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Tag: Fear of Hell

Seven Reasons People Get Saved

Bruce Gerencser 49 Comments
what must I do to be saved

Evangelicals believe all humans are born sinners, alienated from God, and in need of salvation through the merit and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus died on a Roman cross and rose from the dead three days later to save sinners from their sins. Evangelicals believe in the exclusivity of the Christian gospel; that there is one true God; that there is one true path of salvation/redemption/conversion; that it is only through Jesus Christ that sinners can have their sins forgiven; that sinners must repent of their sins and put their faith and trust in Jesus alone to be saved/converted/born again. (I recognize that what I have written above trips over all sorts of beliefs Evangelicals are fond of arguing over. My goal was to provide a general definition of what it means to be saved without dealing with the doctrines Arminians and Calvinists have been fighting about for centuries.)

Evangelicals believe that getting saved requires a supernatural act by the Christian God. No one can get saved when he or she wants to or on their own terms. It is God alone who does the saving. Granted, if you listen to Evangelical preachers long enough, you will likely conclude that your salvation is up to you; that all you need to do is walk the aisle/pray the sinner’s prayer/sign a card or one of the numerous other acts of volition these men of God say is necessary for your conversion. Quite frankly, what Evangelical preachers call the “simple gospel” is, in fact, quite confusing and contradictory. (Please see Can Anyone Really Know They Are Saved?) Every sect believes its soteriology is right; that following its plan of salvation is the only way to get saved and gain entrance into Heaven after death. Instead of spending thousands of words parsing the allegedly supernatural aspects of Christian salvation, I want to spend my time in this post delineating seven visible, verifiable reasons people get saved.

Geography

One of the most enlightening things for me as I restudied the claims of Christians was to look at a map of the world’s religions and realize that geography plays a big part in why a person worships a particular deity. I grew up in a culture where the world’s religions were neatly and precisely divided into two groups: True Christianity® and false religions. The same went for all the inhabitants of earth. Either they were saved or lost. Either they were Christians headed for Heaven or unbelievers/heathens headed for Hell. I was taught from my youth up that only a small percentage of people were True Christians®; that American Evangelicals were duty-bound to send gospel-preaching missionaries to every non-Christian people group on earth. Jesus commanded his disciples to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Billions of people did not know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Saving the world required sending missionaries to the ends of the earth. I later learned that the “ends of the earth” primarily meant cultures that spoke English and would provide missionaries with a decent standard of living. Most missionaries end up going to countries where Christianity is already firmly established. Of course, these countries didn’t have the right kind of Christianity, so it was up to Evangelical churches and their missionaries to bring True Christianity® to unsaved Christians.

Viewing a map of the world’s religions was one of those moments for me that caused me to reconsider what I thought about religion itself. The map showed me that the world’s countries had predominant religions. It also revealed to me that states and regions can have predominant religions too. I concluded that one of the reasons that most people get saved is because of where they live. The United States is a Christian nation. Is it any surprise that most of its inhabitants are Christians? It’s all about geography.

Family

Another reason people get saved is family. I became a Christian because I was born in a Christian nation to Evangelical parents who indoctrinated and conditioned me at an early age in the one true faith. I attended Evangelical churches for the first fifty years of my life. I studied for the ministry at an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) college. While there, I married the daughter of an IFB pastor. We left college and spent the next twenty-five years pastoring Evangelical churches. Much like our parents did, my wife and I indoctrinated our six children in the one true faith, passing on to them the family deity. It seems to me, then, that where I was born and who my family was were largely the reasons I became an Evangelical Christian and spent much of my adult life trying to evangelize people I deemed “lost.”

Personal Crisis 

Another reason people get saved is having a personal crisis. There’s nothing that can get your attention like a crisis. Countless Evangelicals trace their salvation back to a divorce, serious illness or debility, loss of employment, death of a spouse, death of a child, loss of their home due to fire or flood, or countless other tragedies we humans face. It should not be surprising that preachers use such crises to evangelize people. People are emotionally vulnerable and sensitive during times of loss. What they need, Evangelical preachers say, is Jesus. Jesus becomes the cure for whatever ails people. That is why many Evangelical preachers evangelize hurting people during funeral services. What better time to preach the gospel than when people are weeping and wailing over the death of a loved one? Strike while the proverbial iron is hot, right?

Addiction

Yet another reason people get saved is addiction. Drug and alcohol addiction causes all sorts of heartache and damage. Evangelical preachers tell addicts that Jesus is the only “fix” for their addictions. And sure enough, scores of addicts end up finding victory over drugs and/or alcohol through getting saved. A religion need not be true for it to provide help and value to people. (Please see Never Underestimate the Power of Jesus.) I know numerous Evangelicals who were, at one time, drunks and drug addicts. These people reached a crisis point, and, having nowhere else to turn, they turned to Jesus. I know some atheists have a hard time understanding this, but the fact remains that the dead Jesus has helped lots of people kick their habits. People really, really, really believe Jesus delivered them, and from a psychological perspective, it’s clear he has. Whatever works, right?

