Halloween means different things to different people. Some will enjoy free candy from neighbors, others will dress up just for a party, but thousands around the nation spend their Halloween screaming in a haunted house. However, the idea behind traditional haunted houses has been revamped by Churches across America. The first of these “Hell Houses” was founded in the late 1970’s by one Jerry Falwell, the house itself donning the name “Scaremare”. Now, thousands of Churches have made their own Hell Houses, all with one goal in mind. Some Pastors believed regular Church was not effective enough. Through scripts and some fake blood, they want to scare young adults into conversion. The personifications of sin in American Hell Houses are excessive and inappropriate.
Instilling fear is no way to get someone to see your point of view. It is the definition of scare tactics. Now, there is a documentary about Hell Houses simply titled “Hell House”, and it shows how one Church scared their patrons. Compared to other similar organizations, it is modest. Among the common sins addressed by Hell Houses, abortion and homosexuality are a favorite. In reality, an abortion is as simple as a needle and not walking for a few hours. These staged abortions have enough blood to make Dracula need a doggie bag. Liters of fake blood cover the set while a blond-haired innocent teen cries for the manic doctors to end the pain. They laugh in her face, while one screams they may need to amputate the poor girl’s leg. Somehow instead of teaching how abortions are immoral, or how all life is important, they make it about the girl. Depicting her physical pain comes before caring about life.
This evangelistic take on homosexual marriage is equally skewed. Suddenly the word gay becomes synonymous with “godless sodomite”, or even “Satanist”. As the curtain rises, you view a satanic figure asking two women if they swear to be freaks, and to live in a repulsive, disgusting lust for one another. They nod in agreement. Openly admitting how confused they are, and how a life without God lead them to such a terror. The act sits in the bottom of my stomach like a bitter dish that refuses to digest. Homosexuality does not equal Satanism. These Hell Houses are teaching young adults to fear gays because they have a powerful bond with the Mourning Star.
Their intentions might be as pure as the Virgin Mary, but both the ends and means are inappropriate. Targeting impressionable teens like this is not the right thing to do. Even if sitting down with them and using logical reasoning and evidence to prove an idea to them does not work, these Hell Houses are still unjustified. This is not teaching the Bible, but intolerance. You may think homosexuals, atheists and Muslims are the epitome of evil, but you have no right to attack them for just their harmless lifestyle, or beliefs.
Discussion Questions:
1. Some Hell Houses are visited by tens of thousands of people each year. They are becoming more popular, and common across the nation. Have you every visited one of these establishments? If so, what impression did it leave upon you? If not, do you possibly know someone that has attended a Hell House?
2. Can the ends really justify the means in this case? Will exaggerations brought on by bias properly educate young adults, or are those exaggerations a means of achieving another goal? Are these going to help or harm patrons?
3. Upon our research, we stumbled across videos that showed some of the graphic misinterpretations Hell Houses flaunt. These acts may be appropriate for teenagers able to make such decisions for themselves, but the cut off age for these Halloween attractions was twelve years old. Many parents took even younger children to see the show. Do you think this is an appropriate cut off age? On a more significant note, how old need a person be to be religiously independent?
I agree with the post in regard to the scare tactics used are immoral, although I do believe the church has a right to put on a performance such as this. The church is not making it mandatory for anybody to attend the Hell House, it is purely voluntary to attend a showing like this. (unless a child was forced by a parent) On that note, I do not think children the age of 12 should be attending these Hell Houses. The children are much to young to know what an abortion is or to truely know their sexualy orientation. If we lived in a society similar to the 1950's I do not believe children under the age of 18 would be permitted into these establishments, but it is a new era therefore anybody and everybody can attend. I still believe there should be a cut-off age possibly 15 or 16, at that age in development I believe kids would be able to better process what is happening and be able to seperate what is true and what is dramatized.
ReplyDeleteI definitely not agree children who are only 12 can watch the shows or get in the hell house. I know one of my friend went to hunter house, and the requirement of the age is 21. 12-year-old is too young to understand these things. Even i am 20 now, still scared and afraid of get in. Nowadays, in order to satisfied people's need and desire, some entertainment makes somehow exaggerate. I think should not over the limit. I heard some scary story is some people got psychological problem after being in an hell house. So i think people should choose whether it is fit ourselves.
