Tracts: not a good way to evangelize

In my experience, about 80 percent of all religious tracts are just obnoxious. That figure jumps to 100 percent or higher when you limit the tracts under consideration to those by Jack Chick.

A lot of tract distribution, while well intended, comes from a misunderstanding about the Great Commission, that it requires a special effort on the part of every Christian to be an evangelist and purposely strike up conversations and steer them into opportunities to share the gospel, reducing the person from a person with inherent value worth engaging in honest discussion and relationship with, into a potential "convert" and the discussion merely as a means to an end.

I try not to get offended when I'm handed a tract -- as I said, I like to assume the intent is often good -- but if I weren't a Christian, I can't say they'd move me much in that direction.