QAA Podcast - Premium Episode 149: Hell Houses (Sample)

Episode Date: November 27, 2021

Revivalist Christian haunted houses — their history, their spread and the horrible morality plays at their core. Plus a new story from Jake entitled 'Q House'. Subscribe for $5 a month to get a full extra episode of QAA every week: http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous Episode music by Hasufel (https://hasufel.bandcamp.com) & Patrick Cosmos (https://patrickcosmos.bandcamp.com) Merch / Join the Discord Community / Find the Lost Episodes / Etc: http://qanonanonymous.com

What's up QAA listeners? The fun games have begun. I found a way to connect to the internet. I'm sorry, boy. Welcome, listener, to Premium Chapter 149 of the Q&Nan anonymous podcast, The Hellhouse episode. As always, we are your host, Jake Rockatansky, Julian Field, and Travis View. This week, we are going to hell. Specifically, hell houses, a form of Christian haunted houses that pop up every year around November across the United States.

There, we will confront the real horrors of sin as defined by a group of Pentecostalists, which of course include homosexuality, drug use, abortion, and many other unpleasant satanic practices. Hopefully, your visit to this podcast episode will shed some life. on the history of Hellhouses as a cultural phenomenon and the incredibly dramatic scenes they include. After this, I have prepared a story about a very special kind of Hell House, one where you learn to fear the nefarious adrenachrome drinking cabal. Jesus may be able to save you from sin, but can he save you from Gitmo? Find out.

Hellhouse History In 1972, Reverend Jerry Falwell organized what he called a Scaremare with his Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. Now seen as the ancestor of Hellhouses, the Scare Mayor continues to be put on every year except the last two, which according to their website is due to, quote, the high transmission rate of COVID-19 in our area. The website describes the experience like this. Scaremare presents fun house rooms and scenes of death in order to confront people with the question,

What happens after I die? Groups of people experience a 40-minute journey, passing through creepy trails, dark woods, and eventually entering the house. At the end of the experience, visitors are presented with an answer to this question and given the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. Approximately 26,000 people have made decisions for Christ over the past two decades, Ironically, this house of death points to the way of life. So it's like a chick-track come to life, basically. Chick-track the ride.

The idea for Scaremare apparently stemmed from Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion, which first went into operation in 1969, just three years before Falwell's first event. According to Academic and Pellegrini, the rise of these Christian haunted houses, now known as Hellhouses or Judgment Houses or a plethora of other names, was intended to, quote, combine secular culture and Christianity to extend a Christian message. She explains the thinking behind this. Quote, sometimes you have to traffic with the devil to do the Lord's work.

Engagement with popular culture provided an idiom and effective style that could transcend denominational divisions within Protestantism and compete for takers within an increasingly commercialized public square. Pellegrini traces hellhouses back to 18th century revivalist George Whitefield, who engaged in elaborate self-dramatized sermons on theatrical stages, in London and the United States, using the acting skills he had developed in his youth to bring the message of God to more secular audiences. Combining theater and entertainment with revivalist Christianity came to be a hallmark of American evangelism. Figures like Ted Haggard, Jim Baker,

and Jerry Falwell were all obviously well-versed in this practice. And just like its spiritual forebears, hellhouses proved useful to convert or recommit attendees, but also to make some sweet, sweet money. Designed in the image of secular entertainment products, they charged attendees a fee for entry and quickly became lucrative fundraising vectors for the communities putting them on. And nobody did it better than Pastor Keenan Roberts of New Destiny Church. When he got wind of the concept, Roberts immediately started up his own Hellhouse in 1995 at the time for the Abundant Life Christian Center in Arvada, Colorado. Anne Pellegrini describes him in her 2007 paper, signaling through flames, Hellhouse performance and structures of religious feeling.

Pastor Keenan is a charismatic man whose easy laugh and gift of story belie in intensity of purpose. He went to college on a basketball scholarship and, at 6'5, he is a towering physical presence. You must have made quite an impression as a demon guide, a role he played every Hellhouse season until 2006, when he decided to take a year off from acting in the production. He himself describes his demon guide performance as the best, somehow I have no reason to doubt him. He, quote, had a great time doing it, he says. Being big was fun.

Within a year, Robert Keenan started selling Hellhouse Outreach kits. These now cost over $300, but in 1996, a Christianity Today article detailed what you got for your money. The 500-member church is selling Hellhouse kits for $149. Biers get a 263-page manual, a video of the Denver Hell House, and a tape or compact disc with sound effects. The manual includes everything from a script to prop advice, including, quote, do your very best to buy or purchase a meat product that will resemble as much as possible pieces of a baby that are being placed in the glass bowl for all to see. That's, it's just such a good note. Here's the sale pitch as of 2006 on the New Destiny Christian Center website. Shake your city with the most in-your-face high-flying, no-denying, death-defying, Satan be crying, keep you from frying, theatrical styling, no-holds-barred, cutting-edge evangelism tool of the new millennium.

Being utilized to preach the gospel from coast to coast and around the world, hundreds of kits are equipping churches and ministries on the front lines of spiritual battle in virtually every state and 18 foreign countries and counting. And it's available today for your church or ministry. Several years ago, the world watched and the media was shocked as a church began to take an uncompromising stand on the red-hot issues facing our culture today. Piece by piece, prop by prop, costume by costume, the master plan is organized in a comprehensive manual, a video of what Hellhouse in action looks like, and a special effects compact disc audio

master are also included. This sizzling evangelism event is designed to capture the attention of our sight and sound culture. You have been listening to a sample of a premium episode of QAnon Anonymous. We don't run any advertising on the show, and we'd like to keep it that way. For five bucks a month, access to this episode, a new one each week, and our entire library of premium episodes. So head on over to patreon.com slash QAnonanonymous and subscribe. Thank you. Thanks. I love you.

Jake loves you.