ISBN: 978-0758911865
It is likely that at some point in your life, you have seen or met someone who has come across a Jack Chick tract. This fact alone speaks to the wide reach his small booklets have enjoyed and it is probably the case that one would be hard-pressed to find a more circulated author.
David W. Daniels has inherited the legacy of Jack Chick and has undertaken the task to tell his life story when the world-famous publisher died in 2016. Mr. Daniels opted for the pun from the phrase “You don’t know Jack”, as the title of the book. This, not surprisingly, gets mixed up with the internet game quiz show “You Don’t Know Jack” when one does an internet search. The title, the reader learns, is meant to be an answer to people who might have questions or criticisms about Jack Chick. The remedy, then, concerns reading the book and viewing the vlogs produced by Daniels (videologs) so one can then say they know Jack—or at least something of him.
A careful reading of Mr. Daniels work does reveal much about Mr. Chick that is otherwise obscured. For instance, while Mr. Chick is well known for his tracts, one could easily argue that his comic books are his greater contribution. Why? Because Mr. Chick undertook to expose the Vatican during a time when few ventured to take such risks. He did this by telling the story, in comic book form, of an ex-Vatican Priest—a man named Alberto Rivera. The exposure Mr. Daniels gives to this endeavor adds much to the story. Mr. Chick was approached later by an ex-Priest, for instance, who was a homosexual but who also needed medical attention and who asked for Mr. Chick’s help and financial assistance. Mr. Chick’s suspicions are raised over the request, but he ultimately decides to assist the fellow. How does it turn out? Well, for that, you will have to read the book, but it can certainly be said that the tale tracks with the rest of data presented in the comic book series.
The reader further learns that Mr. Chick invented the “caveman” cartoon craze that comic strips like BC and cartoons like the Flintstones were able to capitalize on. Mr. Chick was unable to, despite being the first to think of the idea or at least to do it, because he had to break a contract that he was under where a partner had backed out on him. The breaking of the contract angered the publisher who promised they would not allow his cartoons to be published elsewhere and it seems that they were able to make good on that promise as Mr. Chick struggled to find any other paper who would take his work afterwords other than perhaps a political cartoon here or there.
We also learn that Mr. Chick is a budding actor and has a career planned in television before he gets drafted into World War II where he is placed into a unit concerned with cryptography. He is not saved at this juncture, and it is only after he meets his wife and her parents that he becomes convicted by a radio preacher that he needs to be. This, it turns out, rubs his parents the wrong way.
Because he has this experience in World War II in security-related fields, it is not surprising to learn that Mr. Chick does find employment in the aerospace sectors where he works for places like Lockheed and Jet Assisted Take Off. (JATO) At one point, as Mr. Chick is tasked with drawing for these companies, he pieces together what it is that each person is actually working on. This, of course, defeats the purpose of having each person work on a specific part since if people do not know what they are working on then they cannot be made to divulge what they did to anyone else.
A question that might naturally arise, to a reader, is how Mr. Chick was able to square the morality of working in the Defense industry as a kind of contractor against his firmly held Christian beliefs. In reaching out to Mr. Daniels for information on the subject, the basic impression left is that Mr. Chick had a family to feed, and everyone was making rockets at that point. Those who helped finance him, although working in tandem with those sectors, proclaimed themselves to be Christians. Whether or not that passes at the Great Throne as an argument for the actions taken by those involved is an exercise best left to the One Judge and possibly the opinions of the reader. It can be said that post World War II America was more trusting of authority, and certainly felt like it had a moral victory in pushing back Nazi Germany.
Mr. Chick, though, downplays that role. Daniels mentions outright that Mr. Chick said that though everyone referred to them as the Greatest Generation, they were but filthy sinners in need of salvation and speaks of his time in the military as demonstrating the presence of a high-level of moral turpitude. It is true that the US did not exactly willingly enter World War II but more found itself dragged into it like a stubborn mule. Perhaps the Almighty presents the carrot first, and introduces the stick when the time to follow the carrot has passed.
Toward the beginning of Jack’s life, he is made to go to a fortune-teller who tells Mr. Chick that he will be world-famous author some day. Mr. Chick, later, almost gives this destiny away to Coca-cola with his idea that people could be seen to be drinking the beverage around the world which he pitches to an ad agency. He is told at that point he is ten years too early, but the idea of Chick doing something that goes around the world does indeed happen through his tracts instead. And oh, also, Coke does that famous commercial of people drinking it around the world with no credit to Mr. Chick.
