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Conservative Chick? Conservative Culture Warriors at War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2017

NATHAN SAUNDERS
NATHAN SAUNDERS*
Affiliation:
South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina. Email: saundenj@mailbox.sc.edu.
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Abstract

The American New Right that grew to prominence during the second half of the twentieth century consists of three major ideological strands – traditionalism, libertarianism, and anticommunism. The New Christian Right (NCR) that rose to prominence in the 1970s fell within the traditionalist camp. At the same time, not all theological conservatives or social traditionalists joined the NCR. The work of comic book artist Jack Chick demonstrates the phenomenon of opposition to the NCR among some theological and social conservatives. Beginning in the early 1960s, Chick published tracts and comic books that espoused extreme social conservatism while at the same time opposing government enforcement of social norms. He frequently criticized politically active or well-connected preachers such as Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham and opposed prayer in schools. Chick, along with many other fundamentalists, opposed the NCR because it involved cooperation with Roman Catholics. For Chick, doctrinal purity is more important than having a “Christian” nation. This essay concludes by noting how, as evangelicals lose ground in key battles of the culture wars, there are signs that Chick's antipolitics is gaining ground among conservative Protestants.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , August 2018 , pp. 738 - 765
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2017 

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References

1 Jack Chick, “Biography of Jack Chic,” Chick Publications, at http://chick.com/information/authors/chick.asp, accessed 12 March 2012; Jack Chick, “A Special Message from Jack T. Chick,” Chick Publications, at www.chick.com/information/general/message.asp, accessed 12 March 2012; Fowler, R. B., The World of Jack T. Chick (San Francisco: Last Gasp, 2002), 1–5, 1–11. 2–13, 2–39Google Scholar. Much of the bibliographic information and historical facts on Chick comes from Chick fan Fowler's encyclopedia. Because Chick often reissues tracts with new publication dates, Fowler's reference book has been invaluable in dating Chick's material. For example, the Chick Publications website lists the publication date for “This Was Your Life” as 2002. My copy of the tract carries a 1972 publication date. Fowler notes that the tract originally appeared in 1964 and that Chick has made almost no changes in the tract since that date. When a tract has changed little or not at all over time, I site the earliest publication date in the footnotes and text so as to best place the tract within its historical context. When a tract has undergone substantial changes, I cite in the footnotes the date of the copy of the tract that I have personally examined but include both the original date of publication and the date of reissue in the text. With respect to pagination, tracts do not officially have page numbers, but all contain twenty-four pages. Full-length comic books contain thirty-two pages. In the body of the paper and in the footnotes, I place the titles of tracts in quotation marks and italicize the titles of full-length comic books.

2 The two peer-reviewed articles that deal with Chick are Hann, Robert R., “Sabotage Indeed: The Alleged Plot against the Bible,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 20 (Spring 1983), 272–75Google Scholar, and Borer, Michael Ian and Murphree, Adam, “Jack Chick's Anti-Catholic Cartoons and the Flexible Boundaries of the Culture Wars,” Religion and American Culture, 18, 1 (Winter 2008), 95–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a brief summary of Bivins's take on Chick see Bivins, Jason C., Religion of Fear: The Politics of Horror in Conservative Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 4–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Scholarly treatments of the NCR that analyze it from within a political framework include Liebman, Robert C. and Wuthnow, Robert, “Introduction,” in Liebman and Wuthnow, eds., The New Christian Right: Mobilization and Legitimation (New York: Aldine Publishing Co., 1983), 1–2Google Scholar; Hart, D. G., That Old-Time Religion in Modern America: Evangelical Protestantism in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002), 144–57Google Scholar; Capps, Walter, The New Religious Right: Piety, Patriotism, and Politics (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990), 1, 184–89Google Scholar; Martin, William, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America (New York: Broadway Books, 1996), 371Google Scholar; Lienesch, Michael, Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 5–7Google Scholar; Bivins, Jason C., The Fracture of Good Order: Christian Antiliberalism and the Challenge to American Politics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 82–87Google Scholar; Smith, Christian, Christian America? What Evangelicals Really Want (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 1–3Google Scholar; Dochuk, Darren, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 2011), xvGoogle Scholar; Sutton, Matthew, “Was FDR the Antichrist? The Birth of Fundamentalist Antiliberalism in a Global Age,” Journal of American History, 98 (Jan. 2012), 1052–74, 1053CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Of these scholars, Capps, Lienesch, and Bivins describe the NCR as arising roughly in the mid- to late 1970s. Scholars who push the rise of the NCR back into the years surrounding World War II, or even the 1920s, include Martin, Hart, Dochuk, and Sutton.

