Requesting page lock: Chick Tracts

Jack chick is to say the least... controversial.

I am part of the crowd that really doesn't agree whit him.I personally really dislike his work.

But I feel the page is loosing it's neutrality and most tropes listed are mostly TakeThats against the author ideas and StealthInsults agaisnt christianity.For the same reason that Sonichu was locked.I believe locking this page would be the best option.

edited 30th Jan '11 9:05:44 AM by FallenLegend

Make your hearth shine through the darkest night; let it transform hate into kindness, evil into justice, and loneliness into love.

As much as I find mocking Chick Tracts hilarious, I'd have to agree.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story

I think we should probably clean it up before locking. I agree that they guy is a hateful idiot, but we don't need to sink to his level.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Copy it over to Sandbox.Chick Tracts and give us a neutral version. Keep in mind, though, that the works themselves include a fair number of insults toward Christianity that isn't his particular flavor. The page shouldn't be about whether he's correct or not;it should be about what he writes. If he treats the Catholic Church as a Path of Inspiration and a Corrupt Church, it's a legitimate entry.

edited 30th Jan '11 9:47:26 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

^^Totally agree ^Sure Madrugad I will work on a neutral version.I won't have time until monday I guess.And don't worry I will try to keep fair use of tropes.

Make your hearth shine through the darkest night; let it transform hate into kindness, evil into justice, and loneliness into love.

Yep. Any Take That! that he makes is valid. We just need to avoid doing the same too much ourselves.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

^unfortunately yes :/

Make your hearth shine through the darkest night; let it transform hate into kindness, evil into justice, and loneliness into love.

I know. It's easier said than done.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Politely showing what awful messages the tracts spread ought to be enough in itself, no Take That!'s, rants or whines needed.

One trope that probably should be potholed a lot here is The 'Verse - the tracts are set in The 'Verse of Chick Tracks, not in Real Life. Yes, there are some people who believe it to be real, but that's YMMV. While the tracts being reality-based is YMMV, the fact that they are comics/fiction is NOT at all YMMV.

From what I have seen (and I haven't had time to study the whole thing), there seem to be some parts in dire need of rephrasing. At least before the cleanup that Madrugada just did.

The last addition that was made before this thread was started ranted about how the tracts go "to the point where a reader feels sick reading some of his work". While I can totally sympathize with this reaction, it's still YMMV... and hostile YMMV at that.

My personal feeling about the tracts is that it's only the aftertaste that's sour. It's unsettling to be reminded that some people actually have that kind of views on catholics/muslims/atheists/gays/gamers/whatever, and it make me feel very sad both for the people who take it to heart and even more for the people who gets confronted by the first kind.

But that's the aftertaste, not the tracts themselves. The tracts themselves are usually really fun to read. The 'Verse of chick tracts have the same uncompromizing "Lets stare down Cthulhu" attitude as Warhammer and Warhammer 40 K, without the hopelessness and grotesque violence. The frequent Space Whale Aesop are often so surreal that they are funny in themselves, even without the added Poe's Law and So Bad, It's Good appeal.

The tracts I really can't stomach are the ones that promote child abuse. One tract teach the reader to fear his own children - they will certainly betray him to the New World Order. Another tract, that actually got removed from chick.com... lets just not go into that. :-(

great, now you've made me curious

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

Lets take the "homosexuals are possessed by demons" claim as an example. Our neutrality on this issue should...

• NOT be the "maybe Real Life homosexuals are possessed by demons and maybe they are not, maybe they should all be killed and maybe they shouldn't" kind of "neutrality".
• NOT be the kind of neutrality where we present the above but counterbalance it with statements about how it makes us feel sick.
• Instead, lets just go with the fact that in The 'Verse of Chick Tracts, homosexuals are possessed by demons.

Of course, the main work description should still highlight that mainstream Real Life Christianity does NOT share Chick's views.

@dontcallmewave,

A few words about how crimes are treated in chick tracts:

• Any crime is instantly forgiven when the offender pray to Jesus for forgiveness.
• The victim, being a good Christian, doesn't hold the crime against the offender. The crime doesn't count, since the offender is now born again. No reason to want justice for oneself, and no reason to distrust the offender at all.
• So, the offender doesn't really even need to apologize to the victim, only to Jesus. And if the offender have power and authority over the victim, there's no need to change that.

Okay, that said about the tracts in general. In most of these cases, the victim is an adult. An evangelical witness who gains spiritual authority over the abuser. Fair trade, I guess.

The tract that was removed is called "Lisa", but the main character is actually her dad. The titular character doesn't show up until the last panel. She's a little girl who can't be older then ten. Google it if you must. I don't recommend it.

edited 30th Jan '11 1:28:53 PM by Xzenu

Many forms of Christianity believe exactly that about crime. Just one example of the difficulty involved with conflicting views.

Just keep people's views out of it and it should be easy enough to rewrite.

edited 31st Jan '11 12:37:35 PM by halfmillennium

Let's be perfectly clear on two things that seemed to be at the base of a lot of the "how horrible" comments:

Christianity in general holds that all of your sins are forgiven instantly and with no repercussions from God if you repent of them. Repentance and being saved has no automatic effect on societal forgiveness or forgiveness by the people you wronged.

Most Christian groups which hold that "accepting Jesus as your Savior results in immediate salvation" also hold very strongly that you can't (as in "are not able to") accept Jesus as your Savior without sincere repentance for your past actions.

edited 31st Jan '11 4:48:01 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Yeah, and I guess that's one of the many reasons why many Christians really dislike Chick: By oversimplifying so that the "little detail" about sincere repentance gets lost in the euphoria... ouch.

