“Each Halloween, members of the Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas, put on a haunted house. But instead of ghostly howls and skeletons in coffins, "Hell House" depicts what the Pentecostal church considers to be sins: a girl having an abortion... another taking drugs at a rave, getting raped, then killing herself... a boy committing suicide in a classroom….”A few nights ago, CNN did a segment on this. They interviewed an Hispanic girl, only 9 or 10, going in to 'Hell House': strong, back straight, looked right into the eye of the camera.
Interviewer shoves the mike at her. “What do you think you’re going to see?” he asks. “Things that will happen to me when I get older,” says the little kid.
CUT to post trip. Little girl crying. Cringes this time when guy comes at her with mike. Can't talk. Face crinkles up in a mask of fear, tears oozing out of eyes. Backs away a little from him, sways toward her mother, then sways away, not knowing where to turn; afterall, it was her mother who brought her here.
I could have cried myself.
“…In each elaborately staged scene, Satan taunts the sinner, and then drags him or her off to hell. The aim is to save souls through fear.”From a review in an Austin paper:
“A woman is bleeding to death from a botched abortion while a man suffering from AIDS is on a stretcher next to her. She asks Jesus for forgiveness; he curses the day he was born. Guess who gets to go to heaven? Another room in Hell House X features a wife who is cast out of her family after initiating an adulterous affair over the Internet. [Note that this is a woman, not a man. Wanna take bets on who have more extramarital affairs, men or women?].... After this grisly cavalcade of sin, everyone making the Hell House tour is led to a room and asked whether they want to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.”This church oughta be charged with child abuse and stripped of its license to operate.
Not to mention that they're turning my sacred holiday into a meat grinder of children.
Worse, CNN reported that the 'hell house' idea has now spread. I think they said over a thousand fundie churches now use Samhuinn to turn little girls and boys into quivering masses of fear. This shows how far they'll go to break our spirits, our power. I'm almost willing to pay for any good ideas about how we can FIGHT against this kinda pile of pus. [Could it be a thousand? How could that be. I might have gotten that number wrong. I hope I’ve gotten it wrong.]
_____
thnx to ieatmascar for the foto
Agreed and agreed! I am with you here, I don't like this sort of thing at all. =X
ReplyDelete'Course, I also believe that Sin is more tragic and sorrowful and ugly and mean than any human theatric production could possibly communicate. So I am trying to figure out why I object. It certainly isn't on grounds of tastefulness -- it's just silly to expect a "tasteful" conversation about evil (sooner try to describe a putrefied corpse without offending a weak stomach).
What I believe upsets me is what also upsets you -- emphasis on fear not love. So much fear.
So much better to turn to God out of longing, not self-horror.
And yet...there must be some point where a person realizes how truly desperate they are without God, and feels the weight of the blackness in their heart (else who would ever ask God to redeem them, if they never thought they needed redeemed?).
If, if, if a "hell house" were ever to seem right to me, it would at the least have to meet this criteria: that the actors portraying these many sins should grieve deeply over the existence of sin, over its effect on people and its power in this world, over the damage it does and the beauty that it spoils. If even one of these actors feels wrath instead of pity towards people who don't believe in Jesus, then scrap the production as a mockery of love.
I am not saying that this criteria is sufficient to ensure something good and right. It is necessary, but perhaps not sufficient (I haven't had time to think it the whole way through ;).
I would also be comforted to know that the actors recognize their own deep need, and remember that *they* were snatched from the jaws of hell by a loving shepherd. A "hell house" (ugh) should be, if anything, a tribute to the monumental saving grace of God, and a song of awestruck thanks -- to say, "I was broken, and bleeding, and would be still, if not for the blood of God."
Yet at the same time, it is no good for a Bible-believing person to pretend that people are just "victims" of sin. The Bible makes it clear that people are not only victims of sin, but are *guilty* of sin.
Therefore a person who wants to do this kind of production to communicate both the bad news about sin and the Good News about Christ, had better pray earnestly and be very responsible with the way they do it.
So yeah, that's my take.
Seeing cruelty where there should be compassion, saddens me. =( And -- not that I have the authority to apologize for other Christians, but -- I am so sorry for our frequent arrogance and anger.
And the saddest thing is that little girl who said these were the things that were going to happen to her when she got older =( If *that*'s the message coming across, something is very out of order.
These people are sick. Personally, I consider that adult entertainment and kids shouldn't be allowed in. Don't they have decency statutes there?
ReplyDeleteGood point Morgaine. "Entertainment" is the word, here; definitely "adult entertainment"; and, aren't there laws in most states against exposing children to adult entertainment? I think it's high time those laws were enforced.
ReplyDelete