God Hates Hippies: Jack Chick’s ‘The Broken Cross’

By K.E. Roberts / August 12, 2026 I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California, only a few miles away from Jack Chick’s headquarters in Rancho Cucamonga. His fundamentalist Christian “Chick tracts” were everywhere in the 1970s and early 1980s, and my friends and I giggled at the brilliantly succinct fables even as we secretly trembled at the consequences of being “unsaved.” The first one I remember reading was 1964’s This Was Your Life!, about a “good man” who is cut down in the prime of life—actually cut down by the grim reaper himself! In a series of compellingly illustrated panels, we see his spirit rise from his body and the grave and travel with an angel to the place of judgment, where he finds out that everything he’s ever done has been recorded and must be reviewed. It turns out the man wasn’t so good after all—he told a dirty story, ogled (and possibly masturbated to) an attractive woman, and wondered “who won the ball game” in church—so he’s summarily cast into…