Fear

Dr. Larry Dixon, a former Evangelical professor of theology at Columbia International University Seminary and School of Missions in Columbia, South Carolina, said that one of the reasons he got saved was fear. In a multipart review of Dr. David Bentley Hart’s article titled, Why Do People Believe in Hell? Dixon wrote:

This is a very personal issue for me, mostly because I got saved as a result of being afraid of going to hell. If hell doesn’t exist, or if it is something quite different than Christians have believed (like, the purging flames of God universally applied), then I got saved under false pretenses.

Dixon is not alone in his admission that one of the reasons he got saved was fear. For those of us who grew up in Evangelical churches hearing sermons about God’s judgment, Hell, the Lake of Fire, and the soon return of Jesus to destroy the earth, fear was a common motivator for salvation. The Bible says in Hebrews 10:31: It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. On July 8, 1741, famed revivalist Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon titled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Edwards stated:

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

….

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up.

….

How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in the danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. Oh that you would consider it, whether you be young or old! There is reason to think, that there are many in this congregation now hearing this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity. We know not who they are, or in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have. It may be they are now at ease, and hear all these things without much disturbance, and are now flattering themselves that they are not the persons, promising themselves that they shall escape. If we knew that there was one person, and but one, in the whole congregation, that was to be the subject of this misery, what an awful thing would it be to think of! If we knew who it was, what an awful sight would it be to see such a person! How might all the rest of the congregation lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over him! But, alas! Instead of one, how many is it likely will remember this discourse in hell? And it would be a wonder, if some that are now present should not be in hell in a very short time, even before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons, that now sit here, in some seats of this meeting-house, in health, quiet and secure, should be there before tomorrow morning.

If you spend years hearing this kind of preaching, you will fear God too. Thus, it should come as no surprise that fear motivates people to repent of their sins and ask Jesus to save them.

Seeking Forgiveness

Some people get saved because they feel burdened and want/need forgiveness. Evangelicals believe that this burden is the Holy Spirit convicting people of their sins. Preachers will preach against this or that sin, causing guilty hearers to seek forgiveness. We humans are capable of causing all sorts of harm. Making things right requires us to seek the forgiveness of those we have harmed. Christians and humanists alike know the importance of forgiveness. Where they differ is from whom should they seek forgiveness. For Evangelicals, all “sinful” behavior is ultimately an affront to God, and it is his forgiveness they need. I know numerous Evangelical preachers who got caught up in all sorts of scandals. When caught, did these men of God seek to make restitution and seek the forgiveness of the people they harmed? Sadly, no. They sought God’s forgiveness, and in their minds, that’s all they needed. (See Is All Forgiven for David Hyles? and David Hyles Says, My Bad, Jesus.) The Bible says in 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Need forgiveness? Shoot a prayer to Jesus, and viola! you are forgiven. No sin is beyond God’s forgiveness. And once God forgives you:

For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.  As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 113:11,12)

The Bible speaks of our sins being cast into the depths of the seas, never to be remembered again. Go to any Evangelical church and you likely find guilty unbelievers in need of forgiveness. They have committed this or that sin, and now their lives are weighed down by guilt. The solution? Jesus. He alone can forgive them of their sins. He alone can restore their lives and give them peace. Or so Evangelical preachers say, anyway.

Searching for Meaning

Most of us desire lives that have meaning and purpose. Evangelicals believe that non-Christians have empty lives lacking meaning, purpose, and direction. No matter how many times I suggest otherwise, Evangelical zealots insist that my life is shit without Jesus. Evangelicals believe that it is Jesus and his saving grace alone that gives them lives worth living. Why, without Jesus they would kill themselves, Evangelicals have said to me. It is certainly true that we humans want lives that matter. However, meaning can be found in countless different ways. Not so, say Evangelicals. Wisdom and knowledge begin with Jesus.

Imagine then, that you are an unbeliever seeking meaning and purpose and you are invited to visit a local Evangelical church on Sunday. You have never been to church before. As you sit in the pew, you notice how committed, loving, and friendly everyone seems to be. “These people have what I am looking for,” you say to yourself. The preacher preaches a powerful sermon about grounding one’s life in Jesus. “That’s exactly what I need,” and come invitation time you walk down the well-worn aisle and get saved. According to the Bible, you have a new life in Jesus. Your old life has passed away and everything has become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Did I miss any of the visible reasons people get saved? Please share them in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Beware of Evangelical Haunted Houses

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments
halloween

I grew up in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches that believed Halloween was a Satanic holiday. I heard my pastors tell countless stories about the evils of Halloween. This was in the days when Mike Warnke traveled the land passing himself off as a former Satanist. In 1972, Warnke wrote a bestselling book titled, The Satan Seller. Warnke’s writing would lay the groundwork for later writers such as Lauren Stratford (Laurel Wilson), who wrote Satan’s Underground, and Johanna Michaelsen, who wrote The Beautiful Side of Evil. These three authors, along with radio shock jock Bob Larson, helped fuel the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. While their shticks varied, one thing they all had in common — well, besides being exposed as frauds — was their opposition to Halloween.

