Weird Tract Number 113: "Two of a Kind" by Dr. Bill Rice for Life Messengers

Troy Davis writes:

The museum has an extensive collection of Life Messengers tracts, many of them are from rare print editions. Life Messengers tracts are often confused with Chick tracts because of their similar size and comic book format. As I pointed out in a brief history of LM, the heyday for these comic book tracts was the 1970s.

The author of "Two of a Kind" is evangelist Bill Rice (1912-1978), the brother of highly prolific tract author, evangelist John R. Rice (click here for a discussion of his hilarious tract "Courtship and the Dangers of Petting" one of many of his works in the museum's collection). Bill Rice's ministry still exists and is headed by his grandson Wil Rice IV.

"Two of a Kind" is a 32-page rambling diatribe from 1975 that begins with a supposedly true story of a village atheist mounting his soapbox at Chicago's Bughouse Square (Washington Square Park), a noted open-air free speech center. This is a particularly angry free thinker who defiantly dares God and the entire Cosmos to strike him dead. From the audience emerges a clean-cut young man who says he's a student at the Moody Bible Institute. The snarling nonbeliever gives the young man a chance to rebut his argument. The student tells a story of his attempts to witness to a young homeless ragamuffin; the boy is wildly belligerent and wants to fight and violently prevents any attempts at having any common ground. The student compares the atheist to the young boy, both are in need of the Lord and lash out in anger--as if that's an argument.This weak story by the bible college student is enough to cause the atheist to stop dead in his tracks, to leave the podium with his tail between his legs and to blend in with the crowd. The bible student then gives the audience a lecture on the good news of Jeebus. The rest of the tract is a wordy explanation about how science and religion complement each other. The museum has several copies of the tract, including the scarce 2000s version put out by A New Thing Outreach Ministries (see photo below).

Rice's tale of the incident in Bughouse Square is similar to the fable in the better-known Chick tract "Big Daddy?" in which a pompous professor and defender of evolution is taken down by the clean-cut Christian student.  The big difference is that Chick is much better at weaving an entertaining story than Rice. It's no wonder that Chick tracts continue to sell and that Life Messengers went belly up 40 years ago.
 
Other featured Life Messengers tracts in the museum's collection: 1) "Hooked For Good: The True Story of Sammy Hall"; 2) "I Discovered The Real Person and Power Behind Witchcraft" by Ben Alexander; 3) "Ronny Reb!"

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.