The Disturbing Theology Of 'Chick Tracts'

Galatians 1:6-9, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”

Jack Thomas Chick (April 13, 1924 – October 23, 2016) was an American cartoon evangelist and publisher, best known for his fundamentalist Christian "Chick tracts." Mr. Chick expressed his perspective on a variety of issues through sequential-art morality plays. Many of Chick's views were controversial, as his widely distributed tracts accused Roman Catholics, Freemasons, Muslims, and many other groups of murder and conspiracies. The Chick Tract ministry published an astounding 800,000,000 Chick Tracts over 40 years. 

When a ministry friend first told me years ago that Evangelist Jack Chick was wrong on biblical repentance, I cried and I was really sad about it for several months. At first I was defensive and refused to see the light, dismissing our doctrinal differences as a mere matter of semantics. But the see of truth has been planted in my soul. So I kept the truths with me in the mind, burning on the back burners for several months. 

You need to know that I idolized Chick Tracts throughout my childhood. I was a big Jack Chick fan. I promoted Jack Chick much on my website ministry. I loved the guy! Even before I was saved I enjoyed looking at the pictures in Chick Tracts. Those cartoon drawings really make you think! I collected as many Chick Tracts as I could. What child doesn't like Chick Tracts? I loved reading them. Cartoon Gospel tracts have a profound influence upon children, teenagers and adults. Cartoon art is eye candy!

A web visitor named Harold befriended me as Baptist preacher with the truth, He emailed and showed me where Jack Chick changes the Gospel. That made me sad. I didn't want to believe it. In my mind, Jack Chick wasn't a perfect man, and he had a right to be off a little bit in the way he presents the Gospel. That was my wrong thinking at the time. This was sometime around 2007. I was in denial, sulking, looking for a way out, wanting to give Jack Chick the benefit of the doubt. So I contacted the people at Chick Tracts and asked them directly a few questions. I kindly asked for clarification on exactly what they believed. Sadly, they blew me off and I never heard anything from them!!! They didn't care and that spoke volumes.

Harold had hounded me doctrinally for several months, trying to get me to see the light of THE TRUTH. We wrote back and forth several times over several months, and he finally said something that would later have a big impact on me. Harold said that he'd been living in the world years ago, shacking-up with his girlfriend in a hook-up sinful relationship. For years Harold wanted to get saved, which is why he would read Chick Tracts in the first place. But because Jack Chick errantly defines repent to mean “Be willing to turn from sin,” Harold couldn't get saved, thinking that God wouldn't accept him until he was willing to stop fornicating. 

Harold said he later learned, years later, that God WOULD gladly have save him by faith, and he wouldn't have had to stop hooking-up in a sinful relationship with his girlfriend. Harold shared with me his soul's hurt and pain, and especially his anger toward Jack Chick, for misleading him all those many years. Harold said that if he had died during those several years of ignorance, believing the LIES of Jack Chick, he would have went to Hell forever. Chick Tracts had convinced a lost sinner (Harold) that he couldn't be saved until he was first willing to stop living with his girlfriend outside of wedlock (fornication), which he didn't want to do. Here is the back page of every Chick Tract. Please notice item #2 in the leftmost column...

Also, please look at the suggested sinner's prayer they lead you to recite. The reader is errantly misled to tell God, “I am willing to turn from sin.” That is NOT taught anywhere in the Bible. This is called embellishing the Gospel, adding things that God does not, changing it. Romans 1:16 calls the Gospel “the power of God unto salvation” to “every one that believeth.” Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” The saving POWER of the Gospel is its profound simplicity to convey THE TRUTH of Jesus Christ crucified on the cross, buried and bodily risen three days later (2nd Corinthians 11:3-4; 1st Corinthians 15:1-6). 

When the Gospel is embellished and changed, so that the object of repentance becomes changing one's behavior (reformation, i.e., turning from sin); rather than wholly resting in Jesus' name (Hebrews 4:10-11), the power to save is GONE!!! The Gospel is so delicate, and so easily broken and corrupted, that it cannot save anyone once the dynamics of it have changed. The true Gospel always points you to Christ; a false gospel always points to you. 

When an infidel preacher (e.g., Steve Pettit, Marty Herron, Gary Walton, Joe Hanson, Jared Baldwin, Sam Horn, Charles Phelps, Ray Comfort, John Piper, R.C. Sproul, Adrian Rogers or John MacArthur) says you must “repent and turn away from sin” to receive God's free gift of eternal life, he has placed the burden of changing your life upon YOU. The true Gospel always points you to CHRIST, but a false gospel always points to YOU. This is not the free grace Gospel taught in the King James Bible. The focus of the true Gospel is upon Christ's sacrifice on the cross, which we receive by faith as Jesus' payment for our sins. That is salvation! Salvation is entirely a matter of what CHRIST HAS ALREADY DONE for you through the cross of Calvary, and not of what YOU CAN DO FOR HIM. Christ came into the world to save sinners, because we could not save ourselves. 

