Weird Tract Number 42: "An Officer and a Gentleman: The Christian Character of Robert E. Lee" by James L. Melton

Troy Davis writes:

This 2006 pamphlet by James L. Melton of the Bible Baptist Church of Martin, Tennessee is a good example of the century-and-a-half effort to rehabilitate the reputation of sadistic traitors known as the Lost Cause. Melton emphasizes Lee's church attendance and his eschewing of alcohol, tobacco, profanity, and dirty jokes. What Melton fails to note is that Lee was a slavocrat who brutalized his slaves; Lee tore slave families apart; he kept people enslaved even though the death of their previous owner dictated that they were to be freed upon his death; and his army captured free Northern blacks and sent them to the South to be enslaved. Yuck.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 41: "Confused" by ArkWork Publications

Troy Davis writes:

This 34-page tract published by ArkWork Publications is one of many tracts out there that appears to be an attempt to look like a Chick tract.  The crux is that speaking in tongues is a tool of Satan and are "a sign given to disbelieving Jews." Yikes!

The anonymous author bases this assertion on 1 Corinthians 1:22 and 14:22 which respectively tell us (King James Version) "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:" and "Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe."

The artwork is abysmal and the illustrations of people speaking in tongues are either portrayed as goofy or as demon-possessed. In the film I wrote and co-produced, Ivy League Exorcist: The Bobby Jindal Story, there was a character who spoke in tongues. I advised the actor to study the YouTube videos of preacher Robert Tilton in his natural habitat. 

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 40: "Was God An Astronaut?" by Walter Lang with art by Vic Lockman

Troy Davis writes:

I previously wrote about Vic Lockman and his connection to Ralph Rusthoi and Jack Chick. Lockman was an extremely prolific comic book artist and writer, mostly cartoony animal comics for Dell and Gold Key. He was also a crackpot who was behind numerous self-published Chick tract-sized fundamentalist religious and political tracts. He also freelanced, providing comic art for John Bircher-esque booklets on subjects like laetrile (a favorite remedy of the Birchers), Social Security, the UN, gun control, monetary policy, and "legal" tax evasion schemes (Lockman provided artwork for a tract by Irwin Schiff who died in prison while serving a term for tax evasion).

The author of "Was God An Astronaut?" was Walter Lang (1913-2004), a creationist who founded the Bible-Science Association. Later in life, he embraced Ptolemaic geocentrism. What a pair. In this 1975 tri-fold pamphlet, the pair take on another wackjob, Erich Von Däniken whose ancient astronaut theories have been debunked by serious historians, paleontologists, archaeologists, and anthropologists for the past half century. Even though Lang is a fringe scientist, he does a good job exposing the flaws in Von Däniken's theories by citing the work of legitimate scientists.

NOTES ON VIC LOCKMAN:  This article looks at the role of long-forgotten publisher Ralph Rusthoi on the tract-publishing of Lockman and Jack Chick . . . Lockman goes into Bircher mode with the tract "Who's Calling The Shots?" . . . The museum featured Lockman's anti-counterculure tract Hippie Come Home. Read it here. . . Lockman and Walter Lang team up on an anti-evolution tract "Have You Been Brainwashed by Ape-Men?"

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Artifact in The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts: Spire Christian Comics Spinner rack

Troy Davis writes:

A couple years ago, I went to the Christian book store where I often buy Chick tracts and they had a sale on discontinued items and miscellanea. Most of it was junk but I found one valuable item: an old spinner rack from the 70's that once held Spire Christian Comics.  It's one of the museum's most valued possessions. I'll be presenting some of Al Hartley's Spire comics soon.

Weird Tract Number 39: "A Tribulation Map: An Explanation For Those Who Miss The Rapture" by Leon Bates

Troy Davis writes:

Evangelist Leon Bates' radio show was my first exposure to weird religion. I was a kid when I first heard his show; it was especially enjoyable because I was reading books on UFOs at the time and Bates warned that flying saucers might be "demon activity" that are the "great signs" that Jesus warned about that indicate that the Great Tribulation was approaching.

