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Chick Tract Trashing: Sin Busters Chris Zasada March 24, 2005 |
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In retrospect, I really, really wish I gave this tract the honor of being the first one I covered in Chick Tract Trashing, because this one is really special to me. Years ago, I was at the local county fair with a friend, and this very tract was sitting on a vendor trailer counter, waiting for sinners to behold it. I snatched one up and began reading, and boy did it make an impression.
My friend was disgusted with it and ordered me to throw it away, but I insisted on keeping it. That didn’t do me any good, since I lost it later that day. Years later, an Awkward Christian Guy shuffled up to me as I was walking around campus and shoved a copy of No Fear? into my hands before scurrying off, and then it all came back. I believe that the seeds of Pocky Box may have been first sown on that hot summer day, the day when two boys were idly wandering about and came upon some of the most entertaining literature ever concocted (and I say this with great malice, by the way). With a heart heavy with nostalgia, I give you Sin Busters. This one starts off great right away. Three riot police are beating up a “@*!% bigot” as the crowd shouts on. Only ten feet away, there’s a drug deal going on between a dirty hippy and a preppy college student, neither of whom are the least bit worried that the police are right there and are in a generally bad mood (just look at them go!). So we’ve established that in Jack Chick’s world, police are okay with illegal drug deals, so long as they are conducted out in the open with an officer present. Bigotry? Bad. Just like real life! And wait until you here what this racist was doing! Two students witness the beating. One of them is a Christian, and he explains to the other that the bigot was actually posting the Ten Commandments in the public schools. Ooo! He warns the other kid to wait until they’re away from the school before going on, because “It’s against the law to talk about the Bible or God in school anymore.” I’d like to pause and point out that this is actually false. In private schools, of course, you can talk about whatever religion the school is based on until the nuns come home, but here, I think Chick is referring to publics schools. This “law” is somewhat true, but not in this severity. Teachers can’t teach ANY religion and students can’t bother people with it during class, but any passive persuasion between classes would likely not be a problem. In fact, if enough students get together, they can have a Bible study club after school. What Chick seems to forget is that church and state (and state-owned schools) are separated so people can practice whatever religion they choose so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. These laws are not made to kill off Christianity or any kind of other religion. Ironically, if this nation had an official religion and it wasn’t Chickian, then Chick wouldn’t be able to put out his tracts that go around slamming everyone else. You’re doing pretty well under the laws that oppress you, aren’t you, Mister Chick? And this riot police beating is just idiotic. I highly doubt anything like this ever happened, and if it did, the police were seriously out of order. In real life, the student may be warned or punished by suspension (in the worst case) for posting material that might conflict with the freedom of religion, since the very action on the school’s part of allowing such a thing in public view during school hours would mean that the school itself approves of the message. A beating provided by riot police as punishment? I ain’t buying it. I could see police involvement for aggressive psycho Christians, but still no beatings, unless the Christian gets violent first, which wouldn’t surprise me. At my college (which, for what it’s worth, is a state institution), there was a psycho Christian who had a reputation of relentlessly bothering people about Jesus, even during class. As luck would have it, my mother had him in one of the classes she taught, and he insisted on Bible study hour right in the middle of math class (one of the lamest excuses for getting out of math I’ve ever heard). Obviously, he didn’t do the work, and later he blamed his grade on the fact that my mother was (this is true) a woman, and the Bible told him man should not serve under woman. This guy was a hoot. One day, he walked around the hall handing people little bottles of bubbles and instructed them to “blow bubbles on sinners.” I really wish I was there for this. I would have looked at the bottle, then at him, and finally give the bottle back, quipping “You might want to drink this, it would be lot more efficient.” I actually did witness this guy in action. I was walking down the hall when I saw two women yelling at a guy that they had cornered against the wall. They mentioned something about how he can’t tell people what they should believe, and I immediately scrunched up against the wall just around the corner and tuned it. I stifled laughter as the two tore into the guy, because I knew that this was THE guy. He was later thrown off campus for harassment. Before you Chickians shake your heads and sigh about how this is the work of an evil, Satan-loving society, let me say that shoving your gospel down people’s throats is no way to promote it. This guy was a terrible Christian, belittling everyone who didn't believe what he believed, as if something was wrong with them. For the record, the Awkward Christian Guy is probably still shuffling around here somewhere, and a Bible study group came by recently and handed out Bibles to students, officially approved by the college (in other words, the Christians paid to be there). I was actually at one of these meetings, but only for the free food. I also managed to sell the stuff they handed out, just to keep my reputation of being evil. Summary: religion is tolerated in the proper setting, even on a state campus. Really, rabid Christians that threaten the safety of others shouldn’t be tolerated any more than the