You LOOK to live, you don't LIVE to look. Isaiah 45:22, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.”

You need a preacher who will tell you what you will not tell yourself. I love this excellent, doctrinally sound, beautiful, Gospel sermon by Pastor Dennis Rokser. Brother Rokser is the pastor of Duluth Bible Church up in the happy state of Minnesota. Literally, Minnesota has been shown statistically to be one of the happiest places in the United States. With great preaching like this I can see why. The sermon is called: 'Getting The Gospel Right And Wrong.' I hope you will take the time to listen to it...

Getting The Gospel Right And Wrong

After several months of self examination and religious scrupulosity in my soul, the indwelling Holy Spirit laid the axe to the root. The Spirit impressed one truth upon my heart concerning Chick Tracks. That is, either Jack Chick was right, or he was wrong, but it couldn't be both. Either you have to be willing to turn away from the pet sins in your life, or you don't, but it absolutely cannot be both. 

If I tell my son that he can borrow the family car, but only if he is willing to gas the tank, I have made it very obvious and clear that I expect him to fill up the gas tank when he returns the car. Likewise, when Jack Chick's tracts require lost sinners to be willing to turn from sin to receive God's free gift, he has clearly made it obvious that God expects that person to turn away from their sinful bad habits. This is a difficult plan of salvation, which puts a tremendous amount of pressure upon someone, especially someone who has a lot of sinful activities going on in their personal life. 

Evangelist Ray Comfort errantly preaches this same unbiblical garbage, pressuring lost sinners to turn from their sins, even requiring them to LIVE A LIFESTYLE of turning from sin for the rest of their earthly life to get to Heaven. Please watch this video clip of Ray witnessing a false gospel to a lost woman on an airplane. After speaking kindly with her, the woman shows sincere interest in getting saved. She asks Ray what she needs to do. She wants to be saved. 

But when Ray tells her that she must repent of her sins, and then 'LIVE A LIFESTYLE' of repenting of sins for the rest of her miserable life, she clams up and doesn't want any part of it. I wouldn't want to get saved either. What Ray actually tried to sell her is a false plan of salvation that requires partial faith in Christ, plus her living a faithful Christian life of abstinence from all manner of sin, or else she couldn't go to Heaven. I hope you see how horrible, impossible, burdensome and contrary to the Good News of Christ's death, burial and resurrection this all is!!! 

The Bible calls the Gospel “the simplicity that is in Christ” (2nd Corinthians 11:3-4). There is absolutely NOTHING simple about Ray Comfort's damnable heresy! Evangelist Steve Pettit preaches this same complicated junk theology at Bob Jones University!!! Folks, our churches are under Satanic attack like never before. Sadly, most churches are opening the front door and welcoming Satan right into their midst. They might as well say, “Come on in Devil, we've been expecting you friend, Teach and confuse us ole Devil!” If you think I am exaggerating, how many different Bible versions are circulating in the pews of you church? 

The true Gospel always points you to Christ; a false gospel always points to you. I have had it up to my bald head with corrupt preachers, who foolishly require sinners to forsake their sinning to be saved. That is works! Faith is the only righteous thing that I can do to be saved. Jesus confirms this truth in John 6:28-29, “Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Faith is the only work God accepts for salvation, wholly resting in Jesus' name. 

Dear friend, I stopped passing our Chick Tracts years ago. Once upon a time decades ago I was one of their biggest fans. I ordered the complete set of Chick Tracts, cartoon magazines, books. I wanted it all, and I had it all. I had a collection of every single tract available. I collected them like baseball cards. I ordered thousands of booklets, passing out tracts everywhere I went. But after several months of the Holy Spirit and THE TRUTH eating away at my heart, I finally came to the true conclusion that Jack Chick is WRONG ON THE GOSPEL!!! Jack Chick is lying to people, misleading them to think God won't save them until they stop doing sinful things. If you love getting drunk, fornicating, stealing at work, speeding on the roadway, looking at smut on the internet, and hundreds of other common sins people are enslaved to, according to Jack Chick God WON'T save you.

That is NOT what the Bible teaches. You cannot show me even one Bible verse that mandates giving up any sins to receive God's free gift (Romans 5:15-18). A gift cannot be earned. Dr. John MacArthur foolishly teaches that to be saved, you must exchange all that you are for all that Jesus is, as a trade of sorts. That is not the Gospel. Salvation is a take proposition, not a give proposition. God wants to give eternal life to whosoever wants it, by simple childlike faith in Jesus Christ. Anybody who takes God at His Word in the King James Bible, receiving Christ's sacrifice on the cross as payment for their sins, is instantly, irrevocably and permanently saved forever. Salvation is an issue of faith, period.