ReplyDeleteYiwei(Lisa)
Well, I have to admit that I have heard of haunted houses, but I have never heard of or plan on ever going to a hell house. First of all,I agree with Lisa,12 year olds are way too young to attend. I think the over exaggerations are ridiculous and really are not achieving anything except for creating fear. The fear created of homosexuals and comparing them to Satan is completely inappropriate. Our society is working to move forward with accepting people for their differences, and the hell houses are working against it and creating more biases. The tactic of scaring people into conversion is not a good one and I really think this is just a money maker, and people should spend their money on something else.
ReplyDeleteI have never been to a Hell House, and after this description I don't think I'll be visiting one in the near future. I can't even begin to imagine how scared and confused I would be if I attended something like this at the age of twelve. I find it pretty ridiculous that Hell Houses are held in churches; to me that seems a little contradictory. I know that churches preach against homosexuality and abortion, but that doesn't mean that every Christian or church-going person agrees with that. Overall it seems as though the message the Hell Houses are portraying is more scary than persuasive and is most definitely not for someone who isn't even in high school yet.
ReplyDeleteI have not been to see a Hell House, nor do I know if any of my friends have visited any either. I believe that this measures are too far and it may scare the visiters into doing what they want and make the patrons feel like they made the right choice. I believe the cut off age should have been 16 years old and the age of religious dependance should be 18 years old. I understand why the cut off age is 12, that is the age of accountability.
ReplyDeleteI have been to haunted house many times. For me, whether haunted house is scared or not depends on psychological suggestions and number of visitors. Last Halloween, I went to a famous haunted house with my friends. They told me it was the most horrible haunted house in Columbus even in America. At first, before I went into the house, I was really nervous. However, after I found there were so many people in here, I relaxed myself and didn't think scared at all.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I do not agree about exaggerations give an appropriate meaning. But I think 12 is a good cut off age because at this age young teenagers have their decisions and discernments.
I don't agree with the use of hell houses to scare children as young as 12 into conversion. Using fear to control people certainly doesn't seem like something the church would condone, so why should it be allowed to use it for its own gain? The churches participating in these hell houses are probably making generalizations and stereotyping groups like homosexuals or Muslims, only creating more schisms and divides amongst Americans. The church should be more worried about spreading a message of peace. This message of "our way or the highway" disgusts me and honestly makes me realize the damage church and religion can do.
ReplyDeleteI also have never heard of a hell house until now. I am disgusted by it. It is turning Christianity from doing what is Christian because of love to doing what is Christian because of fear. Although no one is being forced to go to the hell houses, the church as a responsibility of what it is teaching to so many followers. There is a certain trust between the church and the people that go there. The hell house is depicting entirely wrong sceneries of abortions and teaching intolerance about homosexuals. What is even worse is that such a young child can go to these. Children need to be able to form their own opinion on issues and not be forced to have certain opinions because of fear.
ReplyDeleteMy complaint about these Hell Houses is generally the same as my complaint against preachers of organized religion in general: it's people being so passionate about their message as to be intrusive and offensive. You have every right to think and believe whatever you'd like, but when you try to push it on me when I don't want it, that's too far.
ReplyDeleteIt's most certainly, I think I can say, 'wrong' to use tactics based on the primal instinct of fear to convince people into a particular mode of thought, *especially* when it's something they may not have agreed with if they had been presented the idea objectively (as opposed to through the bloody lens of a hell-house). In this country we are usually quite careful of what content gets to kids on account of how impressionable they are, but when it comes to religious beliefs there are many instances when religious leaders and even the children's own parents take advantage of that very impressionability to influence/shape them as seen fit.
In all, choices regarding religious beliefs are as much an individuals choice as whether they like Democrats, Republicans, Coke, or Pepsi. It's time the adults acted their age and realized that.
I have never heard of hell houses before and find the whole idea to be absolutely absurd. The fact that thousands of people go every year is disgusting. The reason that our world is so twisted is because of things like this. Why can't we just accept and respect other people's choices and lifestyles? Especially when these hell houses do nothing but demonize homosexuals or pro-choice instead of using logic or reasoning to get their points of views across.
