Horrible Hell House
One Christian alternative to Halloween are "Hell Houses." When I was a young Christian I went to two of them.
This post criticizes the Hell House concept based on a documentary they had seen.
Hell House
by Tom Neven on Oct 30, 2007 at 2:34 PMWith what is perhaps impeccable timing, my Netflix queue recently delivered up the documentary Hell House just in time for Halloween. This 2001 film profiles Trinity Church of Cedar Hill, Texas, which has put on the ultimate Halloween haunted house since 1991. This "haunted" house, which the church itself has dubbed Hell House, is really a series of short vignettes depicting various symptoms of a fallen world: gang violence, drug dealing, homosexuality, rape, abortion, suicide, and even a full-on rave party complete with demon-faced DJ spinnin’ the platters.
I was ambivalent about the whole idea of hell houses since I first heard that a church in Denver was selling kits so that other churches could put on their own "outreach" events. After watching this film, I’m ambivalent no more.
Mr. Neven goes on to explain some pretty awful attitudes behind the scenes of Hell House and the apparent strong manipulation tactics toward evangelism. …
In my own experience, both times were not at the Cedar Hill Hell House, I didn’t find Hell House to be horrible. Well, actually, I found them both to be really boring. I was worried more for those who thought they were going to a Haunted House being upset about waiting for hours to only be hit with a visual Evangelism tract. In fact at the second one, one drunk man got very upset. After his outburst I did briefly wonder if the Hell House approach wasn’t a little manipulative. I quickly dismissed it because both of them were held at churches.
However, Mr. Neven’s post raises good questions and reveals some awful behind the scenes motivations. At the same time, also having experience with documentaries, I would be reluctant to cast all churches who sponsor Hell Houses as not having good motivations, grace and compassion. In fact, while this particular documentary is embarrassing to Trinity Church, I doubt that it showed the whole story and only emphasized the negative or sensational.
Regardless, the subject has been raised with good questions to consider. What do you think?
By the way … Halloween is tomorrow ::: Boo! :::
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