Tomorrow is Halloween. All across the country, costumed children will be trick-or-treating their way through neighborhoods, house by house, filling their bags and plastic jack-o’-lanterns with sugar-laden treats. Some older kids and young adults will be out pulling pranks, ranging from relatively harmless “gotchas” to outright vandalism and criminal destruction of property. Like it or loathe it, Halloween is an American cultural tradition. Many churches have sought to counter the darker side of the holiday with activities of their own. Fall festivals, harvest celebrations, Good Guy Carnivals, hayrides, and Trunk or Treat have provided more festive, family-friendly alternatives to the demonic and macabre associations of Halloween. However, some churches have taken a radically different approach by co-opting the horror motif of secular haunted houses. Welcome to Hell House.
Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas, has been credited with popularizing the Hell House phenomenon. A 2001 documentary, aptly titled Hell House, focused on this church’s innovative and controversial evangelistic outreach geared toward teens. Some churches use the name Judgment House. Here in Tulsa, the most popular version is Nightmare, now in its 17th year of production at Guts Church, a local megachurch with a wide range of trendy ministries. Regardless of the nomenclature, the concept is much the same. Groups of visitors are led by a guide through a series of dramatic scenes that are heavy on screams and theatrical blood. There are graphic portrayals of automobile accidents, school shootings, abortions, teen suicides, drug use and overdose, domestic violence, and homosexuals suffering with HIV/AIDS. Hell Houses may also include a Passion of the Christ-like dramatization of the crucifixion of Jesus and a depiction of heaven. The intent is simple: show sin and its consequences, portray the destiny of the damned, and offer a call for salvation through Jesus Christ. Kids flock to Hell Houses by the thousands. Most scream. Many cry. Some vomit.
At the end of the tour, visitors (mostly teens) are taken into a Decision Room while their heart rates and adrenaline levels are still elevated. They are asked a simple question, “If you died tonight, would you go to heaven or hell?” A church leader in the documentary tells rattled teens at Trinity Church, “You have six seconds to decide….five seconds…” Those who want to make a decision to follow Jesus or rededicate their lives as Christians are asked to go into a room to pray with counselors.
I understand and appreciate that faith in Christ is not only rational and reasoned; it is also strongly connected to our emotions. But, when does the appeal to emotion cross the line into manipulation? It is my opinion that Hell Houses cross that line. I have deep concerns about impressionable hearts and minds that are asked to either accept or reject Jesus under that level of emotional duress. Yes, I know that Jesus talked more about hell than anyone before or after Him in the Bible. Still, it was not His typical means of saying, “Come, follow Me.” And the apostles? Just think what they could have accomplished on Pentecost with a Hell House instead of just preaching Christ and Him crucified!
If souls are led to a sincere, lasting faith and full obedience to the Gospel of Christ, then I won’t quibble too much about methodology. But, I worry about teens’ faith being sustained after their hearts have stopped beating in their throats and the nightmares have ended. I would far rather inspire heaven in their hearts than merely scare the hell out of them.
Thinking Out Loud 
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October 30, 2009 at 9:31 am
Mandi Sanders
Reminds me of a revival meeting at the church were I grew up. A minister named Elmer Lusk put a poster board on the communion table that said, “Turn OR Burn!!!!” The entire youth group got baptized that night. My dad baptized me several years before that, at 2 o’clock in the morning on a Monday after I had been up all night with night terrors of burning in hell. I was 9. That was the first time I was baptized. I did it again when I was 19 after falling in love with Jesus. The first time was after a decision to not go to hell. The second was after a decision to love and follow Jesus all the days of my life. I learned that following Christ out of fear of the consequences has nothing to do with your heart. It’s like a shotgun wedding. I am told to LOVE the Lord with ALL MY HEART, SOUL, MIND AND STRENGTH. Until I understood that He loves ME that way, He did not have my heart. He said, “if you love me you will do what I say.” I did not understand that either until I saw it from my earthly eyes. When you fall in love with someone, you can only think of the things you can do to please that person and not offend them or scare them off. So obedience happens naturally when you are very much in love.
