The Catholic News Agency CNA has reported this important story just in time for the holiday conservatives call “The Great Rainbow Fentanyl Candy Handout” and that the rest of us call “Halloween”. This is what CNA had to say,
“This October some churches and ministries in the United States are once again hosting Christian versions of haunted houses, and nonbelievers and believers alike are lining up for some rather existential spine-tingling for the first time since the pandemic.
Popular among evangelical Protestant churches in the South, these “judgment houses” typically stage dramatic representations depicting what happens after people die, leaving visitors to ponder whether they themselves are headed for heaven or hell, and presumably, to act accordingly.”
I gave up on religion for the usual reasons people have for dropping the faith and because it was boring. The Church of England had no snakes, talking in tongues, faith healing, or other entertainments. And on Sunday mornings, I was resigned to the formulaic prayers and some old surpliced guy in the pulpit giving us advice on how to save our souls and get along with our neighbors. On the bright side, I was not a Catholic, so the services were mercifully short. And I loved the hymn singing.
However, if the Anglicans of yesteryear had had “judgment houses.” I might have stuck it out a bit longer. Jerry Falwell Sr. is the guy who dreamed up this rollicking good time. In 1972 he opened up the first judgment house, which he called “Scaremare”. I have to be honest. He could have done better.
He should have consulted with George Romero, who already had “Night of the Living Dead” and “Season of the Witch” under his belt — or the incomparable Alfred Hitchcock. Roman “Rosemary’s Baby” Polanski would have also been a good choice. You get the point.
CNA further reported.
“Scaremare is still going strong in Lynchburg, where the university’s campus ministry stages a production every year around Halloween that draws people from all over the region attracted by the lure of “fun-house rooms and scenes of death in order to confront people with the question ‘What happens after I die?’”
The performance does not disappoint those looking for the sort of adrenaline surge a horror movie produces. As many as 4,000 visitors a night witness gruesome death scenes including a massacre at a movie theater and a camper who is mauled by a wild animal.
According to Josh Coldren, the director of the 2022 production of Scaremare, the scenes are intended to make people think about their fears and their mortality.
“We talk about how everyone faces death, but how there is hope beyond our fears and hope beyond death, and that hope is in Jesus Christ.”
I am going to guess that many of Scaremare’s visitors either missed that or do not care. And by most measures, Scaremare is pretty tame. Other churches have pulled at all the stops
"While judgment houses can function as memento mori, efficacious reminders of the inevitability of death, some judgment houses, also known as “Hell Houses,” have become controversial for taking the idea to an extreme. Graphic scenes such as abortions, extramarital sex, and drug use are sometimes depicted along with the consequence of these actions as the sinners are shown condemned to spend eternity in hell.
Strong stuff — but there is worse on cable. Regardless, the Catholic Church takes a jaundiced view of these attempts to scare the visitor back onto the straight and narrow. And even questions their efficacy.
Sherry Weddell, the founder of the Catherine of Siena Institute, an apostolate that helps evangelize Catholic parishes to turn pew-sitters into “intentional missionary disciples” — whatever that means — warns,
“You could upset people who might otherwise have been open to attending an Advent or Christmas event at your parish or just open to a friendship with a Catholic like you.
Instead of building or strengthening bridges of trust, you could be shattering or weakening whatever trust may already exist. There are creative, positive, child and parent-friendly alternatives such as “trunk-or-treating,” costume parties, and community of light events that foster both long-standing relationships and fun.”
It sounds like a jolly good time. And the kids will not care as long as someone is handing out candy.
Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, the chief exorcist (neat job) for the Archdiocese of Washington and a psychologist and researcher at the Catholic University of America, is also dubious,
“People today are not convinced or influenced by threats of hell. The Church just really stopped doing that because it just doesn't work. You know, you can do all the hellfire and damnation sermons you want, but people just kind of yawn.
We're trying to emphasize God's love and God's mercy, which I think is much more to the point, frankly. And also more of a message that’s needed in our day. And I think that started with Pope John XXIII at Vatican II. He said, today what the message needs to be is of God's mercy and compassion and God’s love.
This is what attracts people, and this is sort of the core of our message. God loves us and God has saved us out of his love and compassion in Jesus.”
It was here — with all the chat about God being loving and compassionate — that Rosetti lost the conservative evangelicals. They have no use for that new-age, New Testament, “woke” Jesus BS. They want some of that old-time religion where an Old Testament God, with anger-management issues, sends plagues, floods the joint and murders sinners daily, and is not pleased unless people are getting smitten and stoned.
As for myself. I will just hand out candy with no strings attached or narcotics added.