Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Weird Tract Number 134: "A Mark In The Forehead" by W.V. Grant

 Troy Davis writes:

wv grant mark in the forehead

The museum has copies of several works by megachurch pastor and convicted tax evader W.V. Grant (born 1945), all of which are bizarre. Grant first hit my radar when the late James Randi did an exposé of fundamentalist faith healers in the 1980s (Randi received a well-deserved McArthur Foundation Fellowship as a consequence of his investigation that undoubtedly saved lives). Randi found that Grant employed many of the ploys and tactics used by faith-healing charlatans for decades. I remember seeing Grants' faith (non)-healing histrionics on TV until he got into heat with the federal government for not reporting taxable income relating to one of his McMansions. 

"A Mark In The Forehead" is boilerplate end-times porn. It is an undated, 32-page screed that gives hilarious examples of societal immorality that supposedly prove we're in the last generation before The Rapture (when Jebus uses his Holy Hoover to suck up Grant and believers into Heaven, leaving the freethinkers to do some serious doubletakes). Grant blasts nudist magazines, "free love," nude women being used as models in art classes, "ginheads" and anti-Prohibitionists, and homosexuals as being responsible for society's moral downfall. Grant then gives the standard fundy spiel on The Rapture and the Great Tribulation where the un-Raptured must decide whether to take The Mark of the Beast or their ability to buy and sell.

Grant makes some interesting claims:

  • "Millions of magazines in America teach to our generation sex freedom, free love, and the abolition of the homes and the ten commandments.! It's reported that thousands of tons of papers here have been printed in Moscow and sent over here." 
  • "One church advertised ALL NIGHT SINGING and left the 'g' out, and made it ALL NIGHT SINING. They ran out of tickets and wondered why, until they noticed their mistake."
  • "The other night a good Christian lady told my wife and me that a physician tried to put her on night life (running with other men). She said he told her that was the only way she would ever be well." 
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.





Saturday, May 22, 2021

Weird Tract Number 133: "Who Am I?" by Life Messengers

 Troy Davis writes:

who am I life messengers tract

The museum has an extensive variety of Life Messengers tracts in its collection, but until the other day, "Who Am I?" remained elusive. We finally have it. As I have mentioned previously, in its heyday in the 1970s until the publishing house petered out in the 80s, Life Messengers  served as the main competition for Chick Publications in the distribution of comic booklet evangelical tracts. 

"Who Am I?" is a 32-page comic book from 1976 that tells the story of "Dr. I.J. Fronkby," a supposed physicist who, in a public lecture, admitted to being a creationist. A college student interrupts the lecture and the phycicist invites him to talk about it in his hotel room.  The haggy student later brings his shaggy college friends to see wide-tie-sporting Dr. Fronkby (remember: it's 1976).  He tells them why evolution is implausible; at the end of Dr. Fronkby's lecture, the students tell him they are going to start reading their bibles.At the end, a luminous God tells the reader to surrender his life to Jebus.

I did an Internet search and it appears that Fronkby is fictional. One account indicates that musician Duke Ellington read another Life Messengers publication that mentions Fronkby and how it affected Ellington's spiritual life. 

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 religious tract booklet

bizarre religious tract





Weird Tract Number 142: "Mark of the Beast" by Anonymous

Troy Davis writes: "Mark of the Beast is an anonymous, undated four-page pamphlet promoting the Catholic-baiting book by Seventh Day Ad...