Mr. Daniels speculates that perhaps this fortune was rendered by a devil as maybe they can see something of a destiny around a person having been around for thousands of years. On the other hand, there are many instances where God speaks through those who it seems He might normally not. One example, for instance, appears in 2 Chronicles 35:21. As Chick is a staunch King James fan, we will use the translation it utilizes:
“But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war: for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not.”
The “he” in this passage is King Josiah, and Josiah gets shot through with arrows, ultimately, for not listening. The speaker is none other than Pharaoh Neco—who, to Israel, is about as devilish as they come. Yet, here he speaks clearly that he is working on behalf of God, and so, we are given to understand later, he is. One learns that the spirit of Prophecy travels where it will and through whom it will, whether we like the messenger or not. Josiah learned this the hard way. Discernment is a finely balanced blade and must be honed continuously.
The final outcome of having read Mr. Daniels work is to better understand the complexity of Jack Chick. The tracts themselves have become so huge they have eclipsed the man. This book is worth reading to understand how the artist became the phenomenon that is known across the world as Jack Chick. While one cannot definitively say they know Jack Chick afterward, they might be able to say they know something more of him. It is worth the time and the read to engender this end.
ISBN:9781770894303
James Laxer undertakes a difficult task in 352 pages. His objective is to tell the reader how the North American continent was sliced and diced among the predominant powers of the 19th century. The picture on the cover indicates the method by which this feat will be advanced—through the lives and political careers of three men—Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln and John A. Macdonald.
Lincoln and Davis feature more as an impetus to discuss how Canada, and consequently, John A. Macdonald, a Canadian politician who rose to the top of the game before there was a Canada to have a political game, viewed events. Specifically, the events that most concerned Canada were how to protect its boarders and how to assert political boundaries that were governable. Macdonald is thrust about on this sea where the debate centers on representation by populist means, confederated means, and federated means. Since Canada is composed of many differing kinds of people at this time and they all have their own identities and who they believe themselves to be, Macdonald is tasked with convincing them otherwise. He does this, mostly, by assuming that Britain is a superior power and that the right to govern others naturally belongs to him and the crown. He likewise notices the U.S. Constitution is a mess because it is decentralized among the states. In that observation he is not alone, and Canada decides to adopt a kind of government with a stronger federalization emphasis because of this example. Not a little of these considerations are brought about because Canada can see that the United States is very eager to manifest their land destiny across the borders of what would not be considered to be US territory. Because the Civil War all ready has the military organized and ready to roll, Canada feels that the time is ripe to start becoming a nation or else miss the boat entirely. If this happens, then the supposition is that large parts of Canada will become US states.
Macdonald is easily the most interesting subject in the book in part because so many other books about Lincoln and Davis have been written. As he grapples with how to advance the political will of a United Canada, he, like those who are commonly written about in the US, silences native populations and disregards their rights and ancestral land claims.
Laxer is also reminding us as the work unfolds that the South in the US considers itself to be a separate people from the North. This identity is what foments the conditions around the Civil War along with attitudes toward slavery ranging from being a necessary evil to a greater good. This is in contrast to the Northern US who have become more industrial, less agrarian, and who, it is noted, have to stay inside during winter. So, the South through cultural identity makes a land grab, the North through cultural identity disallows this while also making additional land grabs, and Canada sets out to make land grabs before the US gets around to making them instead.
As Lincoln has been written about so often, it was easy to spot some scholarly assertions about his life in the narrative that are not widely agreed upon or are else told differently elsewhere. Laxer does not necessarily tell the reader, however, where all his facts are sourced on certain claims so it is hard to know whether Laxer realizes there is disagreement on a subject or else has made up his mind and decided his account is the correct one. Most of these kinds of facts are easy to spot for people who are familiar with American scholarship, but it does make one wonder if the same kind of latitude was assumed with Macdonald. Whether or not this is so, the exposition concerning Macdonald is interesting enough to not make the read irritating. If Laxer is not telling us the full truth, he is at least doing it in a way that makes the journey pleasant.
There are parts, however, that become more tedious, and the end of the work feels rushed where Macdonald’s story is concerned. This is due, in part, to the sub-plot of Louis Riel who is hanged because he resists, on behalf of the resident Métis populations, Macdonald’s political “improvements”. These improvements concern not recognizing existing claims that the Métis people have along with their right to self-govern.
The end of the Jefferson Davis/Lincoln dialog stops with Lincoln’s assassination and reconstruction falling apart. The “Lost Cause” new identity/mythos/quasi-religion is then parsed in the context of the “new identity” of the South where it continues to wage war by means of propaganda instead of rifles. This is a logical place for this narrative to conclude although we do get a few pull-quotes later about how Jefferson Davis is not penitent in 1861 for his actions and how his later life seems to keep underlining that stated point.
