This Halloween, Chicago's Salem Baptist Church wants teenagers to go straight to "hell." Admission is $7 and passengers arrive at its gates on a yellow school bus.Could you imagine a right-wing evangelical church doing this? Via Econopundit
Salem's "Nights of Terror" promises to "scare the hell out of teens" by guiding them on a half-hour tour through Hades -- or at least what passed for it in the don't-call-it-a-haunted-house set up in the church's administrative offices at 109th and Cottage Grove.
So-called hell houses have become popular over the last decade among some evangelical Christian churches that want to provide an alternative to traditional Halloween celebrations.
"YOU HAVE DIED AND GONE STRAIGHT TO HELL!" a tall man wearing a long, black, hooded cloak bellowed over a bullhorn Sunday night as the first busload of about 30 teens and a handful of parents were herded through dark corridors lined in black plastic.
The group moved from room to room, witnessing scenes depicting what the church says are the consequences of "bad decisions involving violence, sex and drugs."
In one scene, a girl was lying on a gurney where a masked man in surgical scrubs pretended to perform an abortion. A toilet was sitting nearby apparently to collect the aborted fetus.
'I thought it was very scary'
A fenced-in cell housed a few denizens of "hell," including a pedophile trolling the Internet for a young victim, a meditating Buddhist, and two mincing young men wearing body glitter who were supposed to be homosexuals.
"The jail scene were people who had recently come to hell and they were trying to explain why they didn't need to be there," said the Rev. Willie Comer, Salem's youth pastor, who also plays the role of Satan. This is the third time the church has put on the "Nights of Terror," which began Sunday and ends today at 10 p.m.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Obama Delegate and Preacher James Meeks: Christian fright house depicts abortion, gays going to Hell
The Chicago Sun-Times has a rather interesting article that appeared in October 2006.It concerns Obama friend,delegate,and preacher James Meeks: