It’s the Second-Most Wonderful Time of the Year
With October 31st just around the corner, religious crazies from all o’er the land are doing their best to remind us that Halloween isn’t just about candy and funny costumes; it’s about Satanism and human sacrifice too. WorldNetDaily reports on their latest efforts:
Church’s anti-Halloween flier upsets family
Files police complaint: ‘I have every right to decorate my home’An Indiana family upset by an anti-Halloween church flier filed a complaint with police.
Dalene Gully of Ellettsville told Indianapolis television station WRTV-TV she was offended by the flier placed outside her home by the House of Prayer Church of Bloomington.
Here’s a picture of the flier, via Channel 6 News in Indianapolis:
So yeah, I can see why this lady’s a tad bit upset at these wingnuts for implying that she’s a Satan-worshipper. But wait! There’s more!
Here’s a quote from the House of Prayer’s pastor, Larry Mitchell:
The church’s pastor, Larry Mitchell, said the people who left the flier would have preferred to talk with Gully, but she wasn’t there.
Mitchell said the church didn’t intend to upset the Gully family, but rather tell people that Halloween isn’t harmless fun.
“Halloween is not fantasy,” Mitchell said. “We’re training up our children, and obviously this lady was trained up in this. Halloween seems like it is taking just as much prominence as Christmas.”
That’s right! Halloween is not fantasy! Boys who dress up as vampires really go out and drink peoples’ blood, and girls who wear witch costumes really do get boinked by Satan at night!
Anyway, I was doing some extra research on Larry Mitchell at the official House of Prayer Ministry website, when I came upon this Halloween-related event being sponsored by the church:
IT’S OFFICIAL! The House of Prayer will stage Hell House again this year. Four nights: October 28, 29, 30 and 31. Tours start at 7:00 p.m…
ONly $5 per person. No one under 10 years of age will be admitted!
Yes, it’s that scary. and it’s real life stuff, not your typical halloween haunted-house nonsense.
Naturally, I began to wonder what a “Hell House” was. I found an answer here at hellhousemovie.com:
Appearing in 1990 at the Trinity Assembly of God Church, hell houses utilize hundreds of volunteer actors, truckloads of lights and full audio-visual tech crews.
A hell house may appear to be an elaborate Halloween haunted house, but it’s much more than that. Once inside, a tour guide dressed as a demon takes young people from room to room to view depictions of school massacres, AIDS deaths, fatal drunk driving crashes, and botched abortions. All the while, demons goad the gullible into sin.
In the end, the groups are taken to a simulated “hell” to watch the sinners burn and suffer as they beg others not to make the same mistakes they made.
Wow. That is one of the awesomest things ever. Here are some photos:
Kinky!
And apparently, Hell Houses aren’t confined to one or two places- they’re all over the country. One of the most notorious (and funny) Hell Houses was conceived in 1995 by the Reverend Keenan Roberts, a pastor for the Abundant Life Christian Center in Arvada, Colorado. Rev. Roberts always keeps his Hell House timely by updating his scripts each year to include whatever sinful behavior is making its rounds in the news. For instance, his 1998 edition of Hell House featured none other than the Clenis and Monica Lewinsky. Reports the Denver Post (no link, I got it from Lexis-Nexis):
“We’ll have an Oval Office scene and a married couple playing Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky,” said the Rev. Keenan Roberts, director and founder of Hell House.
“Three demon spirits – lies, lust and adultery – will show the undoing of the president of the United States,” Roberts said.
Hey, at least the demons weren’t doing the President. I think that’d be a lot worse, personally…
One year after dramatizing Bill and Monica burning in Hell, the House featured a super-realisitc depiction of a gay marriage:
The gay wedding scene will feature two people dressed as men, but one actually will be a woman. ?They kiss at the end of the ceremony, and I’m just not going to have two guys kissing,? Roberts said.
Yeah, no one should have to see two dudes kissing- that’s yucky. It’s far better to watch them being tortured by demons.
1999 also saw the debut of a rave scene:
One new scene takes place at a rave party.