3 Nash, George H., The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945 (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1996), xvGoogle Scholar; Critchlow, Donald, The Conservative Ascendancy: How the Republican Right Rose to Power in Modern America, 2nd edn (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 19, 23–24Google Scholar.

4 For a comprehensive account of these developments see Dowland, Seth, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)Google Scholar. See also Williams, Daniel K., God's Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 171CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dochuk, 300.

5 Williams, 169–73.

6 Bob Jones III quoted in Williams, 173–74. The core beliefs fundamentalists espoused appear most clearly in the movement's namesake set of essays, The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth. The Fundamentals consisted of ninety essays published in twelve volumes between 1910 and 1915 edited by Amzi Dixon and Reuben Archer Torrey. The Fundamentals did not teach adherence to young-Earth Creationism or King James Only-ism as necessary to be considered “fundamental.” These teachings appear later in the history of fundamentalism. Other representative publications include newspapers such as William Bell Riley's The Christian Fundamentalist and Curtis Lee Laws’ Watchman-Examiner.

7 For discussion of Falwell's activities see Lassiter, Matthew D., “Inventing Family Values,” in Schulman, Bruce J. and Zelizer, Julian, eds., Rightward Bound: Making American Conservative in the 1970s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 24; Capps, 34Google Scholar; Frank Rich, “Has Jerry Falwell Seen the Light?”, New York Times, 6 Nov. 1999, A17. For information on Wildmon see Don Winbush, “Bringing Satan to Heel,” Time, 19 June 1989, 54–56; Tim Stafford, “Taking on TV's Bad Boys,” Christianity Today, 19 Aug. 1991, 14, 18. For discussion of the NCR and the National Endowment for the Arts see Martin, 303.

8 Chick, Jack, Spellbound? (Chino: Chick Publications, 1978), 17, 9, 11, 16, 25Google Scholar; Chick, “Angels?” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1986), 22; Hart, 192.

9 Chick, Jack, “Sin City” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2001), 4Google Scholar; Chick, Spellbound?, 27, 29, 32; Chick, Double-Cross (Chino: Chick Publications, 1981), 30–31Google Scholar; Chick, “Rupert Murdoch, Papal Knight, Publisher of the NIV, Donates $10 Million for New LA Cathedral,” Battle Cry, Nov./Dec. 1999, at www.chick.com/bc/1999/murdoch.asp, accessed 27 Feb. 2012.

10 Jack Chick, “Media Executive Accuses TV Producers of Moral Subversion,” Battle Cry, Jan./Feb. 1990, at www.chick.com/bc/1990/TVMoralSubversion.asp, accessed 27 Feb. 2012; Chick, The Broken Cross (Chino: Chick Publications, 1974), 19Google Scholar; Chick, “Why No Revival?” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1986), 4–5; Chick, “Bewitched?” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1972), 4; Chick, “Still No Revival?” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2011), 5.

11 Chick, Jack, Primal Man? (Chino: Chick Publications, 1976), 20, 32Google Scholar.

12 Chick, “Media Executive”; Jack Chick, “Homosexual Journalist Admits, ‘Gay Lifestyle Is a Sewer,’” Battle Cry, Nov./Dec. 2008, at www.chick.com/bc/2008/lifestyle.asp, accessed 27 Feb. 2012.

13 Chick, “Angels?”, 13.

14 Liebman and Wuthnow, “Introduction,” 2; Martin, With God on Our Side, 71,105–6, 114, 121, 233; Bivins, The Fracture of Good Order, 79; Hart, 164–65.