ReplyDeleteTwo weeks ago I have been to a hell house for the first time in my life. I went there with a couple of friends, basically to have fun and this is really what it turned out to be. I didn't think of any deeper senses behind what I saw there, but now that I have read te blog I remember a girl, lying there, screaming with an open stomach. This might have been suppose to show an abortion but this is not what I or any of the girls thought of at that moment. Actually this was the most disgusting part so that we didn't pay a lot of attention to it. If churches really try to convert people to Christianity by fearing them in hell houses, I believe this is not avery effective way. First, because people normally go there in groups to have fun and get ino the mood for Halloween so that as a consequence they will not think any further about what they see. And secondly, more important, I think the whole method of trying to convert them by fearing them is immoral, not the issues that hell houses try to present as immoral.
ReplyDeletePersonally I believe the end does not justify the means. There are other ways of getting your point across other than scaring people. When these people take it this far they are putting their beliefs and thoughts into them and not just presenting the facts.
ReplyDeleteAs for the cut off age to go see these Hell Houses should be 16 or 17. The things that are put into these things are too much for young minds. If a child goes and they are too young seeing those things could do more harm than good. Seeing things too soon could damage their minds and push them towards those things instead of pushing them away from them.
I did not know that Hell Houses are common across the nation, and I thought those only exist in some amusement parks, since I have never been informed about Hell Houses in the US, and I have never seen any Hell Houses in Korea. While I was talking on the phone with my friend, she said she might visit one of Hell Houses this Halloween, but I just thought she was talking about a ghost house or some kind of haunted house that I can easily find in an amusement park. I should tell her to go to Hell House and tell me her impressions.
ReplyDeleteI do not think the cut-off age, which is twelve, is appropriate, because there involves blood and brutal scenes that might disturb kid's mentality. Even I do not go into the ghost houses, that are made just for entertainment, in some amusement parks, because I cannot stand seeing bloods and artificially distorted feature like zombies. The cut-off age should definitely be higher than twelve. In my suggestion, it should be 17 or 18, when teenagers graduate a high school.
Honestly, I never know the “Hell Houses” have such kind of relation with religion until I read this blog. I have never been to the “Hell House” because it’s too scary. However, I feel if churches really want to convert people into Christians by scaring them in the “Hell Houses”, it’s unnecessary. I don’t think people will believe in god just because they get scared in the “Hell Houses”. Many of my friends who have been to the hell house before were just for fun. But they all felt disgusting about those scary things there. Except that, they didn’t have any deeper feeling about that. I think it’s a useless way to convert people into Christians by fearing them in “Hell Houses”.
ReplyDeleteAlthough haunted houses are popular across the nation, I think these haunted houses have made many improper bias. These bias may have a great impact to the children's health. In my communication 101 class, I have learnt the reason that the crime rate in teenagers are rising sharply due to the widespread media, video games and other entertainment that is against people's moral goodness. In our early age, we can not judge what is wrong and what is right. Similarly, after the small kids see haunted houses may harm the society too. When a youth sees the haunted house, it can scare him, in other words it gives him an awful impression that may change their personality. There should be new regulations that limit children to see things in different ages.
ReplyDeleteReligion is faith not being scared of punishment. People grow up with this faith and build up a stronger relationship with the God. I think is so wrong that people using God as the judge of bad behavior and try to scare people off from doing bad things. So if the parents bring their kids to see the show, there will be bad influence on kids to trust God and have a healthy relationship with God. Also everything you see in the Hell House seems to be evil. It is not a positive impression for kids to understand what religion is.
ReplyDeleteI find hell houses more offensive and perhaps laughable. I want logically arguments as to why I should change my opinion on gay marriage, abortion, or anything else. At one point my best best friend was gay, so why shouldn't he get the same "happiness" that heterosexuals do? 60% of marriage end in divorce, so I don't understand what is so sacred about them anyways. Every person is allowed their own opinion and to express and persuade others, but this I can't respect a tactic like this, which lacks any substantial evidence.
ReplyDeleteI have never been to any hell house so far. Personally, I think it is not ethnic or responsible to let minors visit those houses due to the potential damage to their psychological health, regardless the intention of educating them about Christianity. Persuading by fear is a common tool used for propaganda and those pastors utilize modern technologies to create a terrifying scene in order to exaggerate the fear of sins and preach minor to follow the orthodox beliefs. However, although it seems to be efficient and persuasive, the exaggeration of fear does not give audience enough chance to actually consider the belief by themselves because it lacks evidence and logic. Historically, exaggeration of fear has successful persuade numerous people to believe the evil ideologies, such as Anti-Semitism, and caused horrible tragedies.
ReplyDelete