On the Death of Billy Graham

Jack Chick Obit: Adios to One Crazy Chick

Jack T. Chick died at the age of 92 in Glendale, California.  Chick was infamous for publishing fundamentalist Christian tracts in the form of comic books for six decades and distributed over 750 million copies and has been translated into over 100 languages.

Early in his evangelizing apostolate, Chick discerned that the most effective way to reach those who "weren't saved" was via comic books. Chick supposedly was inspired by the propaganda comics of the Chinese Communists in the 1950s.  Chick was not a skilled artist but started to use others artists sketches and not attributing the pieces for a decade, until it came out that he was using Fred Carter's handiwork.

Chick was an intensely private person.  He evangelized through comics because he was too shy to talk to others about his faith. Later, Chick became a recluse having no pictures taken of him (aside from two pictures from his teens).  Chick also refused all professional interviews after 1975 because he was fearful that Catholics (particularly the Jesuits) would kill him.

Chick's personal paranoia carried over into his funny paper tracts. While he railed against rock and roll, homosexuality and witchcraft, Chick saved most of his spite for Catholicism.  If one were to believe Chick. Catholicism was created by Satan, that Popes take their marching orders from the devil.  Chick blamed the Jesuits for starting the American Civil War (and that the "men in black" backed the Confederacy) as well as the Ku Klux Klan (which hated Catholics).

In addition, Chick claimed that the Catholic Church supposedly started Nazism, Communism, Islam, Masonry, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and the New Age movement. Chick pinned the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy on the Vatican as well as the Holocaust. Continuing in this craziness, Chick surmised that the Vatican runs the United Nations and global finances and the Illuminati..  Amongst the biggest whoppers was that the Vatican has a super computer that tracks the names of every Protestant in the world.

Naturally, in the end times Chick proclaimed that the Antichrist would be the last Pope. It must have really freaked Chick out that Pope Francis is from the Society of Jesus (i.e. a Jesuit). No surprise that Catholic anti-defamation groups chronicled Chick tracts for over three decades.

During the 1980s, Chick did eight comic books based on the testimony of Alberto Riviera, allegedly a former undercover operative of the Jesuits in Spain who was sent to infiltrate and destroy Protestant churches and institutions.  Riviera claimed to have been secretly made a bishop but he had a conversion and became a fundamentalist preacher who saved his sister from a nunnery in London. Unfortunately, there are no public records of the clerical adventures of Alberto Riviera aside from Chick Publications.

Catholics weren't the only Christians spared from Chick's emnity, as he also attacked Southern Baptists (N.B. Chick was an Independent Baptism who believed in premillenial dispensationalism), and Latter Day Saints et ali.

Aside from the great volume of work that Chick Publications produced, Chick tracts were featured by the Smithsonian American History Museum in an exhibit on American Pop Culture.  Even comic strip critics had to acknowledge Chick's work.



One of Jack Chick's early successes was an early 1960s tract of a playboy who dies and is forced to watch all of his life's foibles on a big screen before the pearly gates of Heaven. Perhaps during this Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, Chick's imagined screening of "This Was Your Life" at the Pearl Gates Cinescreen won't be taken as "The Nightmare World of Jack Chick" but will be viewed as a Comedy of Manners.

As word of Chick's death spread on social media, perhaps the kindest yet most ironic tribute came from a Catholic priest.

H/T: Catholic Answers 
        Los Angeles 
        Comic Strip Critic

John Webster on Theology

Sadly, Anglican Theologian John Webster recently died at age 60.  Rest in Peace. 

Rest In Peace Mother Angelica

Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation  (nee Rita Rizzo), the Poor Clare nun who founded the Eternal Word Television Network, died on Easter Sunday at the age of 92.  Mother Angelica had suffered from a debilitating stroke in 2001.

Mother Angelica founded a monastery in Irondale, Alabama in 196 at a time when Catholics were only 2% of the population in the South.  .  As a charismatic speaker, Mother Angelica began to do radio shows in 1971 and she gravitated to hosting "Our Hermitage" for Christian cable television stations in 1978.

However, when the secular TV station where Mother Angelica recorded her shows planned to program "blasphemous" programs, the feisty nun protested.  The station manager ignored her complaints which resulted in Mother Angelica threatening to do her show elsewhere.  The station manager threatened: "You leave this station and you're off television."  Mother Angelica vowed: "I'll build my own."

The Eternal Word Television Network started in the Our Lady of Angels Monastery's garage in 1981 on a budget of $200.  Today, EWTN is the world's largest satellite television religious network operating in Hanceville, Alabama. The EWTN media empire broadcasts Catholic programming for 11 channels  24 hours a day reaching 264 million homes in 144 countries as well as having a terrestrial radio network and shortwave service and employs 400 people. Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, who has served on the EWTN board since 1995, recognizes how this Poor Clare nun in rural Alabama was able to do what US Bishops had been unable to do, namely effectively evangelize through the mass media in this day and age.


Mother Angelica expressed how she attributed all the success of her mission to emptying herself out to the Lord.




Despite her failing health, Mother Angelica proclaimed that she wanted to live longer. Such a proclamation may seem surprising coming from a contemplative and convicted religious.  But Mother Angelica reasoned that by doing so, she could suffer one more day for God and get to know Him better.

It seems fitting that as Christians celebrate our Savior's victory over death that Mother Angelica passed into to eternal life. Even Pope (emeritus) Benedict XVI recognized the divine "gift"  of Mother Angelica going to her eternal reward on the Church's most Holy Day. May Mother Angelica rest in peace.

H/T: Catholic News Agency
        AL.com
        

R.I.P. Mickey Rooney Without Ultimately Ripping Him

Mickey Rooney (ne Joseph Yule, Jr), who had been in show business for virtually his entire life, died at the age of 93 in North Hollywood, California. Rooney was a childhood star who starred in over 300 films and television shows. Rooney was honored with two Academy Awards, one for his role in Boytown (1938) and an honorary Oscar in 1983 for fifty years in the movie industry. Rooney also earned an Emmy in 1981 for his portrayal of "Bill" about a mentally disturbed man struggling with deinstitionalization.

Despite his enormous acting talent, Rooney led an erratic off-screen life.   Film historian Jeanine Basinger opined: "Mr. Rooney had talent to burn, and he burned it...He has done everything there is to do in show business, all with equal success, and it might be said, equal failure.” He was married eight times, struggled with substance abuse, womanizing  and gambling.

While some may turn askance at Rooney's messy personal life, it is remarkable how Rooney became an evangelical Christian late in life and continued to share his faith until his passing. In the 1970s, Rooney shared how his Christian conversion occurred in the coffee shop of a Lake Tahoe casino when an angel, disguised as a busboy, whispered "Mr. Rooney, Jesus Christ loves you very much."  After that encounter, Rooney became an active member of the Center for Spiritual Living (a.k.a. Church of Religious Science), founded by Ernest Holmes.

Rooney also relished his relationship with Boys Town, the orphanage in Omaha, Nebraska founded by Servant of God Monsignor "Father" Edward Flanagan in 1917, who is now being investigated by the Vatican for sainthood. The film Boystown was a fictionalized retelling of the "City of Little Men", with Rooney in his first dramatic role portraying troubled youth Whitey Marsh and Spencer Tracy in the role of Father Flanagan.  Father Flanagan dedicated his life to the belief that there is no such thing as a bad boy and the film dramatized the mission.

[L] Fr. Flanagan and [2nd from R] Mickey Rooney reading first draft of Boys Town script (1938)

After Boys Town finished filming in ten days and was quickly turned around for release, MGM movie mogul Louis  B. Mayer wanted to scrap the film because the grim tale of crime and poverty was too different from MGM's typical fair.  Mayer reportedly exclaimed: "It will never sell.  There's no sex. There's no songs."  To persuade the MGM studio head, Rooney retorted: "It's a song of freedom. It's a song of rehabilitation. It's a song of youth, no matter what color or faith you are. It's about praying. It's about living a good life."



Mickey Rooney took great pride in his association with Boys Town as exhibited in 2003 when he was named Mayor For Life at a ceremony in Girls and Boys Town in Omaha.

[L] Mickey Rooney and wife of 35 years Jan Chamberlain at Boys Town in 2003

As Rooney was promoting the Treasure Train (2011), he testified about his Christian faith and spoke with great affection about being the Mayor of Boys Town.


So as we mark Mickey Rooney's passing, it is worth considering the values from Boys Town that there is no such thing as a bad boy and how dedication to Christ can clarify one's life.