October 30, 2009 at 10:44 am
Tim
So glad that love has cast out the fear, Mandi!
October 30, 2009 at 9:32 am
rossblog
Wow, I haven’t thought of Hell House in a while! I wrote about the concept – pros and cons – for The Oklahoman when I was religion editor there and later for AP in Nashville. Googled but can’t find either of those stories. Yeah, the concept freaked me out a bit.
October 30, 2009 at 10:45 am
Tim
Keep looking for those articles, Bobby. I would love to link to them.
October 30, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Robert Michael
It reminded me of my own conversion experience. Before “Hell House” there was Sunday morning radio “Hell, fire and brimstone” sermons. One Sunday morning, my alarm went off and instead of the Top 40 or Casey Kasem, there was this preacher yelling about Satan and Hell. It made such an impression on me that I went to school on Monday and asked around about Vacation Bible Schools (it was near the end of the term).
My friend, Paul Gillespie, invited me to a Church of Christ. After some sane, rational study of the Bible and some mature soul-searching, I was led to Christ.
I think this is a common experience. Fear leads us to immediate action, but sincere love and faith sustains us. The effects of fear diminish over time and are tied to our emotions, but love and faith are deliberate, carefully crafted expressions of our deepest convictions and beliefs.
October 30, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Tim
Wow! Great story, Robert!
November 21, 2009 at 7:18 am
rossblog
A bit past Halloween, but found this article …
Gospel vs. Goblins Judgment House gives visitors glimpse of hell
Bobby Ross Jr.
Published: October 27, 2001
PERKINS – It’s hot in hell.
It’s not so much the machine-made smoke or even the illusion of flames created by a fan blowing silk against colored lights.
The rising body temperatures have more to do with the First Baptist Church cranking up the thermostat to make this place of eternal damnation seem more real.
Satan – aka the Rev. Albert May – laughs evilly through glow-in-the-dark teeth as he greets a condemned teen-ager named Natalie. The story line is that she died in a car wreck without ever giving her heart to Jesus Christ.
“No! No! There’s been a mistake. I don’t belong here,” Natalie protests. “I’m a good person. I pray before I eat…. I go to church all the time. I don’t belong here. You’ve made a mistake.”
“Oh, my… we’ve made a mistake!” Satan responds with a sarcastic hiss. “Look around you, you idiot! Does this look like church to you?
“You made your own decision, didn’t you? Guess what – now you belong to me! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”
Natalie screams as a black-robed demon pushes her into the fiery pit.
A Halloween alternative
Think of it as a modern-day version of the old-time hellfire and brimstone sermon – a gospel message presented in a way that the MTV generation can identify with it.
That’s the way May, pastor of the First Baptist Church in this town of 2,300 about 10 miles south of Stillwater, looks at the church’s Judgment House production.
In the Halloween season, many teen-agers seek frightened thrills at haunted houses featuring ghosts, goblins and witches. The Perkins drama invites young people instead to “experience the cold reality of a walk through the grave and death.”
“I really don’t care for the haunted house-type things,” May said. “I don’t care for glorifying evil in any way.
“So, we wanted to give the youth something that was impacting as far as emotions were concerned, yet also would have a positive outcome at the end.”
Trick or treat?
Increasingly popular in Oklahoma and throughout the country, Christian-themed haunted houses have names such as “The Nightmare,” “The Hell House” and “The Revelation Walk.”
Some church leaders praise these outreach efforts as potentially life-changing alternatives to traditional Halloween observances.
Others denounce them as eerie, graphic forms of evangelism that try to scare people into confessing sins.
“Let’s see: a fake drunk-driving crash, a young girl post-abortion, a homosexual dying of AIDS…. I’ve seen all of these,” said Greg Horton, publisher of Sock Monkey, an Oklahoma City-based religious magazine.