"A Tribulation Map: An Explanation For Those Who Miss The Rapture" is classic Bates. In addition to having a tribulation map and timeline, it has a painting of The Rapture that shows a plane with no pilots hitting a skyscraper, multiple car accidents, and the spirits of Christers ascending toward A Giant Jeebus In The Sky. Friggin' awesome! Like other Rapture lit, it gives instructions to those Left Behind on what to do during The Great Tribulation to avoid being sent to The Lake of Fire (though unlike other tracts, Bates' has dim hopes for physical survival for "Tribulation Christians"; Bates writes, "SURVIVAL of the 'Tribulation' IS NOT PROBABLE for you, PHYSICALLY").

In his inimitable style, Daniel Clowes mercilessly lampooned Bates and his worldview in "666: A Preview of the Coming Apocalypse." You can read it here (click on the pages to enlarge).

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

UPDATE:  Leon Bates' Survival Instructions tract here.

Weird Tract Number 38: "The Spiritual State of the Union '93" by D. James Kennedy

Troy Davis writes:

Mary, Mother Of Jesus, I hated televangelist, New Right leader, and megachurch pastor D. James Kennedy (1930-2007) of the Fort Lauderdale-based Coral Ridge Ministries (now known as D. James Kennedy Ministries) as well as head of the Religious Right group The Center for Reclaiming Christ for America. 

Kennedy was one of the more low profile, personally low-key members of the Religious Right. This 15-page booklet is an example of Kennedy's low-key approach. It proports to examine the "Spiritual State of the Union" for the year 1993 which was Bill Clinton's first year in office. Unlike his colleague Jerry Falwell who was selling salacious $35 VHS tapes claiming Bill and Hillary were drug running and murdering anyone who got in their way, Kennedy's response to the Clinton presidency was this brief jeremiad that decried gays in the military, the then-$4 trillion national debt, and abortion. Bizarro claims: "There are more ex-homosexuals in America than there are practicing homosexuals." and "My friends, I believe that AIDS is unquestionably from the hand of God," 

Kennedy's adopted hometown Fort Lauderdale used to be America's top college spring break destination until the 1980s when bluenoses like Kennedy put pressure on the local government to clean up Ft. Lauderdale's reputation as a hedonistic playground for college students. Kennedy helped  elect Doug Danziger as vice mayor of the city. Danziger wanted to make the city more "family-friendly" and was largely responsible for a police crackdown on college students on spring break (Ft. Lauderdale outlawed parties in 1985); this resulted in an exodus of spring breakers to places like Daytona Beach and Panama City. By the end of the '80s, the spring break population in the city had gone from 350,000 to fewer than 20,000.

Vice Mayor Danziger made his bones with the fundy crowd and was considered a rising political star with the sectarian right until, as luck would have it, he was videotaped having sex with escort Kathy Willits (billed as "America's Favorite Nymphomaniac") and quickly sank into obscurity.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 37: "88 Reasons Why The Rapture Is In 1988" by Edgar C. Whisenant

Troy Davis writes:

Edgar C Whisenant (1932-2001) serves as a cautionary tale ignored by latter-day End Times predictors such as Harold Camping (1921-2013) who predicted that the world would end May 21, 2011. 

Whisenant's booklet is actually two booklets: 88 Reasons shares a tête-bêche binding with On Borrowed Time which Whisenant also authored. In 88 Reasons, gives both biblical and secular reasons (all of them batshit crazy) why Whisenant believed that Believers would be instantaneously sucked up to Heaven during "the Feast of Trump" (September 11, 12, or 13 of 1988). Whisenant never lived his failed prediction down but he was a trooper making the same prediction for the years 1989, 1993, and 1994.

Priceless numerology in the last words of the book:
          We are now in the 100th Congress of the United States, and 1987 is the 212th birthday of
     the Constitution of the United States. {Note: he confused the Constitution with The Declaration
     of  Independence] Water Boils at 100 degrees centigrade and at 212 degrees fahrenheit. We will
     not see another national election; nor will we see the end of the 213th year of the Constitution
     (which is the end of 1988), before the war comes (World War III) which destroys us completely
     as a nation, before the election in November 1988 - and before the harvest 1988, on 4 Novemeber
     1988.

