Close Encounters of the Weird Kind (Jack Chick)

A reader writes:

I just read your latest in "This Rock" about your encounter with Jack Chick.  Wow.  What a weird experience that must have been.  It was weird just reading about it.  I’m impressed with how you maintained a charitable disposition.  I don’t think I could have even approached the man for fear of getting beligerent with him.  I can’t help but laugh at how the encounter must have appeared to him through his lense of paranoid narcissism (or is it narcissistic paranoia?).

I noted in my blog (http://flyfishinggalilee.blogspot.com) that the article reminded me of one of those cordial meetings in a casino (or similar setting) between James Bond and his current arch-nemesis.  You should start introducing yourself as "Akin….James Akin."  🙂

What sort of film was he releasing?  Will you be reviewing it on your website or in "This Rock?" 

Thanks. Meeting Jack Chick was a truly surreal experience. I hope folks will check out the article on it in This Rock (it will also be put on the Web . . . eventually). Chick’s film, The Light of the World, is a standard presentation of the gospel as Chick understands it (with a few dashes of anti-Catholicism thrown in). I have a standing invite to review it for DecentFilms.Com,and I’ll post a link here when it gets done.

Incidentally, since Chick is such a recluse that he doesn’t let his picture be taken, I realized that I am now one of the few people who knows what he looks like. As a result, I decided to draw a picture of him–comic book style, of course! Here ’tis:

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin