A few weeks ago, a rather reclusive man who was sort of a celebrity among evangelicals, especially anti-Catholic ones, died–Jack Chick. What? you never heard of him? Count yourself lucky.
Jack Chick was a comic strip artist who used his comics as a means to evangelize, or so he’d have you believe. In reality, he was spreading some of the most insane lies you ever heard. He though rock n roll–including Christian rock–was evil. He thought people who played Dungeons and Dragons were conducting séances and if their characters died in the game, the other players killed them. I don’t know what he thought of Pokémon or Harry Potter, but I’m sure he made tracts about them too. These comics were distributed at Churches and Christian book stores for years. You can even purchase them on his website. (And no, I’m not going to provide a link.)
But perhaps the bulk of his lunacy was directed at Catholics. He accused Catholics of the following (note: I saw these in an article you can read at this link)
- Founding Islam (despite Islam actually starting after Jesus’s death)
- He linked the Jesuits to starting the American Civil war, and conspiring to kill Abraham Lincoln.
- Founding the KKK. (Never mind that the KKK also murdered Catholics as well as blacks.
- Working closely with the founders of Communism. In Russia, Catholics conspired to murder the Romanovs, the final tsar dynasty.
- The Nazi Holocaust (never mind that Catholics were murdered along with the Jews)
- Creating Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other pseudo-Christian cults.
“Wait, why are you concerned?” you may ask. “He’s dead and these claims are so ludicrous no sane person would believe them.” Really? Let me give you some crazy lies people believe: Vaccines cause autism. We didn’t land on the moon. Practically anything on that TV series Ancient Aliens. So if they can believe that, who’s to say they wouldn’t believe the lunacy of Jack Chick?
And as for him being dead, that’s also irrelevant. He’s far from the only person who’s spread lies about Catholicism. His tracts will probably still be distributed years after his death. (Maybe some successor will say that the Catholics conspired to murder him as well. After all, I haven’t learned the particulars of his death.)
This doesn’t mean that Catholicism will no longer be lied about. It just means we have one less liar to worry about.
Aspie Catholic 