California Closes Churches, But Bars Can Stay Open

Churches Are Being Closed, When Bars Are Allowed To Stay Open

The increasing pressure against Bible believing churches has not slowed even in the middle of a global pandemic. Churches are denied congregating while bars, taverns and street demonstrations are approved.

Jack Chick wrote The Trial in 1996 because he saw the rising demon of hate crime accusations. This was one of several emerging dangers that were facing soul winners then. Below are his comments about The Trial from the paperback Hot Topics, written as an interview with David W. Daniels. They are prophetic words that Jack foresaw over 20 years ago.

Item #18


The Trial

A young girl is sued because she witnessed to her young friend. A humorous story that drives home the vital Biblical truth that Jesus is the only way to heaven.

Excerpt from Hot Topics

They were on the offensive,
and the Christians were backpedaling. —JTC

The Trial: The real purpose of hate crime laws.

JTC - The Trial was written when I saw the Civil Rights Movement pushing “hate crimes” legislation, and I saw the writing on the wall. The concept of “free speech” becoming a “hate crime” could put a chill on the willingness of pastors to speak against homosexuality from their pulpits. Think of how “offensive” Jesus was, and what they did to Him when He said “I am THE way.”

This impacts Muslims, Catholics, Mormons —every group you can think of. They’re pushing their own agenda. But Jesus sidesteps them completely when He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” These simple words of Jesus tear out the foundations for their phony religions.

DWD - You have talked about how, when you wrote this, you thought back to when a famous speaker started talking against homosexuality and she got denounced as a hateful person. What happened?

JTC - We were at a CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) convention in the 1970s. Anita Bryant, a very beautiful woman who almost won Miss America, was the spokesperson for Florida Orange Juice. She had made a stand against homosexuality. She was the first entertainer who actually had the courage to say something. This became a turning point in this whole big movement. The entertainment people all turned against her. And (believe it or not) it was pretty much led by the snide and ugly comments made by Bob Hope.

So everybody jumped on the bandwagon. And poor Anita took a beating. They dumped her from being the Florida Orange Juice Lady.

And a group of homosexuals humiliated her at the CBA convention we were attending. In the evening she was going to sing. Just as the music began, the homosexual crowd upstairs started stomping their feet on the ceiling above us to completely disrupt the whole thing. She was embarrassed. It was odd back then to see these people finally coming out and making a major attack against one individual.

There was a gay demonstration outside. Some of the pastors came up to our little booth where we were displaying Chick tracts and literature. They cleaned out our supply of Gay Blade tracts, then ran out and started passing them through the homosexual crowd.

But I could see we were in trouble. They were on the offensive, and the Christians were backpedaling. Christians were pacifying them, and nobody objected. I thought, “Man, if we don’t make a stand, we’re dead meat out there.” So I prayed about it, knowing these laws were going to eventually be passed, and came up with The Trial.

DWD - So they first accused Christians of “hate speech” in the 1970s, during the days of Anita Bryant. Then in the 1990s you saw the widespread results in our country.

JTC - Yeah, I felt so sorry for Anita. And by the 1990s I knew they were going to hit the churches and everything else. I saw that once these “hate laws” started, they’d try to kill the gospel if they could.




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