an initial contact with the Gospel with regards to being a faithful Christian. Christ did all the work, but we as his followers are called to do works of righteousness in Him and through Him. Neither orthodox Protestantism/Evangelicals believe salvation is only head knowledge. Evangelism starts with proclaiming the very first proclamation of Jesus and the Apostles. Matthew 28, Luke 24, Acts 2, Acts 3, Acts 10. From there either someone trusts God to get their booty in order, or they don't. The former is trust and faith, the latter is unbelief. I view Chick tracts as a table of contents for people to dig deeper. His next steps tells people to get a Bible, find a church and get baptized. He's not teaching a catechism class.
Chick's central thesis is that it doesn't matter what you do, that what matters is that you get saved, that you get down on your knees and "accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior", and that's it, you're saved. It doesn't matter what you do. Conversely, his thesis is that if you don't do that, you are damned to hellfire no matter what you do. This is standard Martin Luther/John Calvin doctrine. It is a standard, strongly stated doctrine. Chick makes the particular point that there is no Purgatory, that this - along with the idea that men are rewarded or punished by God according to their deeds - is a lie of Satan. None of these things are true according to Catholic doctrine, and Chick's blunt assertions of their truth is false. There is no sharper delineation of the Protestant position on these core issues than Jack Chick. And the central thesis of his belief system is false. If you get down on your knees and proclaim Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you are by no means guaranteed to pass final judgment. You will be judged by your deeds. Jesus did say how people can be forgiven their sins, and the way Jesus said was not to believe in him, but rather, to forgive other people the sins they have committed against them. Of course, it is not natural to forgive other people their sins against you, so if you're doing it, that's because you heard it from Jesus and so are trying to follow him. And THAT, specifically, is what "believing on" Jesus is: doing what he said, not proclaiming somewhere "Jesus is my Lord and Savior". Lord means leader. Jesus is only your Savior IF he is your Lord. And he is only your Lord if you FOLLOW him, by DOING WHAT HE SAID. Jesus said all of this, and he said that men - specifically Christians - are judged by their deeds, by what they DO, by whether or not they listened to Jesus and followed him. Jesus said that over and over again. What it means is that if you proclaim Jesus as your Lord and Savior, but don't actually do what he said, you are not going to pass final judgment until you've paid your debt of sin. He said that God will release you from your debt TO THE EXTENT THAT you release OTHER MEN from their debt to you. To the extent you don't, you won't be forgiven and will pay the debts in prison, which is Gehenna. Gehenna is not the lake of fire, it is not eternal hell. It is part of Sheol, dry and parched and fiery, separated from the Bosom of Abraham and Gan Eden by a deep black unbridgeable chasm. Neither Gehenna nor the chasm are the Lake of Fire. The Lake of Fire is only faced at the end of the world, after FINAL judgment. Before that, all souls come out of Paradise or Gehenna, resurrected, and present themselves bodily for judgment. If they fail final judgment, they are thrown into the Lake of Fire. This is all right out of Scripture. Chick, and those sharing his theology, deny the necessity of deeds, deny that for Jesus to be your Lord, you have to DO what he said, not merely have a mental state. They deny that Gehenna is a prison, where sins are PAID (and from which one can be released once the sins are paid). In short, they simply deny the structure of the afterlife that Jesus presented, and substitute a simpler one, of different names, with different conditions. And then they damn Catholics to their hell for the Catholics' insistence on remaining with the more complicated but real structure of things that Jesus presents in the Scripture. Chick is funny for the same reason that Hee-Haw is funny: ignorant rubes making asses of themselves with over-the-top falsehoods, earnestly believed, and delivered with cocksure insult. That is what makes Chick so precious. His actual THEOLOGY is entirely false. I like Chick tracts for the same reason that it's fun to read old Maoist news releases about America "The running dogs of imperialist capitalism are being led by the wild hyenas of American adventurism into feasting on the bleating lambs of the exploited African working class." Cool! Go ahead, Mao and Chick, you do you, man, you do you. And Kim Jong Un is ronery, so bery, bery ronery.
You get that in 23 frames? :) Most of his tracts introduces the non-believer (and I will note not previously catechized) person to the basic gospel message. That's it...simple to the point. He does not take on pastoring-catechizing a new Christian. That's up to a church to do. As the CCC and Catholic Answers explains salvation: 1)I am saved: justified by God's Grace 2)I am being saved: sanctification by God's Grace 3)I will be saved: resurrection glorification by God's Grace I believe few Protestant/Evangelicals would argue any of the above. In my observation, Chick is covering the first above.
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#4. To: redleghunter (#3)
(Edited)
#6. To: Vicomte13 (#4)
#7. To: redleghunter (#6)
#8. To: Vicomte13 (#7)
#9. To: redleghunter (#8)
#13. To: Vicomte13 (#9)
Chick's central thesis is that it doesn't matter what you do, that what matters is that you get saved, that you get down on your knees and "accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior", and that's it, you're saved. It doesn't matter what you do.
Replies to Comment # 13.
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