next criminal. Our little Christian friend doesn’t think so, but let’s go back and see how he and his friend are doing anyway. He explains where the Ten Commandments came from, and that “it’s a true story!” I’m not going to bore you with the details of Ten Commandants again, since I already did that in a previous article, but I will be mocking some of the ways Chick depicts them being broken, so don’t think I’m being lazy. First, the truncated version of the story is that a guy named Moses was ordered by God to get all of his people out of Egyptian slavery, and after a bunch of death, got them out of there, narrowly avoiding the pharaoh’s men, since he changed his mind about the whole deal. Well, the walk of freedom was pretty harsh, and the people lost faith, even though God was giving them manna (the “perfect food”) and water from rocks (this was well before the time of plastic bottles). The Israelites were concerned that Moses had led them out into the desert to die, so Moses climbed up Mount Sinai and brought back the Ten Commandments, which were God’s laws and everyone had to obey them. This didn’t stop the Israelites from breaking them, though. You probably already know the Ten Commandants (if not, learn ‘em), so I’ll just mock some of Chick’s comments. Over on Commandment three, Chick shows a man cursing on television, and a little boy is awed by this. I really don’t think kids these days are impressed by cursing anymore. There are kids half my age that know curses I never even heard of, but let’s just play along with this for now. We don’t know what the evil man saying, since Chick cleverly censored it, because he doesn’t want to offend anyone. You would only assume that it involves “God” or “Jesus” in some way, but not so fast. If you read Chick tracts as much as I do, you start getying a sense that “using the Lord’s name in vain” means any kind of cursing, period, since some of the censored dialogue wouldn’t make sense with the name of the Lord in there. What warrants cursing is also highly subjective, since softened curse words like “crap” and “darn” carry the same literal meaning. Still, Chick advises the reader to “watch your mouth," because the penalty for cursing back in the good old days of the Old Testament was “DEATH BY STONING!” And you thought eating soap was rough. The forth and fifth aren’t major. We see a guy picking up sticks, and I’m assuming he’s doing this "work" on the Sabbath, which is evil. On the fifth, we have grieving parents who just lost their sixteen-year-old. According to the other guests, the boy “really hated his mom and dad.” How is this relevant? Did he hate them so much he killed himself, or is there another meaning hidden here? I think it might be along the lines of “honor thy father and thy mother, or you die.” The sixth Commandment is fun because it pokes fun at the American legal system. A judge is busying sentencing a guilty criminal to two years probation for murder. Murder! The guy is guilty, and he’s getting away with it, as the criminal himself is overjoyed to hear (well, in his own repugnant, surly way). Okay, this is just stupid. If you’re guilty of flat-out, cold-blooded murder (which is the suggestion here), you do NOT get two years, you get life or death. Chick, try a little research, it’s excellent. On the seventh, we have a romance novel cover model who’s trying to convince the doctor that he’s immune to sexually transmitted disease because he’s “a happily married man” and he only had a “ ‘little’ affair.” Now his pregnant wife has Syphilis and AIDs. Not sure how she got it, since he had the affair and all, but I’m sure it was just God trying to prove a point. (Yeah, I know the husband gave it to her. It was just a damn joke, so don’t e-mail me explaining how STDs are spread. I do the occasional video taping for nursing students and teachers, so I know how it works a little too well) One more thing about this panel is interesting. It states that “Any sex that can put you in hell is not safe! NO adulterers will inherit the kingdom of God.” There’s really nothing about safe sex in here (and we can assume that this guy did NOT have safe sex), but we can assume that Chick is condemning the distribution of condoms as an alternative to abstinence, or at least this is how Chick looks at it. In reality, sex outside marriage has always been with us, and it’s really up to each person’s own moral code whether it’s good or bad. Condoms just make the stakes slightly lower. Don’t think that Chick hasn’t taken a more direct stab at the free condoms craze. I’ll point that out in another installment of the feature. Apparently, Chick got bored with the rest of the laws, so he skipped right to the part where a sinner claims that he and his friends “HATE those laws!” This is when God lets down his mighty wrath upon them and they suffered in the desert heat without sun screen. Hey, skin cancer is no laughing matter. It’s revealed to us that if we broke any of the laws, we’re sinners and are going to Hell, but of course Jesus can save us from eternal damnation. Meanwhile, the student asks why this very important information is kept from everybody, and the Christian’s answer is so priceless, it stuck with me from the time I read it to this day: “Because the evil world system that controls most of the schools hates Christ and His message." To be honest, I remembered it as “Because this is an evil society that hates Jesus!” I like mine better, but the real one is good, too. In any case, “Man, that's scary!” Not bad for a society based on Christian values. So the student proclaims “Their dirty scheme isn’t going to keep ME out of heaven” and tearfully gives himself to Jesus. Happy end! This one is a classic example of Chick’s fascination with hyperbole. For such an important message, you’d think he’d be realistic, but that just isn’t the case. But if he was, we probably wouldn’t be here right now, and what fun would that be? So thank you Chickian Lucas County Fair food vendor for distributing this zany literature. Without your help, I may have never known the wonderful world of Chick tracts. I’m sure Jack Chick appreciates it too! |