After Death, What?

I thought I might have already reviewed this one, but I haven't. I guess after a while the majority of these things start to look the same.

Which gives you a pretty good idea where I'm going with this review, doesn't it? I hardly need to go into any detail, but I will anyway. Some of it is too good to pass up.

Basically, this latest from the Fellowship Tract League tells you that, after death, you will either be in Heaven or Hell. "How many times have you looked into a casket, seen the face of the deceased," the tract begins, establishing the morbid tone. "If the deceased died in a lost spiritual condition, his troubles have just begun. The instant his soul leaves his body, it goes directly to hell to burn for ever and ever."

I'm sure those well-chosen words will be of great comfort to the deceased's family.

It gets better, too. "Suffering does not end at death for a lost person," the tract tells us. "After ten million years of eternity, he will still be burning." This author knows how to lay it on thick!

"You are not promised another day on this earth," the tract says. "Your life might end before another hour passes and your soul will be somewhere for eternity." Naturally, a version of the Salvation prayer is included at the end.

This tract scores for unintentional humour, but not much else. It doesn't even live up to its title, not really. It gives a few nasty images of Hell, but not much of Heaven. After Death, What? is more about what to avoid, instead of what to expect.

"Right now, while there is still life in your body, will you repent of your sins...?" Or will you wind up "screaming from the pits of hell" instead? The same questions every tract out there poses, with slightly more hellfire than most. And nobody needs any more hellfire.

Try again, FTL.

Likely to Convert - 2
Artwork - 2
Ability to Hold Interest - 5
Unintentional Hilarity - 6
Level of Disturbing or Offensive Content - 2

And God Answers!

And another short one from Evangelical Tract Distributors. It's a quote tract, displaying scripture verses that supposedly answer the important questions.

The questions themselves are presented in large red type, the better to draw your attention to them. They start with "Must I Give An Account To God?" and end with "What About Death, Eternity?" Exactly the kind of questions you might ask yourself on your way to work.

That's really all there is to it. A handy reference to have on hand if you've ever wondered "Am I A Very Bad Sinner?" or "Can I Be Saved Now?" For people who don't wonder that stuff, however, this tract won't make much difference. I appreciate this tract's brevity, but brevity alone doesn't make for a religious conversion.

Likely to Convert - 1
Artwork - 2
Ability to Hold Interest - 3
Unintentional Hilarity - 4
Level of Disturbing or Offensive Content - 1

The Sinner's Prayer

This one is not a tract so much as a business card. It has a couple of Bible verses, a prayer usually found on the back of every other tract, and a clever little poem ("No Jesus No Peace Know Jesus Know Peace" Catchy, huh?).

And that's it. Not that there's room for anything else. Except for the dove. But that's more of a background watermark.


Simple, efficient and to the point, with all the info you need to get Saved. Of course, with a little more space they could have told the casual reader why he or she needs Salvation. Then again, even tracts that do spell out the terrors of unSavedness rarely manage to be convincing.

Not bad, but not great, that's what I say. Good concept, but if you're going to do a business card tract, make every word, every image and line of scripture count. With so little space, it's all about presentation.

No presentation no converts
Know presentation know converts

Likely to Convert - 1
Artwork - 2
Ability to Hold Interest - 3
Unintentional Hilarity - 1
Level of Disturbing or Offensive Content - 0

1000 Years From Now

Here's another effort from Evangelical Tract Distributors that gets to the point quickly and wastes very little of one's time. The first page asks "what will it matter whether you..." did any of the things on the list that follows "1000 years from Now." Will it matter, for example, if you "travelled by car, or bus?" Or "used solid silver, or plated-ware?" Or "lived in a mansion, or a cottage?" The point being, a thousand years from now you'll be dead, so it really won't matter if you were stinking rich or desperately poor.

"But," says page two, "it will make a mighty big and eternal difference whether you are a Lost Soul or a Saved Soul." Most of that is printed in bold red letters, but the Lost and Saved Soul letters are huge, black and attention-getting. And, to make sure e get it, the words "Heaven or Hell" are in brackets just below. And the words "Lost or Saved" are in brackets below that. And following that are a couple more messages and a Bible quote to hammer the message home.

The last page of the tract is devoted to the usual I'm-a-sinner-Save-me-Jesus prayer.

This tract isn't bad, if a little depressing. A thousand years from now, how many of us will be remembered? And if not, do our lives in fact matter at all? It makes you think... which is the exact wrong thing for a tract like this one to be doing. If you want readers to swallow the notion that Jesus is the only thing in their lives that will ultimately matter, the last thing you want is for them to start thinking! Still, there's bound to be a few readers out there who won't, who will be so depressed about not mattering that they'll latch onto the big black words and get Saved. A few, for sure, but not many.

I wonder, in a thousand years' time, will people still be trying to convert other people to their view of spirituality, or will we have evolved beyond that? Will my reviews still exist on whatever the Internet becomes? And will they still be relevant in the year 3010? Food for thought. And that's more than most tracts provide. Well done.

Likely to Convert - 1
Artwork - 4
Ability to Hold Interest - 5
Unintentional Hilarity - 3
Level of Disturbing or Offensive Content - 0

Man's Most-Asked Question!

Barefaced arrogance can be quite entertaining in the right context. This cartoon from the Fellowship Tract League assumes that every human being on the planet asks one question more than any other: "How can I get to Heaven??" How pig-headed do you have to be to suggest the question on every man's mind is one specific to your belief system? And, that this question eclipses all others, including but not limited to: Is there a God? What happens when we die? I'd ask those before pondering the existence of Heaven, let alone whether or not I can get there. Or how about: Why are we here? Is there life on other planets? And don't forget: What's for lunch? Are you going to finish that? And, of course, Are we there yet? That last one should be the winner in the most-asked category by virtue of its repetition.

