This Was Your Life

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0001/0001_01.asp

This is perhaps the most widely circulated Chick Tract, and one of the most neutral in terms of Evangelical content. In this early tract, which resembles "It's a Wonderful Life" more than a spiritual walk down Memory Lane, Chick tells the story of a wealthy man living a luxurious lifestyle complete with expensive car, large house, and the iconic highball and pipe who suffers a fatal heart attack and is judged in Heaven for his less than perfect lifestyle in the eyes of God. Like a TiVo, God plays the man's life back on film, causing the man to review the bad choices he's made in his life, and reconsider what his life could have been like had he repented for his sins and accepted Christ before dying. The tract concludes with a message for readers, a prayer, and steps to take in order to live a "good" Christian life.

This comic (and I do mean COMIC) interpretation of the "It's a Wonderful Life" starts right at the beginning with a full panel of the man in his extravagant lifestyle and a Bible verse underneath (Luke 12:19). Right off the bat, the excerpt from the Parable of the Rich Fool, as well as the following panel in which the man dies presents a literary challenge for readers, no matter their theological background. Here we are, presented with a main character, who inconsiderately dies in the first few panels without so much as an introduction. Obviously, Chick's intent is to make us realize that the rich man is any one of us who are reading the tract, but this anonymous character certainly doesn't represent the majority of readers or the majority of Americans. If Mr. Chick was intending the comic to be read mainly by white collar retirees, then perhaps he could have used colored ink.

The next panel, which shows the man falling in a characteristically comic book way to the ground features a quote from Hebrews (9:27) taken completely out of context. Without including the 28th verse, Chick effectively cuts the second part of the sentence short, leaving Jesus Christ's sacrifice out of the picture. This is all fine and good if one is just using Bible verses to emphasize a point in a childish cartoon, but for a man trying to save souls with such "art," Chick certainly seems to be cutting a lot of corners, and this is only the third panel. The next panel featuring the funeral of the man shows a pastor on the top of the grave telling the mourners that the deceased "was a good man." To me, this speaks volumes about the general mindset of the Evangelical community at large, a community that now in the 21st century seems to be preoccupied with "feel-good" religion in the form of megachurches, mass baptism, and Wal-Mart scale congregations. Such a shallow eulogy in the fourth panel to me reflects the shallow message of the Evangelical Pastors, and the "Purpose Driven" mentality so many follow today.

I find it decidedly ironic that Isaiah 64:6 is quoted in the funeral panel while the pastor above ground is preaching about how the man led a "good life." Chick seems to be criticizing the "feel-good" Evangelists for their simplistic views, and yet these are the evangelicals who still use Chick Tracts the most. Food for thought.

The artwork from the fifth and sixth panel remind me of the aria "The trumpet shall sound" from G.F. Handel's Messiah. As the man is raised from the dead to have his soul judged, I can't help but hear the opening trumpet ritornello. For me, the knowledge that such music exists to praise a higher power is perhaps enough to convince me that there IS a higher power, but for others, including Mr. Chick, more banal means are needed. Waiting for his life to be judged, the man states that he was no different than anyone else, again ironic given that the Romans 3:10 verse at the bottom of panel 10 seems to agree with that. I understand what Mr. Chick is attempting to do in this panel, but it seems that perhaps a better line of dialog would be "Look here, I'm not like everyone else, I lived a good life." Perhaps saying that would be too close to what Mr. Chick might find himself saying at St. Peter's gates.

Panels 12 and 13 are amusing to me for several reasons. Firstly, it appears Heaven has moved to the digital (or at least drive-thru) age, with the Books of Life being changed to the silver screen of life, perhaps furthering the reference to "It's a Wonderful Life." I also love the fact that God dims the lights of Heaven to show the film. There might as well be a "3...2...1...Let there be...LIFE" screen at the beginning of the film, as well as a roll of previews.

The next several panels detail the man's life, his mistakes, candid shots of his teenage lust, and a list of sundry sins he committed in his lifetime. The man's apparent rejection of Christ deems him a candidate for the eternal barbecue, and the movie cuts for reel 2...this COULD be your life. There is hope. The man repents, to a slough of formulaic Bible verses that are overused in Megachurches, and when he dies, is welcomed into Heaven. The End.

