Hell house

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For other uses of the term, see Hell house (disambiguation)

A hell house, also commonly known as a judgement house or Doom House, is a haunted house-style attraction typically run by North American fundamentalist Christian churches or parachurch groups. These attractions are meant to depict the divine judgments that await unrepentant sinners and the torments of the damned in Hell. They are typically operated in the days preceding Halloween.

A hell house, like a conventional haunted house attraction, is a space set aside in which actors attempt to frighten patrons with gruesome exhibits. Unlike the conventional haunted house attraction, the hell house focuses on occasions and effects of sin, or the fate of unrepentant sinners in the afterlife. The motivation for the event occurring during the month of October before Halloween is to take advantage of the similarities between hell houses and conventional haunted houses, as well as education of the possible effects of the celebration of Halloween.

The exhibits at a hell house often have a remarkably political tone and tend to focus on sins that are also issues of concern to the religious right in the United States. Hell houses frequently feature exhibits that are meant to depict sin and its consequences. Common examples include abortion, homosexuality, suicide, use of alcoholic beverages and other recreational drugs, adultery and pre-marital sex, occultism, and Satanic ritual abuse (the latter of which does not exist, according to the FBI).[1] Given the theology of the churches that sponsor them, hell houses typically emphasize the belief that anyone who does not accept Jesus as their personal savior is damned to Hell. However, these politically controversial sins are usually singled out for special criticism in a typical hell house. Hell houses have been criticized for misleading potential patrons that they are a conventional Halloween attraction rather than an evangelical presentation. They are also often criticized within the Christian community as being too focused on the number of conversions rather than long lasting commitments to Christianity.

1 History
2 Parodies
3 See also
4 Sources
5 External links

[edit] History

The first hell house may have been created by Jerry Falwell in the late 1970s. Similar events began in several regions during that period. More recently, the concept has been promoted by Pastor Keenan Roberts, originally of Roswell, New Mexico, who started a well-known hell house in Arvada, Colorado in 1995. Since that time, hell houses have become a regular fixture of the Halloween season. Pastor Roberts remains active in what he calls his hell house ministry by providing kits and directions to enable churches to perform their own attractions. He is now the senior pastor of Destiny Church Of The Assemblies Of God where Hell House is still performed each year in the month of October. Pastor Roberts's production is also currently playing in an Off-Broadway production in Brooklyn, New York by Les Freres Corbusier.[2]

[edit] Parodies

The Landover Baptist Church, an online, parody and fictional Baptist church, runs the non-existent "Landover Baptist Hell House" each year around Halloween [3], requiring medical waivers for all those who enter. The site maintains a floorplan and other information about the fictitious house, and includes such areas as the "Homo Room", the "Lake of Fire Dunking Booth", and the "Demoncrat Booth". At the end of the tour, "unsaved" guests are "whipped until they confess Christ", hence the reason for the medical waiver. The US Department of Health and Human Services shuts down the house each year.

The webcomic something positive includes a story arc beginning [4] in which the family patriarch visited a hell house, having been tricked into thinking he was visiting a normal haunted house. A devout Christian (with an adopted lesbian daughter), he comments on (and severely mocks) the illogical nature of the house's various scenes and the unchristian behaviour of those operating it. Eventually the people in the house tell him he cannot leave until he accepts Christ, so he sits and waits, along with a number of other people who feel angered by the displays in the hell house. The patriarch then defends Christianity against the actions of the more vocal, intolerant members of the faith.