Mickey Rooney had his own ideas about his last wish.  In his 1991 autobiography "Life Is Too Short", Rooney ruminated about his short stature.  Rooney wrote: “I've been short all my life. And if anyone wonders what my dying wish will be, they can stop wondering. That will be easy. I'll just tell them, ‘I’ll have a short bier.’ ”

A short bier with a long legacy. 

R.I.P. Zig Ziglar (1926-2012)

Zig Ziglar, known as the Master Motivator, died of pneumonia in a hospital in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex at the age of 86.  Ziglar was born in Alabama in 1926 but spent much of his youth in Yazoo City, Mississippi.

After serving in the Navy during World War II, Ziglar briefly studied at the University of South Carolina.  But Ziglar chose a career in sales rather than studying and started out selling pots and pans.  He went on to successfully sell for various companies. But as Ziglar improved his pitch and sales increased, he developed a basic philosophy which impacted his personal and professional career for more than half a century.

The Ziglar Way considers action, common sense, fairness, commitment and integrity to be the basis of living well.  Ziglar believed that if you lived by this powers of positive thinking philosophy, you would live a balanced life while achieving significance at work and home.

In the early 1970s, Ziglar began his career as a motivational speaker and corporate trainer.  Along with being a headliner on the speaking circuit, Ziglar  authored 29 books, including 10 best sellers on topics like sales, leadership, personal growth and faith.  His "One Year Daily Insights with Zig Ziglar" is an inspiring daily devotional. His self help classic “See You At The Top” (originally titled "Biscuits, Fleas and Pump Handles") still generates strong sales thirty years after originally being published.

Though he was known as the World’s Greatest Salesman and a Master Motivator, Ziglar was not all business.  The Ziglar Way reflected his fervent evangelical Christian beliefs and much of Ziglar’s work had subtle evangelization without sounding too preachy.

Ziglar continued to be a feature on the speaker circuit through 2010, despite a tumble down the stairs in 2007 which impacted his short term memory.  When Ziglar appearing in Washington, DC in October 2010, he was joined by his daughter who guided him through his presentation.  Ziglar persiverated on “winning the home court” and did not realize that he had thoroughly covered that point a couple of times before.  Still, the then 84 year old speaker was inspiring and offered earnest down home advice.

Zig Ziglar, Verizon Center Washington, DC October 2010 (photo: Gail Broeckel)

Ziglar’s Facebook page proclaims:

Though his time on earth has ended, he is speaking with Jesus now in his heavenly home... The angels in heaven are rejoicing and his family is celebrating a life well lived.

A fitting tribute for an American Icon.  But as Zig Ziglar would put it:

"This is not the end of your story...Turn the page and start a new chapter."

R.I.P. Andy Griffith

{Andy Griffith [C] with Mayberry Statue, Mt. Airy, NC}

Actor Andy Griffith, made famous for his TV role as the widowed sheriff of the fictional town of Mayberry, NC as well as Matlock, has died at the age of 86.

The Andy Griffith Show was wildly popular during its eight year television run from 1960 to 1968. Griffith left the show with a year left on his contract but served as an executive producer of the spin-off show  Mayberry, R.F.D. and appeared in a handful of episodes in its first year.

Griffith left to pursue a career on the silver screen, with less success than he hoped. Perhaps it was because he could not shake the typecasting.  When he returned to television, he partially embraced that folksy persona in the legal drama Matlock, where he played a widowed country lawyer.

President George W. Bush awarded Griffith the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 "for demonstrating the finest qualities of our country and for a lifetime of memorable performances that have brought joy to millions of Americans of all ages." So that gentile down home typecasting might not have been all bad.

While Griffith made his Democrat leanings clear with his avid support of North Carolina Governors Bev Perdue (D-NC) and  Mike Easley (D-NC) as well as a government funded endorsement of Obamacare.

That being said, Griffith never managed to ultimately polarize his public.

Griffith studied for the ministry in his youth.  This is reflected in a couple of Griffith's memorable quotes.

"I was baptized alongside my mother when I was 8 years old. Since then I have tried to walk a Christian life. And now that I'm getting older I realize that I'm walking even closer with my God."

and 

"You know when you're young you think you will always be. As you become more fragile, you reflect and you realize how much comfort can come from the past. Hymns can carry you into the future."

May his soul revel in walking closer to his Maker.