Bartholomew's Notes

A man named Kurt Kuersteiner is offering $500 to anyone who can provide him with the rare African-American edition of Jack T. Chick’s tract “A Demon’s Nightmare”. According to a Reuters report (read via Religion News Blog):

Since the Chick collecting base is still in its infancy, it’s a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor, Kuersteiner said.

Chick, of course, is both an icon of American popular culture and an appalling religious bigot. His early works contained villainous hooked-nosed communists and evolutionists, although he later dropped the anti-Semitism in favour of attacking Catholics, about whom he wove elaborate conspiracy theories with the help of an alleged renegade Catholic priest called Alberto Rivera. His other targets have included liberal Christians, Muslims, Hindus, homosexuals and really just about any form of religion, cultural expression or scientific theory that is not in full agreement with Fundamentalist Christianity, and as such are part of a satanic conspiracy. He has also provided a platform for the likes of Rebecca Brown, a mentally disturbed individual obsessed with demons, witches and the evils of vegetarianism.

What many Americans might not be aware of is his global reach. His tracts and comics are sold in Africa (1); I’ve also seen them in Jerusalem and quite frequently in London, especially in Pentecostal churches. As it happens, I once met Jack Chick’s British importer, an ancient and personable Scot who runs a Christian bookshop in Edinburgh. He was very pleased when I bought a whole bundle of Chick’s “Crusaders” comics, and told me that Chick’s previous importer had fallen out with Chick because they thought he was too liberal in his depiction of women. To the right of Chick is a very scary place to be…

Chick has also recently made a movie about Jesus, but unlike Mel’s effort it has gone straight to DVD, no doubt because of the Jesuits and homosexuals who control Hollywood…

(1) Paul Gifford, Christianity and Politics in Doe’s Liberia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 105 n. 16, 269 n. 105

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The Washington Times gets Medieval (well, Late Antique to be more precise) on John Kerry:

Bishops have been denying Communion to politicians since A.D. 390, when Ambrose, the archbishop of Milan, excommunicated Roman Emperor Theodosius I for killing 7,000 unarmed Greeks during a tax rebellion.

The Times fails to add that Ambrose and Theodosius had earlier clashed over the Emperor’s decree that a synagogue in Callinicum should be rebuilt at Christian expense just because a Christian mob had burnt it down. However, it does note that

Theodosius had to endure a ceremony of public penance before Ambrose agreed to accept him back into the church.

Meanwhile, Archbishop O’Malley told the Boston Globe (quoted via Christianity Today) that

a Catholic politician who holds a public, prochoice position should not be receiving Communion and should on their own volition refrain from doing so. The church presumes that each person is receiving in good faith. It is not our policy to deny Communion. It is up to the individual.

So we won’t be seeing Kerry standing barefoot in the snow for three days outside the Archbishop’s Residence.

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