15 Chick, Jack, War Zone (Chino: Chick Publications, 1999), 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10–18, 21Google Scholar.

16 Chick, Jack, “The Last Generation” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1992), 7–9, 11, 13, 17, 20, 22, original emphasisGoogle Scholar.

17 Chick, Jack, “The Gay Blade” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2000), 6–7Google Scholar; Chick, “A Message from Jack Chick,” Battle Cry, May/June 2011, at www.chick.com/bc/2011jtcletterm_j.asp, accessed 23 Feb. 2012; Chick, “Birds and the Bees” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2004), 2–5, 7.

18 Chick, Jack, “Apes, Lies, and Ms. Henn” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2004), 5–6, 9, 21–22Google Scholar.

19 Chick, Jack, “Big Daddy?” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1992), 2–5, 20–21Google Scholar.

20 Metz, C., “Jack Chick's Anti-Catholic Alberto Comic Book Is Exposed as a Fraud,” Christianity Today, 13 March 1981, 50Google Scholar; Chick, Jack, Alberto (Chino: Chick Publications, 1979), 23–24Google Scholar.

21 Chick, Jack, Sabotage? (Chino: Chick Publications, 1979), 6, 8–10, 29–30, 32Google Scholar. The Douay–Rhiems Version and the New American Bible are both English translations of the Vulgate, which is a Latin translation. It is, however, unclear what Chick means by “Greek … versions of the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate Bible.”

22 Chick, “Birds and the Bees,” 8; Chick, “Big Daddy?” 22; Jack Chick, “Prayer in Schools: Would It Work?”, Battle Cry, Nov./Dec. 1987, at www.chick.com/bc/1987/schoolprayer.asp, accessed 23 Feb. 2012; Chick, “Leaders Urge Abandoning Public Schools,” Battle Cry, March/April 2008, at www.chick.com/bc/2008/publicschools.asp, accessed 23 Feb. 2012.

23 For discussion of private Christian schools, race, and the IRS see Joseph Crespino, “Civil Rights and the Religious Right,” in Schulman and Zelizer, Rightward Bound, 90–105. For information on Falwell specifically see Martin, 70–71. For Chick's views on race see Chick, Jack, “Operation Bucharest” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1974), 29Google Scholar; Chick, “Soul Sisters” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2006), 7.

24 “Booksellers’ Group May Expel Chick,” Christianity Today, 23 Oct. 1981, 62; “Jack Chick Has Resigned from the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA),” Christianity Today, 1 Jan. 1982, 41. On the prevalence of Roman Catholicism among traditionalists see Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement, 70–71.

25 Chick, Jack, “Death Cookie” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1988), 10Google Scholar; Chick, “The Awful Truth” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2011), 20Google Scholar; Chick, Alberto, 12, 22.

26 Chick, The Broken Cross, 9–10, 32.

27 Chick, “Sin City,” 5, 21; Chick, Jack, “Going Down?” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2010), 8, 10, 20Google Scholar; Chick, “Why No Revival?” 9; Chick, “Still No Revival?” 6.

28 Chick, Jack, “Reverend Wonderful” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1982), 2–3, 5–6, 13–14, 21Google Scholar.

29 Perhaps the most comprehensive dissertation on Rice is Howard Edgar Moore, “The Emergence of Moderate Fundamentalism: John R. Rice and The Sword of the Lord,” PhD dissertation, George Washington University, 1990), 273–76. For a sampling of Chick's views on Graham see Jack Chick, “What Would You Do If …?”, Battle Cry, March/April 2003, at www.chick.com/bc/2003/whatif.asp, accessed 10 March 2012.

30 Chick, Double-Cross, 28–32.

31 Chick, “Operation Bucharest”, 6–11; Chick, Jack, Scarface (Chino: Chick Publications, 1974), 12–15Google Scholar; Chick, Exorcists (Chino: Chick Publications, 1975), 3–10Google Scholar.

