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A lot of Christians think they are a parody of their beliefs. They are a very odd form of fundamentalism with some serious shade thrown at certain Christian ch

A lot of Christians think they are a parody of their beliefs. They are a very odd form of fundamentalism with some serious shade thrown at certain Christian churches. I did enjoy Cthulhu Tract as a parody of whatever Chick Tracts are.

klyrs 5y ago
In the 80s and 90s I'd find them quite regularly. They were definitely fringe, but numerous. I've got family that's this level of fundamentalist; they took stuff like chick tracts literally and gobbled it up.
- protomyth 5y ago
  I think they spread so far because you had one side believing in them and the side going "take a look at this crap". They are almost perfect to spread both ways.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> They are a very odd form of fundamentalism with some serious shade thrown at certain Christian churches. They aren't that odd for the time. They pretty much reflected fairly common fundamentalist attitudes at the time they were written, including the anti-Catholicism; that's subsequently become muted mostly because the politically-focussed Christian Right realized that right-wing Catholics could be useful political allies, but calling them Satanists made it hard to work together.
- protomyth 5y ago
  Those Tracts went beyond that. They really did go after Catholics, Mormons, and even evangelicals. They don't resemble the actual teachings of any of the mainline US Christian faiths. Sadly, a lot of people are not exactly familiar with what their church teaches and at a cursory glance the Tracts seem to be inline with their beliefs.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > They really did go after Catholics, Mormons, and even evangelicals. Yes, none of those were uncommon for fundamentalists of the time (the fundamentalist/evangelical split is perhaps the most opaque to outsiders because they seem very similar from the outside, but fundamentalism was a theological reaction against theological trends within evangelicalism.) All of them have subsided, at least in visible terms, because of political convenience in the last couple decades, but even in the early 90s I saw a lot of it, quite openly, from large fundamentalist-aligned organizations. Chick tracts were notable in their presentation, but not do much their ideas.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      I think there is a geographic component as well. I am Roman Catholic. I grew up in the North East US and DC suburbs and while I was aware of anti-catholic sentiment among certain denominations, I didn't really encounter it until I went to college in the Midwest, where it was impossible to miss.

klyrs 5y ago

In the 80s and 90s I'd find them quite regularly. They were definitely fringe, but numerous. I've got family that's this level of fundamentalist; they took stuff like chick tracts literally and gobbled it up.

protomyth 5y ago
I think they spread so far because you had one side believing in them and the side going "take a look at this crap". They are almost perfect to spread both ways.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> They are a very odd form of fundamentalism with some serious shade thrown at certain Christian churches. They aren't that odd for the time. They pretty much reflected fairly common fundamentalist attitudes at the time they were written, including the anti-Catholicism; that's subsequently become muted mostly because the politically-focussed Christian Right realized that right-wing Catholics could be useful political allies, but calling them Satanists made it hard to work together.

protomyth 5y ago
Those Tracts went beyond that. They really did go after Catholics, Mormons, and even evangelicals. They don't resemble the actual teachings of any of the mainline US Christian faiths. Sadly, a lot of people are not exactly familiar with what their church teaches and at a cursory glance the Tracts seem to be inline with their beliefs.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > They really did go after Catholics, Mormons, and even evangelicals. Yes, none of those were uncommon for fundamentalists of the time (the fundamentalist/evangelical split is perhaps the most opaque to outsiders because they seem very similar from the outside, but fundamentalism was a theological reaction against theological trends within evangelicalism.) All of them have subsided, at least in visible terms, because of political convenience in the last couple decades, but even in the early 90s I saw a lot of it, quite openly, from large fundamentalist-aligned organizations. Chick tracts were notable in their presentation, but not do much their ideas.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    I think there is a geographic component as well. I am Roman Catholic. I grew up in the North East US and DC suburbs and while I was aware of anti-catholic sentiment among certain denominations, I didn't really encounter it until I went to college in the Midwest, where it was impossible to miss.