You could argue, I suppose, that the question "How can I get to Heaven??" could be interpreted to imply all forms of the afterlife, and thus relates to all religions. The context of the rest of the tract, however, squashes that argument flat. "The Bible tells you how," the tract says in the very next panel, making clear that only the Judao-Christian Heaven is under discussion. And by the tract's end you see that the Judao part can be scratched, too. "I've always believed in Jesus," the cartoon man says. "I'm not a heathen, you know." So while he's being told that mere belief in Jesus isn't enough, that the requirement for Heaven "is a total commitment to Christ," the rest of the world gets the very clear hint that non-belief in Jesus = heathenism.

Like I said, arrogance.

Man's most asked question, then, is how can one get to the Christian Heaven.

I wonder what Woman's most-asked question is?

But once you get past the arrogance (and sexism), you can better appreciate what this tract has to offer. The cartoons are nice but nothing special, depicting a guy in a suit responding to an 'off-screen' narrator. Pretty much like Are You Good Enough For Heaven?, but the uncredited artist doesn't have Ron Wheeler's level of talent. Still, the artist does manage to convey the man's terror upon learning "Everyone in the world is a... sinner?!?!"

The rest is pretty much what you'd expect. The man is told he needs to get Saved, and by the end he's prayin' his guts out. The cartoons enliven what is in essence a fairly pedestrian tract. It's got the usual fear-mongering (the word HELL appears on page 2 in big, fiery letters) and Salvation-explaining, and the arrogance takes it up a tiny notch in terms of entertainment value and offensive content, but that's it.

Forget the most-asked question. Tract makers need to find a way to spread their message without resorting to the most-preached formula.

Likely to Convert - 1
Artwork - 2
Ability to Hold Interest - 3
Unintentional Hilarity - 3
Level of Disturbing or Offensive Content - 4

The Great White Throne of Judgment

"The judgment day is a fixed, definite, future event in the calendar of God," begins this offering from Evangelical Tract Distributors, proving beyond all doubt that you can never have too many adjectives. The author, who remains anonymous, wants us to believe that the Biblical Judgment Day (Revelation 20: 11-15, helpfully printed on the cover) is actually going to happen, and "you'll never laugh the fact away."

I love it when they talk about facts in tracts. The thinking seems to be that if you use the word 'fact', you don't actually need to provide any to back up your claims. This tract certainly doesn't.

But adjectives and 'fact'-deployment aren't the author's only weapons. He also uses repetition. "Every one of God's predicted judgments in the future is going to come true," we are told, twice. In the same paragraph. The author also uses his extensive knowledge of this supposed "fixed, definite, future event". "I know," he says, "you're twenty-four hours nearer to it than you were yesterday." But wait! There's more: "I know you have twenty-four hours less chance to prepare for that judgment than you had last night." Convincing stuff!

And that's just the first two paragraphs. They are very important paragraphs, because they are the only two that actually discuss the Judgment (or, for that matter, the Great White Throne). Two paragraphs out of eight, not including the cover. That's all the titular subject matter gets. No wonder it needed all those adjectives.

The remaining six paragraphs veer off into Rapture territory, starting with the title TOTAL EVACUATION INDICATED in bold red letters. "We are to evacuate the area," the author says, "that the enemy might be completely wiped out." The rest of the tract uses terms like 'the enemy', 'battle', 'soldiers' and others, and speaks of tactics and plans for fighting this enemy, who apparently "will drink the wine of the wrath of God and be tormented forever."

I could take some time to discuss the author's use of Capital Letters on Certain Words to make them seem More Important, but why bother? This tract is its own worst enemy, and hasn't a chance of converting anyone. That's okay, it isn't trying to; the intended audience seems to be Christians who aren't quite devout enough. You know, the ones who don't believe in "the Air Lift, which will deliver many into the Home Country" instead "of Shadow Valley."

Entertainingly melodramatic is about the best thing I can say for The Great White Throne of Judgment. Otherwise, the tossing of this tract into a blue bin is a fixed, definite, future event.

Likely to Convert - 0
Artwork - 4
Ability to Hold Interest - 3
Unintentional Hilarity - 5
Level of Disturbing or Offensive Content - 1

All This I Did For Thee

This small effort from the Fellowship Tract League would be utterly forgettable if it weren't for that cover. I mean, look at it, for God's sake. It's a guy (presumably Jesus) who's had the snot kicked out of him. Even his head is bleeding! This is one of the most horrible images I've ever seen on a tract, and I've seen a lot of these things. Now I don't need to rent Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion Of The Christ. I just need to look at this thing. Yuck!

The rest of the tract, like I said, is utterly forgettable. It's a simple quote tract, using the usual bits of scripture to tell the reader they need to get Saved. The last page offers readers a choice between accepting and rejecting Jesus, complete with tick boxes. What's with the tick box trend, honestly? This is at least the second if not the third time I've seen this gimmick. Are the authors of these things really expecting readers to tick a box and send it in? This one is, apparently - they ask readers to do so, and provide space for them to fill in their names, addresses and ages.

But enough about that boring stuff. Let's get back to that cover!
What a marvelous use of black and white and only one colour - red! I also like the way Jesus' face is hidden in shadow. Wow, that guy really went through a lot to Save you. At least, that's what the authors and/or artist wants you to think.

Points for attention-grabbing, League. If only the tract inside could live up to the promise of that cover. I'm sure Bloody Jesus wouldn't be too happy knowing that these few verses were the best the author could come up with to use with his beaten image.

Please, League! Try to do better. Half-assed tracts make Bloody Jesus cry.

Likely to Convert - 3
Artwork - 7
Ability to Hold Interest - 4
Unintentional Hilarity - 1
Level of Disturbing or Offensive Content - 1