There’s a house in our neighborhood that’s really, really decked out for Halloween. Their yard is crammed full of pumpkins and skeletons and ghosts and spiders and vampires. Their trees are draped with webbing and lights and more lights. No inch is wasted. Or spared, depending on your perspective. Like some raucous Halloween party raging in a cramped apartment.
Oh, and hosted by …. Jesus.
Yes, Jesus. A Jesus statue, to be exact.
Yup. He’s there, smack in the middle, smiling down on the hoo-dang with that benign, domesticated Jesus smile we give him. He towers over all the party ghouls, a garland of fall foliage crooked on his head, patiently ignoring the vampire lurking over his left shoulder.
I find the whole thing truly, deeply inspiring.
And so I will make my movie — my big, fat blockbuster — and I will call it …. The Nightmare Before Advent.
That’s right, Bobbo.
Hmm ….
I wonder who I should get to play Jesus.
Man, I love that. You know Jesus can be pretty effin’ scary. Especially those Catholic crucifixes with the thorns and the blood dripping down his face. (shiver)) Hey, I should mention that my comments are going under the sidebar. They weren’t doing that before. If I’ve got typos… that’s why.
Hmmm….very interesting. I’m trying to picture it all in my mind.
Missy — What browser are you using? I’m trying to get to the bottom of this problem!
For something like this, I think Willem Defoe is perfect, and he has prior experience.
T-
An article on halloween alternatives was on usatoday.com this morning. i thought the following was beyond belief:
•The House of Prayer Ellettsville Church in Bloomington, Ind., sponsors a “hell house” instead of a haunted house every Halloween. People pay $5 each — children 10 and under can’t attend — to walk from room to room. They see domestic violence, a teenage boy committing suicide and other examples of sinful conduct. Then they enter hell and are confronted by Satan before being rescued by an archangel who takes them to heaven, where Jesus awaits.
Hell houses are growing in popularity, says House of Prayer pastor Larry Mitchell. Some people vomit after seeing the harrowing scenes, but after the first night of this year’s sold-out performances, he says, 84 people “claimed first-time salvation and 20-some rededicated their lives.”
what do you think?
a.s.,
I certainly can’t speak for T (nor would I ever presume to), but there is a documentary (entitled, “Hell House”, oddly enough) on this phenomenon. It’s about the teens who “act” and “host” the Hell House every year (this particular one was from a charismatic church in the Midwest).
I took away the impression that the teenagers who “converted” after walking through the Hell House said their prayer of repentance under duress and pressure, rather than a sincere desire to know God. The way it was set up was very intimidating. I don’t remember Jesus ever intimidating anyone to follow Him anywhere in the Gospels. That’s not to say that the experience doesn’t have any positive effects, that’s just my lowly two cents.
A.S.– Yeah, I’m NOT a fan of those things at all. That’s actually putting it mildly. I hate hate hate those things. They almost seem like a form of torturing a person (visually, emotionally) to get them to confess belief.
I’m a fan of salvation through grace, not crap-your-pants fear. I actually think it’s abusive. Gross. SO gross.
I live near Lynchburg, VA – the home of Jerry Falwell. Every year his church sponsors a hell house called ScareMare. It’s one of the biggest events in Lynchburg all year. Look at the site:
http://www.scaremare.com/main.html
I’m told by those who’ve toured ScareMare that you’re supposed to sit down and get preached at after you go through. As long as I’ve lived here, I’ve never been to see it yet. I think it’s a nasty way to gain conversions but house itself might be fun in a tasteless, gruesome way.