Makin' Tracts

I had never even seen a Christian Tract until I was in my 20's; they're not really something that mainline church denominations use.  Typically, they're tools (booklets) handed out by Evangelical churches to neatly package up all the reasons why you should 'be reborn' and 'give your life to Christ'.

I personally think they're kind of cheesy.  Pre-packaged Christianity doesn't usually work so well.

But anyway, the point is this:

Being that I work in a church, I sometimes actually enter the sanctuary to clean things up or whatever.  Yesterday I happened to be in the church, and found two tracts left by somebody after a mass.  These are not tracts the church gives out - I've never known a Catholic to hand out a tract - so I don't really know where they came from.  They were just weird enough that I thought I shouldn't leave them sitting in the pew though, so I took them.

The first one was a comic strip retelling of A Christmas Carol.  Marley tells Scrooge that he'll be damned to hell unless he repents and finds the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  It doesn't take Scrooge much convincing, and then he's running around telling everyone 'God bless you!'

The second one was unlike any other tract I've ever seen!  It starts at the main character's, (Charlie), funeral.  Charlie goes to heaven.  Then all of Charlie's friends die, and they go to hell.  The friends are some PO'd that Charlie is in heaven and they aren't, and even more angry when an angel tells them that Charlie believed in Jesus but they didn't.  "But, we didn't know Charlie was Christian! He didn't tell us!!"  Charlie then gets a massive guilt trip from an angel about not telling his friends about Jesus and how he could have used tracts if he was too shy or scared to talk to his friends.

So this tract publishing company is using tracts to advertise to people to use that brand of tracts to tell their friends about Jesus, otherwise their friends will surely burn in hell for all of eternity.  Wow.  Them's some good marketing skillz!

After all, if I hand out just 3 tracts each day, I could 'reach over 1000 people every year!'

*Sigh* No wonder so many people think Christians are lame.