You celebrating a guilt-free Halloween this weekend?
Lucky you. According to a recent poll by Lifeway, just a full fifth of the American population — about 21% — won’t celebrate Halloween at all.
It’s mostly due to Christianity. Yeah, there’s the occasional nonreligious person who wants to stay out of all the hullabaloo — according to the poll, about 11% of nonreligious people want to avoid Halloween (while about 75% are pretty goddamn enthusiastic about the deal). But for the most part, it’s Christians.
23% of Christians say they plan on avoiding the holiday completely, what with the demons, and witches, and all.
I know, I know. The poll does say that 45% of Evangelicals and 71% of Catholics think Halloween is “all in good fun.” Which is interesting, considering how many of them believe the ghosts and goblins of the Bible are real.
But still… 28% of Evangelicals think Halloween is a thoroughly bad idea. And only 54% of the Christian population is comfortable celebrating the date without any reservations.
Then there’s the other group. That group that will celebrate Halloween…but without its “pagan elements.” This group makes up 14% of the population (and, combined with those who won’t celebrate the day at all, that’s a total of 35%, or about a third of America). Unsurprisingly, Evangelicals make up the majority of this group — 23% of them will avoid the pagan elements of the holiday.
How do you do that, you ask?
Oh, they have zinger ideas. One was this thing called Jesusween. Yeah. Clever. Here is their website — the brilliant idea was to hand out tracts and Bibles and preach the good news on Halloween. You can tell they thought it was gonna be huge — but in spite of the catchy name, the articles on the site are all dated 2012. They have a Facebook page — but it hasn’t updated since March 11, 2015. So…yeah. It’s still functional, but things are fizzling out.
I wonder why. I can’t imagine what people would rather do than take a tract or Bible and listen to the gospel on Halloween. “Jesusween.” Seems like a rather…small affair now. This “ween” wasn’t quite as big of a deal as they thought it was…ah, well.
However, there’s a booming business in having kid-friendly alternatives to this event that don’t go out to evangelize but seem to “keep it in the family” a bit more. Several churches have an event that’s fun for kids — with rides, games, food, the works — and slyly sneak a tract into a kid’s candy bag or something. The strategy is simple — get the parents through the kids. Bell Shoals Church is one example of many:
For Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Fla., Halloween is an opportunity to let its community know it is a family place, said Debbie Weisemann, the church’s minister of guest services, prayer and community outreach.
“It’s a strong outreach for us because it’s good at getting the community in,” she said.
The alternative event at Bell Shoals is done as a Trunk or Treat featuring classic cars such as Chevys from the ’50s and ’80s and Cadillacs from the ’80s for the dads, as well as bounce houses and games for the kids.
Every candy bag a child receives contains a “Light up the Night” evangelism tract, which Weisemann described as a great opportunity for them to know the Gospel.
Last year, Bells Shoals had a turnout of about 1,500 kids and parents.
“We’re finding, at Bell Shoals, that people drift away from church as they get older. But when they have children they feel the need to come back to church,” Weisemann said.
A bit smarter to have the people come to you, rather than you going to them.
But what do they do if you really want to put the scary element in Halloween?
Oh, they have something scarier, arguably, than your everyday Haunted Houses. No, really.
Hell houses!
Here’s a description of one in Alabama that’s open right now:
Visitors are taken through an emotionally charged journey that climaxes with the dramatized death of two teens, killed at the hands of an armed robber. The teens are then judged in the afterlife, either rewarded with a trip to heaven or thrown into the fiery pits of hell.
“There’s so many people that won’t go to a church because of all the hypocrisy and whatnot.” Says Heath Aderholt, Youth Pastor at Cottage Hill and head organizer of Judgment Day. “This is a good way to reach all of those people.”
So, this is what you’re going to do — Entice people who are disgusted with the church’s hypocrisy and show how the Christians are going to hell and you’re going to heaven because Gawd, and do it as vividly as you possibly can? Genius!
How comforting. What a perfect place to take a bunch of pre-teen girls from a shelter for abused women and girls.
No, I don’t just have a warped imagination. Because that actually happened, in the same story:
Each group has a guide, who takes them through a drama playing out over a series of rooms, answering questions, and explaining the plot line.
I was placed in the first group of the evening: consisting of several pre-teen girls from a shelter for abused women and girls.
The action starts with a mother and two teen daughters doing homework at a dinner table.
The older of the two girls is complaining to her mother that her boyfriend does not want to come to church. The mother tells her that she ought to be persistent about asking him.
The young couple is then depicted at a meeting in the park after church (with mother’s permission). After the boyfriend rebuffs her request once again to attend church, a loud, hooded robber emerges from the darkness demanding money. The boyfriend refuses and the robber shoots both of them to death.
This is the first time the girls in my group started to scream and sob….
How heartwarming. But wait, there’s more.
Later, in the so-called judgment room, visitors are asked to fill out an information card with their name, age, address, and home church. It’s from these cards that an actor playing God reads the name of those in the group and tells each in turn that their name is not in the Book of Life, condemning them to hell.
In the room depicting hell, visitors are confronted by the devil and his minions. An actor speaks through a voice modulator and chides the group for their wicked ways.
The girls weep and comfort one another in the darkened corridor that leads us to heaven.
And then the happy ending:
We are shepherded down a flight of stairs and into the “counseling” part of the experience.
It is here that a member of the church asks the members of the group if, given their ordeal, they would like to be saved. According to Aderholt, of the just over 1000 people who go through Judgment day each year, between 100 and 120 are saved.
All of the girls in the abused shelter group elected to be saved that night.
And that was just one group, picked at random. If you live in Pleasant Grove, Alabama, you can still visit! It’s open tomorrow night from 6-9pm, right in your local Cottage Hill Baptist Church.
So much better than regular Halloween, isn’t it? Maybe even scarier, you think?
And if you want to go to one, they’re all over the country. There’s even a company called “Judgement House” with the tagline “Tour Your Final Destination” that has a chain of these, um…attractions. On their website, they talk about how 10% of those who go in come out making “first-time professions of faith” after seeing the prospect of them burning in hell. Praise God.
These judgment houses are now all across the nation. The nearest one to me is down in Corpus Cristi, at Bethel Temple Assembly of God Church, a good couple hours away or so, but check it out — there might be one for you!
OK. As excited as I know you must be, I gotta come out and say something here. It is absolutely and thoroughly disgusting that people are taking advantage of Halloween to brainwash people — even pre-teen girls from abuse shelters — to be terrified to death of hell so that they are coerced into being fundamentalists for life.
Anyways…yeah. That’s what those not celebrating or otherwise avoiding Halloween may be into.
Not your style? There’s another option here. Like going to a haunted house, seeing a scary movie, and going to a costume party. You could do that, too.
Just sayin’.
Thanks for reading.