”It will have a very dark feel,” Roberts said Tuesday. ”The music will be thumping. Everybody will be doing drugs. A church girl is there, and she ultimately goes on a drug trip and she dies. Then, bam, things pick up and the party goes on.”
Because that’s totally what happens at raves! And Pastor Roberts doesn’t even know the half of it: there’s a time-honored ritual that whenever a raver OD’s, the other ravers gather around in a circle, set the body on fire, and inhale the Ecstasy-laden ashes. Dude! Everybody’s so doing it! Duuuu-huuu-huuuu-huuuude!
At any rate, I tried to see if there was a Hell House playing in my area, but alas, Massachusetts just isn’t as insane as the rest of the country. So if anyone out there lives in a town where they’re staging a Hell House, I’d be much obliged if you could check it out and send me photos. (Hey Vespa, you live in Colorado, yeah? How’d you like to take a field trip? You could document the Hell House and post about it at your blog- I could get you tons of traffic via Crooks & Liars :-)).
You might have to go virtual, alas.
I’m sure we’ve got plenty around here. Tammy Faye Bakker is scary enough by herself*.
*I’m like the only person in Charlotte who hasn’t actually seen Tammy Faye walking around.**
**But I have played golf at the Bakker’s old PTL theme park!
I strongly recommend the movie. It’s hilarious. Talk about a bunch of repressed, sad, pathetic people.
Hey, I’d like to see or hear what Hell House has to offer. I mean, that’s what Halloween is about, right? Scaring you out of your beJeeebus, no?
And frankly, ain’t Halloween a rip-off of a good old pagan ritual? Yeah, I thought so.
So, y’know, these fundie guys have the right idea, sez me. It’s a spookity-ookity time of the year.
Rock on, I say. Rock on with the spooky fun- ghoul time! Yo-ooh!
So if decorating your home for Halloween is wrong, because “Halloween is real” then how come making a “Hell House” for Halloween is ok?
Carving a pumpkin is wrong but showing botched abortions is ok?
There’s this atheist group in Dallas that went to one in 2000 and took pictures. They went to it again in 2001 and, surpisingly, no picture taking was allowed inside the building.
Now, these meddling heathens have got it in their heads that depicting violent, gory, and immoral behavior to small children is somehow bad. They’ve issued a press release calling for the responsible church to restrict their show to adults 18 and up.
Heh. Sometimes I think I’d like to go to one of these armed with the best athiest material I can find and start spreading some truth of my own. Then I come to my senses. Those people cannot be reasoned with.
“The gay wedding scene will feature two people dressed as men, but one actually will be a woman. ?They kiss at the end of the ceremony, and I’m just not going to have two guys kissing,? Roberts said.”
Crossdressing however, is as christian as swimming.
Naturally, I began to wonder what a “Hell House” was.
Clearly, you’re not from the South š
My Hell House will have an Exploding Crystal Meth lab in the basement! Survivors go on to watch a real abortion and the Satanic Rites that follow! And the Lefty Freak Show!
HAW, HAW, HAW!!!
Tig- Holy crap, that Landover Hell House deserves its own post!
Room number 6 is a pre-teenage drug usage scene where everyone will be surprised who is really in control. The Devil will smoke marijuana with a 11 year old little girl. The girl will instantly become “stoned” and scream for the Devil to impregnate her with his unholy Spawn. Given the power of a gorilla by her evil drug, the little harlot will try to overpower the Beast and rape him, only to become violently ill and die of the all too familiar “marijuana overdose” like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix before her!
Uhm, yeah, that’s totally what Hendrix and Janis OD’d on…
This is from the (Rock Hill, S.C.) Herald in 2003. I don’t have the photos
Houses of worship offer haunting tours
Want to be scared this Halloween? Go to church
The devil is alive and well in Rock Hill, and members of two churches are trying to save you from the fires
of hell.
Geared to reach youth who enjoy haunted houses, members of Assembly of God on Edwards Street and
Calvary Baptist Church on North Jones Avenue have set up alternative Halloween tours that use vignettes
dealing with today’s tough decisions.
“We said, ‘Why not show what true scary is,'” said Marcie Gaskin, whose husband, Paul, has coordinated
much of the “Helloween” tour at Assembly of God. “Hell is real. Hell is scary.”
Halloween is the third largest party day in the United States, behind New Year’s Eve and the Super Bowl,
according to Hallmark. More than 50 million Americans celebrate and spend $7 billion, including $21 million
on candy alone.
But lately, some have rejected Halloween for its superstitious nature, and churches across the country
are conducting fall festivals or outreach celebrations instead.
Assembly of God’s “Helloween,” and Calvary Baptist’s “Judgment House” fit the outreach category, but
they’re anything but ordinary. Hours of decorating and construction have gone into both, which can match
any haunted house around.
Assembly of God has a little more glitz, with dancing demons, retro music and a guide named Lou Cipher.
At Calvary, there’s more of a storyline but every bit as much drama.
Both focus on choices that last an eternity.
“We’re trying to get people to question themselves in their life after death,” said Roger Costner,
marketing chairman at Calvary.
Assembly of God’s “Helloween” was put together by about 60 people, many of them students. All six
vignettes have a surprise ending, and several are related to violent news events. Each scene is
accompanied by scripture, Paul Gaskin said.
Helloween opened Monday and continues through Saturday, beginning at 7 p.m. Proceeds from the $5
donation will go to missions.
This is the first year the church put on the tour, Gaskin said. Many props, including the wrecked front end
of a Chevrolet truck for the prom scene, were donated by area businesses.
Joining in were kids from Tega Cay Baptist Church, which also provided youth leader Dan Zupko in the role
of Jesus.
Zupko, 37, has no speaking lines and will convey Jesus’ love through his actions. “I want to do it justice,” he
said. “It’s a pivotal scene.”
Shawn Boliner, 16, an 11th- grader at Trinity Christian School, has a big role as “Stuttering Stanley” in a
school scene. He thinks the tour will impact many. “It gives an alternative to traditional Halloween and wins
people to Christ.”
At Calvary, the eight-scene tour is called “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave” and takes participants
through the lives of four young people. The script was purchased from New Creation Evangelism.
There’s a war scene with smoke and gunfire and a living room decorated with tasseled drapes and a “God is
Love” pillow in a chair.
Then it’s on to the judgment room (listen, they may call your name) and a trip to hell, where demons with
glow-in-the-dark 666s painted on their foreheads read newspaper headlines proclaiming escalating divorce
rates and aggression in children.
“Hate and hostility are rampant,” one demon says. “By not making a decision, they choose to be with us.”
The last stop is heaven. Participants wear a white shawl symbolizing new life, and Jesus, played by Tim
McGuffin, appears with pierced wrists and feet.
Three hundred people helped put on the tour, which has cost the church between $12,000 and $15,000,
Costner said. Profits from the
$4 donation will go to outreach projects.
Last year they conducted the tour over four nights and had about 2,100 visitors. This year, they held it
three days last week and will continue tonight through Saturday beginning at 6:30 p.m. They expect
between 3,000 and 3,500 people.
The timing is good because people like to go to haunted houses now, Costner said. Last year, a few people
came in costume.
Organizers of a Moses and the 10 Plagues tour at College Park Baptist Church on Eisenhower Road expect
costumed participants at their event Friday from 6:30 to
9 p.m., said Sam Williams, children’s ministry director.
This is the first year the church expanded its fall festival to include the free tour, he said. “We wanted to
do something different.”
Scripture will be shared, and participants will touch some gooey things. Williams’ favorite is the hail and
lightning room with spraying water and dropping foam balls.
Of course, at the end, they’ll hand out candy.
“We’re not trying to get away from scary,” Williams said. “We’re just trying to give them something else to
do.”
Contact Sula Pettibon at 329-4033
or spettibon@heraldonline.com.
Gory material is bad? Then why did the Episcopalian older kids tell me that the spaghetti was brains, and the grapes were eyes? Not that I believed it — OK, I was gullible — but it was hella-freaky nonetheless.
