The Nightmare World of Jack Chick

by Jimmy Akin, Jack T. Chick

You've probably seen one or more of Jack T. Chick's comic book-like tracts. They have titles such as Are Roman Catholics Christian?, The Death Cookie, and Why is Mary Crying? And they're full of wild, false, and downright malicious charges against the Roman Catholic Church and its teachings.

Read them, and you step into a nightmarish world of shadow and intrigue, a world of paranoia and conspiracy theories, a world where the Catholic faith is the devil's greatest plot against mankind.

Chick has sold more than 700 million of these tracts, and has turned millions of Catholics and Protestants against the Church and its teachings in the process.

Jimmy Akin's new book The Nightmare World of Jack T. Chick aims to change that. It reveals everything you need to know about Jack Chick and the many lies he tells about the Catholic Church and its teachings. And it reveals how you can defend the faith against Chick's lies. It's a must-have for anyone who cares about the cause of truth.

Genres: Comics, Religion, Catholic

99 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2008

About the author

Jimmy Akin (b. 1965) was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant pastor or seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith. Eventually, he was compelled in conscience to enter the Catholic Church, which he did in 1992. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is a Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to This Rock magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

Reviews

[Andrea Ta-wil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short but enjoyable read for Jack Chick anti-fans who understood that his anti-Catholic tracts contained more animus than fact, but lacked the time and motivation to research the inconsistencies. Fortunately, Jimmy Akins was kind enough to do the heavy lifting for us. He doesn’t discuss every mistake that appears in Chick tracts and comics, which is why the book isn’t 10,000 pages long. But Akins provides an entertaining overview of Chick’s anti-Catholic themes and how they conflict with actual church doctrine, historical fact checking, and a basic understanding of reality. Apparently when you learn about Catholicism from a fake priest and evangelist-turned-sex offender, you get some things wrong.

It’s unlikely that a hardcore Chick fan will find Akins’ book convincing. Keep in mind, Chick tracts credit the Catholic Church with inventing Communism, starting the Holocaust, killing Abraham Lincoln, inventing Islam and other “wrong” religions, and maintaining a database of all the worlds’ protestants to screw with at a future date. To paraphrase Akins, Jack Chick’s version of the Catholic Church is like the Illuminati on steroids. Even if Akins wasn’t openly Catholic, a True Believer would probably dismiss him as a secret agent of the church—they’re everywhere, you know—who’s trying to put a good face on the Whore of Babylon.

For the rest of us anti-fans who are too naive to believe that Vatican agents are watching our every move, Akins’ book is a respectful, matter of fact look at real Catholicism versus Chick’s paranoid vision.

[Jennifer Fitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. As always with Jimmy Akin, it's thoroughly researched, and calmly and charitably expressed. In addition, the book is a fun topic, not technical and it's a quick read. Great choice for teens just getting going with apologetics. My son loved it!