I can't remember one single tract where a sinner do any actual atonement for his crimes. It's just "wow, I prayed, I'm clean now, never mind my past".

And that's exactly the wrong message to give (for example in the form of a comic book) to a sexoffender who doesn't know anything about more nuanced forms of christianity and who isn't bright enough to figure it out for himself.

S Ome preachers do an eccelent work at making people turn their lives around for the better - as far as I can see, Chick really isn't one of those.

A side note. This particular "you ought to disregard all the bad stuff I did to you" attitude that I see in some Chick Tracts, I have seen it so many times in Real Life. Not from evangelicals, however - this attitude isn't limited to religion, much less to one single branch of one of the world religions. Encouraging it is typically a bad idea.

Hmm... Do we have a trope for Easy Forgiveness? Similar to Easy Evangelism. Different from Protagonist-Centered Morality in that the victim is a central character rather then "nameless, thus doesn't count". Several Chick Tracts are straight examples, Buffy season six or seven has an invoked example that would make a good page quote - the rat witch, I forgot her name, ranting about how the main characters let Willow get away with anything.

We've got several:

• Easily Forgiven
• "Get Out of Jail Free" Card

And the related All Is Well That Ends Well for the victims who react with "He's saved, oh that's wonderful, I don't mind everything that happened now, because he's saved!"

and the supertrope, Forgiveness

edited 31st Jan '11 4:47:34 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

^^I agree with Madrugada.By the way I won't be able to work on the neutral version soon.Given that I have college stuff. However it deosn't seem nesesary.Madrugada made an excelent work cleaning all the natter.

Make your hearth shine through the darkest night; let it transform hate into kindness, evil into justice, and loneliness into love.

Cool.

Keep an eye on it and revive this thread if it starts getting bad again, please.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I will remind you that this is, I think, the fifth of sixith time it has been straightened out.

In the beginning there was nothing, and it exploded. Terry Pratchett 35 tropes so far.

That worries me a tad. I feel if this page is really that bad of a natter/complaining magnet that we should put some sort of notice before the trope list (IN REALLY BIG BOLD LETTERS). That, or the lock request was most certainly warranted.

edited 1st Feb '11 12:54:09 PM by 0dd1

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Yeah, I don't mind a little snarkiness but the problem is people who aren't as subtle or funny take that as permission to fill the page with take thats. All the "This is wrong, wrong, wrong, you stupid Xtians!" just comes off as people who think they're the only ones who noticed and need to point it out, when really it hasn't been pointed out because it's so obvious.

I interpret it more as them pouring out their rage and nausea rather then them making an analysis that the rest of us not being smart enough to figure out that these tracts are &%¤#ed up.

Most people tend to think with their emotions rather then with their logic, especially when something's really upsetting to them.

However, this is also why I actually think we can handle it without a page lock. People doing outbursts are not all that likely to do Edit War about it. When someone write an example in a temper tantrum kind of way, we can just edit it to a more neutral version, and the new version is likely to stick. I have put the page on my watchlist now, and I assume others in this thread have done so as well.

Also, I think a lot of the people lashing out against Chick are Christians themselves. More sensible Christians, who have a hard time stomaching Chick's take on their religion. The hatred against Chick is a hatred of racism, homophobia, closeminded conspiracy theorist bullshit, Holier Than Thou attitude and all that, not a hatred of Christianity as such.

Yes, there are people who believe that all Christians are bad, and who truly believe that all Christians are "really" like Chick or Knutby*. But these individuals are far rarer than some people seem to think. I mean, c'mon, hating all Christians or Muslims means hating a billion people. That's pretty senseless. Almost as senseless as Chick branding over 99% of all Christians as "Not Real Christians".

( * = Knutby is a Swedish village dominated by a pentecostal congregation led by "Christ's Bride", a woman who according to their local faith is the wife of Jesus Christ. The village got famous a few years ago, when one of her pastors tricked a young woman into killing another woman who was his wife and also the sister of "Christ's Bride". The pastor ordered the young murderer around with SMS:es "from God". This case was all over the tabloid headlines almost every day for a solid year. See also the other wiki.)

I think most of the page purges have left enough negativity and/or I Am Not Making This Up tone in to provide a green light for adding more. If we're really serious about cleaning up the negativity, I'm tempted to say rewrite the page from scratch with the only negativity being in a paragraph or two in the description and in the example list in an audience reaction context, similar to other works with massive hatedoms. (Though frankly I'm not sure the sorts of people who agree with Chick are particularly likely to find this site unless we become as big as Wikipedia, and then they'll get upset about a whole bunch of other things before they get upset about us not liking Jack Chick.)

Here's the stuff that would need to be purged or at least seriously rewritten if we were to get serious:

(Incidentially, why was the pothole removed but not the adjectival phrase itself? I know it was a misuse of Critical Research Failure, but still.) While this may be true, it is still degrading to Chick and those who (presumably) hold his worldview. The tone of this entry is problematic in general, but I think the list as it stands sticks to facts right now. Too snarky. Also, this and a few other entries seem to come from one specific tract, which gives the impression that they are cherrypicked to present Chick in a bad light. Again, too snarky. I'm not including all the examples that might need to be reworked or purged, since that could be a long list, and some of these aren't as problematic as others, but:

edited 4th Feb '11 7:51:05 PM by MorganWick