Now, as the Hell House group says, “The gay wedding scene will feature two people dressed as men, but one actually will be a woman. They kiss at the end of the ceremony, and I’m just not going to have two guys kissing,? Roberts said.
Yeah, cause that might be cute — er, icky, right? — and we wouldn’t want two happy fellows kissing, would we? Ahem. Cause that never happened when I was an altar boy. Not right away, at least. Until eventually….
Oh wait, that’s a parody, never mind. It *seemed* like the real deal at least…
Yeah, well. These jackasses leave this shit on my doorstep every year. No names, no contact information. When they do it when I’m home, and it’s happened a few times, they’re damned quite about it. They honest to God sneak up to my door and tiptoe away. I live on the second floor, and if they weren’t creeping up the damned stairs, I’d sure hear them. But, hey, they’d *rather talk to me in person*, right?
Assholes.
*sigh* Q-U-I-E-T.
I can spell, really.
Although, actually, “quiet” is not a word that’s at all common in my home. I’m going to go away and not post anything until the migraine goes away.
See you all next year or something.
My little sister is a Brownie, and they’re going to have a Halloween Carnival next week. The leader asked if I could dress up as a gypsy and “read fortunes” – just for fun of course. So I thought that sounded cool, but apparently some parents protested that this sort of thing just wasn’t appropriate, and thus it won’t be going on. *long, exaggerated eyeroll* These kids are going to grow up so insulated from the real world that if they do run across something that’s actually detrimental, they won’t have any experience in differentiating right from wrong or forming their own opinions.
Landover Baptist is a parody site, gang. A good one, too.
Oh, sorry, I see you’ve discovered that.
My little sister is a Brownie, and they’re going to have a Halloween Carnival next week. The leader asked if I could dress up as a gypsy and “read fortunes” – just for fun of course.
Little do you know you’re part of my Dark Plan to force these children into Satanism, just like with Harry Potter!!
When I was a kid, I grew up in a wingnutty family in a wingnutty town, and had an even wingnuttier best friend whose mom volunteered at a Hell House. I don’t remember if it coincided with Halloween, but my parents never had a problem with it anyway. So, my best friend and I went to the Hell House and met a handsome well-dressed man who introduced himself as Satan, and walked through rooms of people who were in hell and talking about what they did to deserve being there. Then at the end Satan comes back, only this time his face is all Freddy Krueger and aren’t we terrified of his domain, bwahaha?
Then, and this is the lame part, we go upstairs to Heaven, where there’s a choir dressed in white and some angels, and we sang hymns and talked about how this was much better than Hell. Except, even my 10-year-old wingnutty self thought this version of heaven sucked.
Here’s my other fave, Objective Ministries, they totally gun for Landover Baptist, but I can’t tell them apart, that’s what makes it funny.
Stacy said: “Except, even my 10-year-old wingnutty self thought this version of heaven sucked.”
That’s a big problem for hardcore Christians, isn’t it? They’re reduced to hoping people will agree that an eternal, dull musical program is better than being tortured. Or is the big enjoyment in heaven looking down at the damned in their agony? Has anyone been to a hellhouse where “heaven” featured a big picture window into hell?
I remember Mark Twain scornfully observing that the Christian heaven excluded orgasm, which is what most people most enjoy on earth. I’ve always thought the other big problem is that there would be nothing to look forward to in heaven. Human nature is such that anticipation is usually 80% of the pleasure. In addition, humor is based on an unforeseen twist of events or wordplay. How is that going to work in heaven, given that humans would be existing in eternity rather than time?
I don’t mean to get y’all excited or nothing, but you can see clips (including the rave scene) here, from NPR.
(White people dance funny.)
I laughed my ass off at “HAW! HAW! HAW!”
Also, this: “Want to be scared this Halloween? Go to church”
Pretty much sums it up for me.
And isn’t it also like some hardcore Christians to use scare tactics to get the heathens to convert?
