Hell House: The Guilty Effect

Trinity Church in Cedar Hills, Texas is entering its 20th year of Hell House. If you are unfamiliar with Hell House it's worth going to at least once to get the full effect. Hell House began in Texas in the early 90's (although it's origins and variations date back to the 70's with Jerry Falwell)  as a fire and brimstone Christian haunted House. Variations of this phenomenon have sprung up across the country and have become a common fixture during Halloween. Click here for a list of Judgement Houses (they claim they are different from Hell House) near you.

Last year I wrote about my experience at a local Hell House in Murfreesboro, TN which was strikingly similar to the 2001 documentary on the Trinity Church spook house in Texas entitled Hell House. As they enter into their 20th year, this year's theme entitled The Twenty Effect, one can only imagine the horrific scenes presented by a surprisingly talented cast and crew. But after watching this year's trailer it seems like more of the same: sex, drugs, and violence.



The production value gets better every year, and their formula of replacing serial killers and ghosts with real life situations makes the fear all the more realistic. The scenes are so close to home that many in the audience may have personally experienced  the scenes they witness in a hell house. It may help to give an empathic perspective for the potential abusers and attackers in the crowd, but from what I've seen the Hell and Judgement Houses, which are presented by (and in) a church, are completely devoid of redemption and compassion for the unrepentant. The bad people continue to suffer and the good will either ascend to heaven or live a happy life. But life isn't as black and white as the producers of Hell House portray it to be, the world is indifferent and full of gray areas. The bad don't always get what they deserve, and the good don't escape from suffering. And the moral standards presented are those of the church community which doesn't come across as universal among the visiting public. This is the disconnect people experience when they walk through a hell house. And to top it all off at the end of the tour you're brought into a room and asked THE question: if you were to die today, where would you go? More often then not many are so shaken and overwhelmed by guilt that they are willing to do and say anything to secure their place in heaven. (The Hell Houses may boast about the number of converts won but I wonder how many actually stick around?)

What the church failed to do is what they were meant to do in the first place: reach out to the broken with love and understanding. To love people for who they are and not condemn them for what they've done is what Christianity is all about (or in my opinion SHOULD be about). There are many reasons why people succumb to drug use, abuse their loved ones, or commit acts of violence. It's not because they love the sin, in fact most born again tales include a heart wrenching description of how painful their previous lives were. The "sins" portrayed in Hell house are not committed from a burning desire to inflict pain on others, but an outcry of suffering on the individual AND universal level. Parading crowds in front of violent and painful scenes while delivering the message that the pain will simply stop if we trust in God is grossly neglecting the pain of the sufferers while denying their basic humanity. Victims of abuse as well as the abusers (who were probably victims themselves in childhood) need compassion, love, and understanding. The only thing hell house is good for is entertainment, except there's nothing really entertaining about watching people suffer nor subjugating the audience to relive similar experiences. I wonder if the congregants of the churches participating this year are aware how well the title Hell House fits them.