The short summary of the entire body of the work could be stated as “identity politics when nobody knows their identity”, or else they know their identity and the politics are not matching. We find the solution to this quandary varies, in terms of political arrangements, but the constant is “some people are gonna lose their rights and culture in this process because we are better than them”. Whether that “better” is because of prosperity, freedom, state’s rights, or a federated parliamentary government under a monarchy seems to matter little. The only thing to be negotiated is how much blood these ends are going to require and who gets the bill. For this reason, Laxer’s book is worth the sticker price.
ISBN: 978-1636415208
As a reader of thebooklight will know, Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic congregation leader, has written many books. Several of his works have been reviewed by the same. His latest work is called The Avatar and seeks to explain how the patterns which he has noted in some of his previous work have expanded. Specifically, he endeavors to explain how the lives of many pagan gods have patterns which have been appearing on the stage throughout his life. For this, he offers some testimony about his experiences in India, Cuba, and Africa that he has not previously disclosed in his former works. The narrative is shaped, then, by what “the gods” have been doing on the national stage for the past sixty or so years and Cahn has specific testimony in his experiences to add the flavoring of what this means practically speaking.
The parts concerning Cahn’s testimony and experiences in India and Cuba and Africa are fascinating. A short synopsis of this content would be “Things got wild”, in the sense that literal demons are involved doing demonic activities that Cahn and his entourage must battle.
Then, by about mid-book, we switch into an analysis mode of who the “gods” are, and who they correlate to. This is after we discover who they are typifying in the Bible, which, it turns out, is one mask they are wearing. Some of these people, like Trump, are not featured with a pagan mask–probably because Trump appears to be motivated by the Bible in his actions although not necessarily perfectly. It turns out there is a Biblical example for another person who did this very thing, and Cahn does an excellent job of noting the parallels.
Where Cahn loses the script, perhaps, is that he goes on about the pagan gods for most of the middle of the book. This, plus the fact that he relies on time measurement that is Babylonian and Roman to correlate certain events happening make it seem more like he is in alignment with the Roman Emperor than with God. It’s not, of course, that the Torah readings across the world cannot be used to understand something of events unfolding, but one could ask the question why those specific verses are read. Who decided it? Same thing with the calendar for events. We know Rome decided that the Roman calendar had to be instituted.
In fairness, most of Cahn’s readership is probably Roman Christians who identify as Messianic. There is a good chance he knows this and so has to use this kind of writing style to move books since his readership likely will not respond to much else. Fine. A writer has to write in a way that sells books if he wants to have his message spread. What is confusing, though, is why Cahn feels the need to spend so much time on the pagan god templates? His readers probably are not familiar with these entities, so by saying their name so frequently, is he not causing his readers to think about the very gods he is warring against? It seems like this work loses focus in this regard. Yes, there are pagan gods. Yes, on the national stage they have been named. Yes, their worship does thus and so, but who cares what they are doing in certain specific ways? Their end is always the same. Sooner or later, the idols are destroyed. Cahn makes this point, but it is not as solid of a thesis as one might hope for from the work. The ending quickly touches on it, and tells us we should pray and America is at a spiritual crossroads. Fine. Which name does America need to hear more of, then? YHVH? The Hindu pantheon of gods? It is an odd move. Perhaps Cahn felt like he had to prove his case, and so felt compelled to show his work. Maybe he has another book in mind.
Whatever the case, Cahn suggests America is in some twilight between these ancient gods and the Bible and that it hangs in the balance. One could make the same critique of this book. The scholarship is excellent. The connections are solid. The testimony is phenomenal and one yearns to hear more of what God did in Cahn’s ministerial adventures. One, however, gets to hear instead about much evil for entities one ought not be serving as a Messianic while using a calendar that was instituted, in no small way, to punish early Christians. This makes this a peculiar work, although given the body of Cahn’s other books, one can forbear final judgment on this piece until more time has elapsed. Cahn introduced us to the pagan gods. What is he going to do about that, now? Tell us to pray? Okay. Were not people doing that before this book emerged?
Cahn shows us the battlefield and the war, but leaves us with little idea concerning actionable steps to take. At the very least, he could have said 1. Get a prayer shawl. 2. Get a shofar. 3. Get out of Egypt. Discussing these steps would have been a good follow up. Again, perhaps a future book has this in mind, but the war is now, not later. Steps taken to fight after main battles are over are of no use. If the purpose is color commentary and a rallying to pray, okay. Make the book shorter and say that in the first twenty pages, and move on. That is, after all, a part of how these “gods” are defeated.