Spire Comics

What you see here is isn't some sort of neo-Nazi propaganda; rather, it's Christian propaganda.

I try not to be too hard on the Christian urge to evangelize. I appreciate the fact that their world view tells them that humanity is trapped in the metaphorical equivalent of a burning house with only one exit and that they feel that it's their moral duty to try to rescue us from that conflagration. Viewed from that perspective, evangelists and missionaries really are trying to do something moral, never mind that the rest of us get awfully tired of trying to be pulled from a burning building that we don't believe actually exists.

Be that as it may, some methods of evangelization take such absurd forms in their attempt to "reach" people that it's nearly impossible not to point and laugh. A particular egregious form of this is that of Christian comics. I have no doubt that we're all familiar with the works of Jack Chick, but Chick ministries aren't the only ones who've attempted to spread the word of Jesus through crappy art, stilted dialog and plots that a pre-schooler should find simplistic. A lesser known -- but still weirdly fascinating -- company is Spire Comics who ran a line of Christian themed comics such as the above "Hansi: The Girl Who Loved the Swastika" -- about a girl who initially loved the Nazis but eventually came to love Jesus -- as well as many others including quite a few surreal Archie Comics cross-overs.

I found a good fan site that has PDF versions of many of their comics. If you like reading Chick tracts (for a suitably broad definition of "like") I'm sure you'll enjoy reading these as well.

A Dork Tale

It came to pass, one day, that the Lord of Dorkness, who was having a horrible snit, called together his three favored minions.

"Attend to me, O minions," said the Dork Lord, "for we have a grave situation. Sir Mix-a-Lot's accursed song, Baby Got Back, is still cool!"

His minions gasped and exclaimed, "But how can that be? Did we not commission a Latin version to rob it of its coolness?"

"Alas, our plan has backfired. People are enjoying the Latin version as hip, post-ironic geek chic!

"Oh, the post-irony!," they cried.

There was a great wailing and gnashing of braces and retainers, then, but the Dork One held up his hand and said, "Enough! We must try again. Minion 1, what do you suggest?"

Minion 1 pushed up his thick rimmed glasses by the masking tape that bound the cloven halves of it together and said, "Let us create a new version. A version sung by a talentless white guy with a ridiculous street name."

"Ah yes," said the Lord of Dorkness, "the Vanilla Ice gambit. This is good, but it is not enough. Minion 2, speak!"

Minion 2 fidgited with his slide rule for a minute before saying, "We must also make a video. A bad video with horrible production value."

"This, too, is good, but not good enough. What of you, Minion 3?"

Minion 3, who was called the Anti-Fonzie, straightened his bow tie and took a hit from his inhaler as he thought deeply. Finally he spoke and said, "My Lord, we must change the song. We must remove all traces of fun and sexiness from it. Let us make it wholesome, and not merely wholesome, but a song about religious values. Let us turn it into a Christian rap song about..."

He paused and pondered.

"Let us make it about reading the Bible!"

The Dork Lord chuckle/snorted and said, "My true and faithful servants, you have pleased me well. Let us create this uncool thing. We shall call it Baby Got Book".

And so it came to be.

Off-site Essay: Life In Our Anti-Christian America

I, honestly, don't have a problem with the majority of Christians in my country. In my experience, most people, of whatever faith, Christian or otherwise, have a live and let live attitude that serves the plurality of our culture well. Generally, people only take up religious arms when a hand-full of hot-button issues come up leaving religion to private considerations at most other times.

Unfortunately, there are vocal minorities who make it their mission to rake muck, nor am I singling out Christian groups. Trust me, there are atheist organizations out there that make me feel just as queasy as any of the strident Christian groups. Never the less, there is one tactic that Christian groups often employ that does especially set my teeth on edge: the tactic of claiming that Christians are a persecuted minority in the United States.

The claim is absurd on the face of it. According to the CIA Factbook, Christians comprise a good 79% of the population (77% if you want to exclude Mormons, though I don't see the logic of doing so). Atheists and other non-religious groups make up a mere 10% of the population. In spite of these figures, there are groups that insist that Christians are being persecuted by atheists. One imagines a lion claiming to be persecuted by a mouse.

To highlight the absurdity of this, Rob Berry created a wonderful bit of satire called "Life In Our Anti-Christian America". It is a very ironic list of the ways that Chrstians are being subject to discrimination and marginalization. It includes such items as:

• Nearly all of our elected public officials are atheists; they even have to swear on a copy of Darwin's "Origin of Species" in order to take office.
• All of our money has the atheistic slogan "We do not trust in God" printed on it.
• While atheists hold huge rallies in 25,000-seat amphitheatres, Christians are so few in number that they can only dream of holding such rallies.
• Most gravestones in America are engraved with pentagrams; those few graves which are engraved with crosses usually end up being vandalized.

The list has 218 entries and would have had more if Rob hadn't stopped taking submissions. It's been a while since it's been updated so some of the items may seem a bit dated and there are no entries for such current controveries as the Shiavo case. Never the less, the list is a rather stinging rebuke to the supposition that Christians are, in any sense, at the mercy of the atheist minority.