This Was Your Life!
I originally sent this as an e-mail to the Ex-Christian e-mail discussion list I'm on. I modified and added a little bit for this web page. The links I use throughout this article are there as much to show I can actually back up my claims as anything else. You can find links to the main page of each website at the end of the article if you want to read it all the way through before looking at the other websites.
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So it's four days until my birthday on Monday, September 11. Disney On Ice is once again coming to town, so I decided to go. I stop by Burger King after the performance, and what do I see in the restroom but a Jack Chick tract? With all the joking and ridicule I've seen Jack Chick and his tracts receive, I admit I was a little surprised to actually see one of his tracts still being used. Now that I think about it, I'm not really surprised now.
Anyway, this particular tract, titled This Was Your Life! is not as offensive as other tracts made by Jack Chick, for whatever that might be worth. There are no conspiricies or any slamming of the Catholic Church or anything, but that doesn't mean it's a paragon of critical thinking either. This is a Christian tract, after all, and one made by Jack Chick. A guy dies, is taken to the Final Judgement by an angel, and a review of all the bad stuff he's done is shown. None of the good stuff, just the bad stuff, although even as a Christian I always had the impression that both would be shown, but it just wouldn't matter in the end. The guy realizes what a bad, bad sinner he is, and without hope. His name is looked for in the Book of Life. Of course, it's not there, so he gets tossed into the Lake of Fire.
Another thing that struck me as odd, in addition to the aspect of the Final Judgement described above, was in part of the tract they show him going to church, but being bored and thinking about a ball game. All through the tract, until his realization that he's a naughty boy, he was pretty adament in believing that being good is all you needed to do to live a good life and that he could make his own path. So, why go to a Christian fundamentalist church and be bored out of his mind? One would think he would be at odds with most anything said there, anyway, and he wasn't exactly open to considering the church's doctrine.
The end of the tract shows a guy getting saved and then living a good Christian life. I thought that the threat of eternal fiery torment throughout the main part of the tract combined with the "no one is good enough, even doing good things", combined with a Christian doing good things was a bit strange. I think the suggestion is that only a Christian is actually devoted to doing good things, because the hellbound guy wasn't all that nice.
About the Book of Life: The angel seemed pretty quick about not finding the guy's name. It didn't even look like he went through the whole book. How are the names organized, anyway? Is it alphabetical? What language is used? Wouldn't it suck if someone's name wasn't put in the right place and the person was tossed into the Lake of Fire by accident?
I'm sure someone could make a good story out of that last question I asked. I'd like to work on one myself if I can get past my lack of confidence in my writing skills. I guess that's not something Jack Chick worries too much about.
Here are the links to the main pages of the websites I listed above:
Chick Publications. Yes, the man himself has his tracts up for sale online. He also has them on display, so you can read them without having to search through Burger King restrooms.
Official "Not A Jack T. Chick" Tract. Well, that's the title used when I found this site using Yahoo!.
The Jack T. Chick Parody Archive.
The EX-TIAN Home Page. I really like this list. Use a little common sense if you consider joining, though: We are ex-Christians, which means we've heard any argument you can throw at us many times already, probably used them all ourselves, and won't take kindly to any attempts to bring us back into the fold. We were sheep once, but have since sprouted (goat) horns.
Disney On Ice. I saw the 75 Years of Disney Magic show. It was really neat.
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