Fire and brimstone and fun!

I can't quite get my head around this article in the Post today about evangelical Christian haunted houses. All at once, I'm disgusted (though not really surprised) and impressed at how, yet again, the far right turns something that it objects to into a recruitment tool. Kids are going to go to haunted houses anyway, so why not make one that has a message that Jesus will save you from what you're scared of? I actually find myself admiring it somewhat.

Roberts, 39, said he spreads a message of God's love most of the year. But he said Hell House and other variations on the theme work -- especially for teenagers raised on violent movies and video games. About 13,000 people have been converted at Hell Houses, he said.

It makes you wonder what's next...a boy who goes to wizard school only to realize that God's power is stronger than any spells? Christian porn? Celebrate Ramadan...with Jesus!

That said, some of the messages carry the sorts of prejudices that you'd expect from the evangelicals:

Perhaps the most extreme incarnation is Hell House, a morality play featuring a gay man dying of AIDS, a lesbian suicide, drunken driving and a botched abortion -- and the reeking, fiery hell that is the consequence of such sins...

I guess I can get behind the drunk driving part of it, but I'm a little confused by the "botched abortion". Does this mean that successful abortions are okay? Maybe this is just poor writing. Or maybe I'm just trying to make a joke. You never can tell.

On a slightly separate note, I almost wanted to laugh when I heard of a play put on by a Baptist Church as part of a "scare house":

The play told the story of a schoolteacher who shares her faith with her students just before being killed in a terrorist attack. Students who mocked her message descend to hell, where demons sit around a table and laugh about "how they've been effective at things like getting prayer out of the schools . . . and terrorism attacks," said Allen Waldrep, the outreach missions pastor at the church.

I would be lying if I said that I didn't feel at least nervous about future terrorist attacks, and I'm sure that one is coming at some point in the future. But it amazes me somewhat to think that, after a single successful coordinated attack in this country (does anyone really include Oklahoma City when they think of what Homeland Security is "protecting" us from?), the fear of being killed in a terrorist attack is so ingrained that it's even a fear of people in rural American and is being presented in this case as something so run-of-the-mill that It Could Happen To Your Teacher!!

I guess you never really know. Which is why we should all make sure that we're going to Heaven by hating homosexuals and people who botch abortions just in case terrorists have their eye on the Wal-Mart. Or did I read that wrong?