Helloween is Almost Here

Here in the northern hemisphere, the colorful, falling leaves of late October remind fundogelicals to put on their holy underwear armor and fight the forces that corrupt our culture every year with the wickedest holiday of all – Halloween! Offhand, I can think of three tactics that fundies employ to protest this evil evening.

1. Some people refuse to participate in any Halloween events at all. They don’t dress in costumes and they don’t distribute treats to neighborhood children. They either lock their doors, turn off their lights and pretend they’re not home, or they arrange to be somewhere else (such as church – I kid you not) on Halloween night. They also refuse to let their children participate, even going so far as to keep them home from school, lest the little tykes be tainted or tempted by Halloween festivities in those secular (read: sinful) environs.

2. Some churches launch a counteroffensive in the form of Hell Houses. Rather than corrupting children’s minds with the obviously fake, fun and funny “terrifying” sights and sounds of Haunted Houses, fundogelical churches opt to – literally, they hope – scare the hell out of kids with their own twisted spectacles of horror.

Hell Houses are a relatively new evangelistic technique used by many hundreds of fundamentalist and other evangelical churches in North America. One intent is to proselytize the unsaved public. Another is to promote certain conservative Christian beliefs, such as:

• That abortions kill human persons;
• That sexual orientation is a matter of choice, is changeable, and that God hates same-sex behavior;
• That everyone who is not saved will go to Hell when they die. They will then be eternally tortured without any hope of mercy or release;
• That underground Satanic cults engage in widespread sacrifice of humans.

Some hell houses are disguised to resemble conventional secular haunted houses. The customer only realizes that they have a religious theme after they have bought their ticket and gone part of the way through the scenes.

Typical scenes are:

• A phoney reenactment of the murder of Cassie Bernall, a teenager victim at the Columbine High School in 1999-APR. She was allegedly asked whether she believed in God, answered yes, and was murdered on the spot. The incident never happened. But the story has taken on a life of its own. She is frequently referred to in conservative Christian magazines, books, and radio programs as a Christian martyr.
• A person being sacrificed during a Satanic ritual. The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) web site warned of Wiccan rituals and stated “… evidence persists that some Satanists and voodoo groups offer sacrifices — usual animals, but, possibly, human babies” at this time. Satanic Ritual Abuse was a widespread hoax that was commonly believed during the 1980s and early 1990s.
• Women undergoing very bloody late-term abortions, complete with screaming, lots of blood, and particularly insensitive, uncaring health providers. Some of these scenes have been partly abandoned in recent years in favor of a portrayal of guilt and depression arising from Post Abortion Syndrome.
• Gays and lesbians being tortured in hell for all eternity because of their same-sex behavior while they were alive on earth.
• The dangers of “dabbling” in the occult and becoming demon possessed.
• Personal tragedies arising from pre-marital sex.
• Disastrous tragedies and loss of life resulting from drunk driving.
• A man having an argument with his wife and is later seduced by his secretary.
• Witches pressuring a depressed teen to murder his fellow students.
• A 9/11 ground zero scene.

Look at the bright side. Once Halloween is over, the Fundie PR machine automatically switches over from the Scare the Hell Out of Kids message to the Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men message. We and our children just have to get through one more week with our wits intact. We can do it!

3. Some people skip the expense and bother of Hell Houses and just tell kids straight up that, if they celebrate Halloween, they’ll go to Hell. That message, which was circulated in the UK recently, is more direct than this one, which I saw this morning:

The sign is not about Halloween, but its message is compatible with Hell House pageants and You’re Going to Hell flyers.

Churches! They steal sheep from each other so that they, rather than their competitors, can have the privilege of scaring them senseless. In the meantime, I’m sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out whether this stuff is sordid or sidesplitting. Right now, I’m thinking it’s a little bit of both.

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UPDATE: A good old-fashioned book burning may be tactic #4, if it’s not a POE. Does anyone know if this is serious? The holy rollers at Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina, will counter Halloween’s evil effects by burning lots of non-King James Version Bibles, as well as “Satan’s music,” and “Satan’s books,” which were written by heretics like Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Charles Swindoll, James Dobson…. On the one hand, this smells like a POE, but, on the other hand, the church’s belief statements look like true-blue, far-right, wacko Christian fundamentalism, minus snake-handling and poison kool-aid (as far as I can tell).

– the chaplain

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