A local Wesleyan church up my way staged a “Judgement Night” circa Halloween for a couple of years a long while back. I don’t know if they still do it, not to mention I don’t what it was all about.
What’s the problem with two men kissing? It’s not like the Bible forbids it-“Greet all brethren with a holy kiss”(1 Thessalonians 5:26) sounds like an ENDORSEMENT of it to me!
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ihatemovies/233630.html
Smoking marijuana is wrong, and illegal (here), and I’m totally against it*, but It’s not generally lethal. However, I can imagine a scenario where some immoral types smoked a whole bunch of really good shit, and then went to a Hell House, where they laughed themselves to death.
*Just Say Sadly, No! Kids. And stay in school.
Bill S: Not to mention Jesus’ “Get thee behind me, Satan”.
I have a vague memory that there was something in the papers last Halloween about celebs — lefties even? — participating in a Hell Hous in or around Los Angeles. But I’m too damned lazy to go looking for it on the Internets.
It’s nice to be reminded that so many dangerous weirdos live in this country; and that they have political clout. I wonder what I can we do to keep these insane, uneducated people in their red states before they force me out of my country?
Hell houses are the shit when you’re drunk and feeling like some fun.
This is just *awesome*, how I wish I lived somewhere there were enough inept losers to put together one of these Hellhouses.
Notice, I capitolized the H, BECAUSE IT’S A REAL PLACE!!!.
Christianity is all blood and gore. Suprised?, Not me.
Not too interested in the blood and gore, basically zionist porno shit.
Only christians, and jews, followers of any Abrahamic cult including judeo-secular-humanism, are fans of shit like gore porn websites made by supremacist zionists.
Rowdy teenagism (Judeo-Christianity) must be done away with.
Just wanted to let all that are intrested in attending a hell house, there is one in Plainview, Texas, First Assembly of God. I think all are sadly mistaken about what hell house is about. Some say that the reality based sences are superfical, and unreal. I would like to know what planet these people are from. I’m assuming, and you know what they say about people that assume, these people don’t have drunken unloving fathers that beat their children, and they don’t have people completly destroying families, theirs or someone elses, by drunk driving!! WOW!! Please inform me how to get to this planet A.S.A.P.!
Reality people IS, and I would be a fool to state that AIDS is ONLY spread thru the homosexual lifestyle, but as Christians we believe that homosexulality is a sin, and can be hell on earth to live this way!
I’m done rambling…. I would however like to add that you shouldn’t judge every Christian the same. I don’t hate homosexuals, in fact we have some that attend the church I attend. I don’t like the actual sin of homosexuality because of the possible future it holds for the homosexual..AIDS, Hell, ect…
Jennifer
you guys know the landover site isn’t real right?…its funny, but you should check out the real ones, even scarier…
this is “stuttering stanley” from Helloween. I just wanted to let everyone know that, yes “Hellhouses” are scary, but the intent is not to scare you into salvation because then it might be something you say one night and then go back to the way you were living the next day, It’s about scaring The Real Hell out of you and putting the fear of God into you. Hell is real, but so is heaven. I personnaly don’t like to get burnt, so I knoe that i really don’t want to go somewhere where my whole body will burn for the rest of eternity with no letting up.
If what you have read, seen, or heardf makes any sense and you want to know more about God and His redeeming love, go to the nearest church that is “full gospel”. In other words, go to a church where they believe the whole Bible, and don’t juct pick the parts they like. God is waiting with open arms for you to come to Him. He loves you, and so does every person that participates in a “Hellhouse”, that’s why they do it.
people just dont want accept the truth. bible say the truth shall set u free,
Maybe the pastor of this church needs to reread this so called Bible he follows? This book of made up stories passed from one to another over time. The pastor of this church should take a long hard look in the mirror before he starts passing judgement on the way others chose to live their lives. Does he think he is this so called “God”? I am discouraged to see someone of faith trying to corrupt youth with such crap as a hell house to get them to go to church. What a farce, just like the Bible!
All gays don’t go to hell it says no where in the bible nor does it actually say it
Even if it did, it’s the bible: a bunch of bullshit.