“At the end of the tour comes the gospel message: Repent now and this won’t be your fate…. God help us when we get to the point that we think hell house is a good idea.
“The gospel is good news! How can you emphasize that enough?”
The Perkins pastor said he responds to such critics by pointing to the apostle Paul.
“Paul said he was willing to do anything that some might be saved,” May said. “You know, I’ve had people tell me that this is all a scare tactic, wanting to scare people into heaven. My response to that is, ‘Well, all right, if it works.’
“Any way to get people in heaven, if it works, is a good way.”
For the young children who walk through the Judgment House, the scenes bring hushed silence and occasional tears. Uneasily, one little girl holds a fluid bag for a paramedic at the crash scene. At Judgment Day – after watching one character ascend to heaven and two go to hell – the children step forward cautiously as the eternal judge calls their names.
Red-eyed after the nearly 90-minute tour, Brenda Perkins, 42, said it would be impossible to experience the Judgment House and walk away unchanged.
“Whether you’re in church every Sunday or you’ve never been to church, it reaches everyone,” Perkins said. “Every single person has to make a decision.
“Some will walk away and say, ‘Oh, my God, that’s the hokiest thing I’ve ever seen.’ But that’s got to affect you some way.”
Teen tragedy
The buttery aroma of hot, fresh popcorn permeates the first stop on the Judgment House tour.
It’s a high school football game where three teen-agers – Joey, Chris and Natalie – exchange pleasantries.
Chris and Natalie invite Joey to a church “Fifth Quarter” get-together after the game.
“Jesus loves you,” Chris, a committed Christian, tells Joey. “He wants a personal relationship with you.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Joey responds.
After the game, Joey goes to a party at a friend’s house. Beer and booze abound. Joey has had way to much to drink when he decides to go confront Natalie, his former girlfriend.
At the church gathering, Natalie misses a last chance to become a Christian.
Flashing emergency lights and sirens dominate the next scene, site of a head-on crash. The three teens’ bloodied bodies lie on the ground by a mangled vehicle, as a weeping mother wails.
Next up is a hospital room, where machines keep Joey’s body alive, and his grief-stricken parents must decide whether to take him off life support.
When the plug is pulled, the room goes dark.
“We judge it by the sniffles,” said church member Mike Payne, a white doctor’s jacket and a stethoscope revealing his part.
Judgment Day
Chris’ funeral – complete with a casket, flowers and a minister who gives a eulogy – is a sad affair full of tears and tissues.
It’s also a happy occasion, however, as friends recall Chris’ life of faith.
On Judgment Day, Chris arrives to face the eternal judge, played by Robert Parks. Parks finds Chris’ name in the Lamb’s Book of Life and grants him entry to an eternity of glory behind a white curtain.
But a demon played by Rickey Custar drags Joey and Natalie behind a black curtain.
“No, please don’t send me to hell!” Natalie screams. “Give me another chance!”
Parks then reads the names of everyone on the tour and asks them to step forward for their judgment.
“It’s not your time yet,” he tells the group after reading the last name. “Unlike Joey and Natalie, you have another chance.”
Eternal reward
After experiencing hell, the tour group enters a room draped in white curtains.
As soft music wafts through the air, angels clothe each person with a white robe – a symbol of a new body after death.
A pearly gate, a blue pool and a road painted gold welcome the saved to heaven.
Dressed in white from head to toe, 6-foot-8 Tom Cotton – described by May as “our larger-than-life Jesus” – leans forward and hugs each saint.
“I am the way, the truth and the light,” says Cotton, 40, a bearded carpenter who calls playing Jesus “humbling.”
In the climactic final scene, Chris arrives to receive his reward.
“Chris, my child, welcome,” Jesus says as He reaches to embrace him.
“This is beautiful,” Chris says. “It’s more amazing than I ever imagined.”
November 21, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Tim Pyles
So glad you dug that out of your archives, Bobby. Well-written piece! It appears that the Judgement House about which you wrote at least tried to balance the horrors of hell with the joys of heaven.