Several things about this tract bother me. The fact that boss judges the man for theoretical promotion based on his skill AND faith seems wrong to me. It seems that evaluation of one's worth in the workforce should be based solely on skill, and not extracurricular faith. The fact the the man dies in the second to last panel accompanied by a verse from Psalm 116 comparing him to a Saint is frankly misleading and insulting to true saints. Chick is effectively belittling the saints who were Martyred for their beliefs, when this unnamed man simply dies of a heart attack, possibly brought on from seeing the man in the Death Costume. The fact that the man dies of a heart attack is perhaps foreshadowing as well. In 2005, Mr. Chick suffered a heart attack, and underwent a triple bypass.

Overall, this tract offers little in the way of misleading information or misguided theology. However, this being the least controversial of the tracts in the Chick Oeuvre, this is hardly surprising. I think that this track reveals a tiny bit about Mr. Chick's own views though. The cookie-cutter Christian "good deeds" that the man performs in order to show his conversion to Christianity seem to overshadow his actual conversion, and his tangible rewards on Earth for being a good Christian, in the way of an implied promotion are all well and good, but ultimately without a panel showing him donating his hard earned money to a worthy cause or to the Church, doesn't he end back up in the first panel all over again, regardless of whether he believes in Christ or not? It seems that Mr. Chick's oversimplification of the "Christian" lifestyle in "This Was Your Life" reflects his oversimplified view of personal faith, perhaps also compounded by the fact that all of his passages are impersonal and taken from the King James Version of the Bible, a version so archaic in wording that it's a wonder not many people convert after reading the Chick Tracts. It seems that lesson one of Evangelism is to speak the language of the people, and King James Version is barely comprehensible nowadays. Ultimately, this may be better for society, as a generation of converted individuals spouting misquoted Bible verses would be the worst thing for the integrity of the Church today. Oh wait, I forgot. They're already here.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

Indroduction

Jack T. Chick (b. 1924) is the creator of the "Chick Tracts" series of witnessing comic books, still in use by numerous Evangelical Christian groups in the United States and abroad. Almost everyone in the United States has come in contact with one of these pint-sized comic books at one point or another, but few bother to actually open them and read, let alone analyze the stories, characters, artwork, and dialogue that reflects more and more the personal views of Jack Chick than the Evangelical movement of the early 21st century. Even so, despite the archaic culture references, Chick Tracts remain a staple of the Fundamentalist Christian evangelical mission, and are especially popular with Evangelical groups who wish to minister to younger audiences, say on college and university campuses.

For those of you who have never seen one, a Chick Tract is a rectangular, bookmark-sized comic book. The tracts begin innocently enough usually with cryptic titles such as "The Bully" and "How to Get Rich," though some have more direct titles such as "Sin City" and "Why is Mary Crying?" which reveal more about the content inside. The books are usually 10-20 pages of comic books, with a Bible message at the end, and a prayer the reader can say at the conclusion to accept Christ and be saved. Since the first tracts were published in the 1960's, Chick Tracts have become a household name in the Evangelical community and a lucrative business for those dealing in the salvation of others.

In the years following the success of Chick Tracts, Chick founded his own publishing company to mass produce and distribute tracts all over the world. The publishing company currently prints and distributes tracts in 100 languages, and is constantly publishing newsletters under the heading "Battle Cry" to provide information to those new to the Evangelical fold.

But do these hundreds of tracts, numerous news letters, and condemnations of "sinners" truly serve any purpose, other than to question the sanity and intelligence of their creator? One need not read between the lines of Chick's comics to see the pen and ink representation of a reclusive, insecure man, so twisted by his beliefs that he relies on publication to legitimize his King James Movement beliefs, not to the world, but to himself. One only wonders what the future holds for Mr. Chick when St. Peter tells him "This Was Your Life" and shows him the intolerance, falsehoods, and ignorance he has brought into the world of Evangelism. As Mr. Chick resides in seclusion, declines most interviews, and has never been photographed in public, one only has his artwork to go by to build up a portrait of the artist, so to speak. It is not a flattering one.

I make no claims to be a theological scholar, but to me, the messages contained inside almost all Chick Tracts are fundamentally flawed, outdated, and in some cases, flat out wrong. It seems to me that if publication and distribution of these tracts is to be continued, a thorough analysis of each is required on a spiritual, literary, and last but not least factual level. In the months ahead, I will analyze each of Mr. Chick's works, deconstructing the characters, storylines, and spiritual messages with the eventual goal of creating a psychological persona of Jack T. Chick. I expect that Mr. Chick's inner demons are perhaps a bit more tangible than the cartoons on the page.