Hell house - Definition and Overview

A hell house, also called a judgment house, is a haunted house-style attraction typically run by evangelical Christian churches or parachurch groups. These attractions are meant to depict the divine judgments that await sinners and the torments of the damned in Hell. They are typically operated in the days preceding Halloween in the United States of America.

A hell house, like a conventional haunted house attraction, is a space set aside in which actors attempt to scare patrons by frightening surprises or gruesome exhibits. Unlike the conventional haunted house attraction, the hell house depicts either occasions and effects of sin, or the fate of sinners in the afterlife. Hell houses are occasionally operated by religious denominations whose members object to the celebration of Halloween as a "pagan" holiday, or to lure people away from more conventional sorts of Halloween entertainments into a specifically evangelical environment.

The first hell house may have been created by Jerry Falwell in the late 1970s, and 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 there in 1992. 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 put on 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.

The exhibits at a hell house often have a remarkably political tone and tend to focus on those 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:

• claims that abortion is murder;
• the supposed evils of homosexuality;
• the supposed dire consequences of alcoholic beverages and other recreational drug use;
• the supposed dangers of adultery and pre-marital sex;
• the supposed dangers of occultism; and
• urban legends about Satanic ritual abuse.

Given the theology of the churches that sponsor them, hell houses typically make the claim that anyone who does not accept Jesus as their personal saviour 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 criticised for misleading potential patrons that they are a conventional Halloween attraction rather than an evangelical presentation.

See also

• Fire and brimstone

External links

• The Hell House Metro Denver Outreach 2004 (http://www.godestiny.org/hell-house.php)
• The Hell House Outreach Kit (http://www.godestiny.org/kit.php)
• Halloween hell houses and judgment houses (http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallo_he.htm) at religioustolerance.org
• Hell House (http://www.hellhousemovie.com/), a 2002 documentary motion picture about Halloween hell houses
  • NPR transcript (http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/features/2002/aug/hellhouse/) of a program about the Hell House movie.
• Halloween Hangover '98: Hell House Outreach (http://www.postfun.com/pfp/features/98/nov/hellhouse.html) at postfun.com
• Hell house kits selling nationally (http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1996/oct7/6tb87a.html) - partial Christianity Today story about Keenan Roberts's Hell House business.