32 Liebman and Wuthnow, “Introduction,” 2; Lienesch, Redeeming America, 5; Chick, “Prayer in Schools.”

33 Lienesch, 7; Smith, Christian America?, 1, 55; Martin, With God on Our Side, 303, 343; Bruce, Steve, The Rise and Fall of the New Christian Right: Conservative Protestant Politics in America, 1978–1988 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 149–50Google Scholar.

34 Boyer, Paul, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992), 86–88, 244–47Google Scholar. Dispensationalism is as much a way of interpreting Scripture as it is a brand of eschatology. This hermeneutic gained widespread popularity at the beginning of the twentieth century through The Scofield Reference Bible. Lewis Sperry Chafer presented the first systematic dispensational theology in 1947. Ryrie, Charles Caldwell in Dispensationalism Today (Chicago: Moody Press, 1965)Google Scholar summarized important developments in dispensational thought since Chafer. Bock, Theologians Darrell and Blaising, Craig in Progressive Dispensationalism (Wheaton, IL: Bridgepoint, 1993)Google Scholar have presented further revisions to the system. With each successive revision, dispensationalists have toned down the more sensationalistic aspects of the system. Chick's brand of dispensationalism falls more in line with the Chafer–Ryrie types than it does later formulations.

35 Chick, Jack, Chaos (Chino: Chick Publications, 1975), 18–19, 27, 29Google Scholar.

36 Chick, Jack, “The Only Hope” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1985), 16Google Scholar; Chick, “The Beast” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1988), 5, 12; Chick, “The Last Generation,” 3.

37 Chick, The Broken Cross, 6, 15–16; Chick, Spellbound?, 21, 31; Chick, “Sin City,” 3, 7; Chick, Jack, “Boo!” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1991), 7–8Google Scholar; Chick, “Here Comes the Judge!” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2012), 6–10; Chick, “The Bull” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1988), 14–22; Chick, “Trust Me!” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1994), 14; Chick, “Kidnapped!” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2004), 2–3; Chick, “The Peace Maker” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2004), 2–23.

38 Chick, Jack, “Holy Joe” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1970), 2–23Google Scholar; Chick, “The Mad Machine” (Chino: Chick Publications, 1975), 9; Chick, “A Message from Jack Chick – May 2000” Battle Cry, May/June 2000, at www.chick.com/bc/2000/jacksmessage.asp, accessed 12 March 2012.

39 Chick, Jack, “Who Murdered Clarice?” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2000), 10Google Scholar; Chick, Angel of Light (Chino: Chick Publications, 1978), 29Google Scholar; Chick, “Is There Another Christ?” (Chino: Chick Publications, 2009), 12; Chick, Double-Cross, 26; Chick, “The Awful Truth,” 21.

40 Chick, “Prayer in Schools”; Chick, Jack, The Godfathers (Chino: Chick Publications, 1982), 26Google Scholar; Chick, Double-Cross, 26.

41 Hankins, Barry, God's Rascal: J. Frank Norris and the Beginnings of Southern Fundamentalism (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996), 51–57, 150–51Google Scholar; Jones, Bob Jr., Cornbread and Caviar (Greenville: Bob Jones University Press, 1985), 43Google Scholar; Chick, The Godfathers, 12–15.

42 Lynerd, Benjamin T., Republican Theology: The Civil Religion of American Evangelicals (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 206CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marsden, George M., Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1875–1920 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 210Google Scholar.

43 Lynerd, Republican Theology, 206; Francis J. Beckwith, “Why Privatizing Marriage Cant’ Work,” The Catholic Thing (blog), 14 Feb. 2014, at www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2014/why-privatizing-marriage-cant-work.html, accessed 30 April 2014; Andrew Walker, “Should the Church Get Out of the Marriage Business,” The Gospel Coalition (blog), 25 Nov. 2013, at http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/11/25/should-the-church-get-out-of-the-marriage-business, accessed 30 April 2014.

44 Rob Dreher, “Benedict Option FAQ,” American Conservatives, 6 Oct. 2015, at www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/benedict-option-faq, accessed 30 April 2014.