     Praise God! His decisions are just!

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 36: "Never Receive 666, The Mark of The Beast" by Anonymous

Troy Davis writes:

This is one of my favorite tracts. In November of 2013, I went to New Haven to the Harvard-Yale football game and promoted our film Ivy League Exorcist: The Bobby Jindal (read about the trip here). I  spent the night at my friend's place in New York City and spent the next day in Manhattan. When I was in the subway, I noticed End Times zombies giving out this tract. It was love at first site (with the tract, not the zombies).

This tract is wonderful; it mentions just about every deranged trope in extreme apocalyptic Christianity: 1) It has illustrated warning against taking The Mark Of The Beast (in the form of an RFID Chip; these illustrations were the basis for one of my illustrations in my Chick Tract parody "Donald Trump Is The Antichrist"; see below and read the notes after the tract); 2) It has the same all caps alarmism that you get in forwarded emailed from your confused elderly family members; for instance, "The stage is definitely set for the SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST! THE RAPTURE OF THE CHURCH IS IMMINENT!" 3) It contains a guide of what to do in case you miss The Rapture and you are stuck in the Buzzkill World Known As The Great Tribulation (you're supposed to devote your life to Jeebus and not to take The Mark of The Beast).

Great stuff!

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 35: "Warning: 666 Is Coming!" by Dr. Terry Watkins

Troy Davis writes:

I previously featured the tract by Dr. Terry Watkins on rock music on this blog. This tract is basically boilerplate end times paranoia. Watkins has a section in this pamphlet on the fundies' bete noire: the dreaded Universal Product Code (see below; click image to enlarge).  Another blog, The Encyclopedia of American Loons, has more details on Watkins' work. Funny stuff.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts. 

Weird Tract Number 34: "He Lived Life In The Fastlane Until . . ." by Dave Spurgeon

Troy Davis writes:

This seven-page pamphlet published by the Charity Baptist Church of Dayton, Ohio is the testimony of Dave Spurgeon, a Vietnam-era Army veteran who took a turn and fell in with a motorcycle gang. Dave's friend was killed by a rival motorcycle gang in a hit that was intended for him. He later got into deep doo-doo with gun and drug charges hanging over his head but he straightened out his life and found the Lord. This tract is well-written and isn't particularly weird. In fact, the only thing odd about it is the cover photo of the pre-conversion Dave looking like a roadie for The Allman Brothers Band. Not a bad read.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

 

Weird Tract Number 33: Texe Marrs' Newsletter

Troy Davis writes:

Texe Marrs (1944-2019) is a good case study of paranoid conspiracy theorists. Conspiracy theorists are often, but not always, anti-Semites. When I first heard about Marrs in the 90's, I received his newsletter (then known as Flashpoint). Marrs mostly dealt with crackpot conspiracies centering around the supposed New World Order and topics such as Yale's secret society Skull and Bones.

A few years ago, I checked out Marrs' website and took Marrs up on his offer again to receive his newsletter for free. When I received the first newsletter (now called Power of Prophesy), I discover than Marrs is now a full-blown anti-Semite, selling the long-discredited anti-Semitic hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The newsletter below markets his $25 book Conspiracy of The Six-Pointed Star. More of Marrs' lunatic beliefs here.

2020 UPDATE: Texe Marrs died on November 23, 2019. Since the date of his death is the anniversary of JFK's assassination, undoubtedly some of his followers have undobtedly concocted conspiracy theories about this. His last book Psychopaths: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow was published posthumously.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 32: "A Firewalker Finds Christ" by World Missionary Evangelism

Troy Davis writes:

This 32-page booklet from 1968 tells the really boring story of Nataraja Mudaliar, a Hindu who was walking on hot coals before Tony Robbins made it cool. He eventually found Christ through the missionaries from World Missionary Evangelism. His devotional songs are available on Spotify.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.