Many Evangelical churches believe it is important to replace evil things with good things. (Please see The Evangelical Replacement Doctrine and The Replacement Doctrine: How Evangelicals Attempt to Co-opt the “World”) In their minds, Christianity shouldn’t be all about what Christians can’t do or what they are against. As a teenager, I saw this put into practice at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. Instead of having Halloween parties or letting families decide for themselves whether Halloween was evil, the church-sponsored replacement events focused on fall or harvest. I really don’t remember much about these parties, but two highlights come to mind. One year, the event was held in the country, complete with a hayride, apple-bobbing, and trying to make out without being caught by the youth director. Several of us decided to wrap the youth director’s car with crepe paper. Cool right? Well, he didn’t take his car home that night. The automobile sat all night, and come morning, a heavy dew caused the color to leach out of the paper, ruining the car’s paint job. To this day, they are looking for the boys who committed this vandalous act. By God, I will take their names to my grave! I’m no snitch. 🙂 Another year, the church held a fall event in the church’s annex. The highlight of the night was a blindfolded trip through what was billed as Joe’s Body. We were led down lines that displayed various things that were meant to represent the various parts of Joe’s body. It was quite gross, more funny than scary.

Having come of age in an anti-Halloween environment, I refused to let my children practice Halloween – a fact that should surprise none of my readers. Not one of my six children went trick-or-treating — ever. Every year, I would remind congregants about the evils of Halloween, and without fail, church members would quietly and secretly ignore my admonitions. Unlike the pastors of my youth, I wasn’t a big proponent of replacing worldly things with Christianized versions. I took the approach that Christians were called by God to holiness; that we had a duty to stand against Satan and the world, even if it meant we did without.

chick tract halloween
Jack Chick Tract on Halloween

Some Evangelical churches have decided to reclaim Halloween for Jesus. Instead of preaching against Halloween, these churches and pastors repurpose the holiday, sponsoring hell houses, haunted houses, and other “scary” events. Some of the events have turned into huge money-makers for their sponsors. One such church is Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas. Trinity describes Hell House this way:

Hell House was first opened in October of 1991 and is a creative alternative to the traditional haunted house. It is a theatrical dramatization of real life situations. Each year over 10,000 [at $13 a pop] people walk through its doors with an ambiguous expectation.

With Hell House now entering its 29th year, we attempt to keep that ambiguity going by offering new, fresh, in-your-face scenes and ideas. This year there are 11 scenes, with the walk-through taking an estimated 45 minutes (not including waiting in line). The maze-like walk will take your group through the scenes. Each scene will give you a look into the real life “hellish” issues that some deal with everyday.

Hell House is not meant for children under the age of 13. There are guns, blood, violence, intense scenes, and disturbing images.

What this blurb doesn’t say is that Trinity uses their Hell House as a means to evangelize teenagers and adults. Scare attendees, cause them to be fearful, and then swoop in and tell them that the answer to their fears is THE GREAT PUMPKIN — also known as Jesus.  As the following one-minute videos show, Hell House is all about evangelizing impressionable, vulnerable teenagers.

Video

Video

Best I can tell, COVID put an end to Trinity’s annual Hell House.

Evangelical-operated haunted houses and similar events exist for one purpose alone: to manipulate teenagers into making decisions to ask Jesus to save them. I have long argued that Evangelical churches and pastors almost always have ulterior motives; that their friendly smiles and benign “ministries” are just pretexts for what they really want: conversion and addition to membership. It’s all about the numbers. These preachers know that more asses in the seats equals more Benjamins in the offering plates. Rare is the Evangelical pastor or church that does something with no expectation of return — either by adding to their membership or improving their image in the community.

It is for these reasons that people should avoid Evangelical-sponsored Halloween events, even if the activities seem innocuous. Most communities hold safe, fun secular Halloween activities. Why not support them, instead? Let’s not let Evangelicals steal yet another holiday! My God (Loki), they stole Christmas from Santa and Easter from the Easter Bunny, turning them into holidays about a virgin-born baby, his death thirty-three years later, and his resurrection from the dead.  Don’t let them do this to Halloween! Keep the witches in Halloween!

Other posts about Halloween

Halloween: Ten Reasons Why People Should Never, Ever Carve Pumpkins or Wear Costumes

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Eleven Reasons Why Celebrating Halloween is a Sin

Annual PSA Concerning Halloween and its Satanic Origins

Halloween is a Satanic Holiday

Fundamentalist Pastor C.H. Fisher Dishes Out the Truth About “Helliween”

Happy Halloween! by ObstacleChick

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

How Preachers Put the Fear of God into Church Attendees

Bruce Gerencser 9 Comments
fearful of god

Fear is a tool used by Evangelical preachers to manipulate and control church attendees. While many Evangelical churches are taking more of a relational approach that focuses on feel-good how-to sermons, hellfire-and-brimstone churches can still be found in virtually every American community. These kinds of churches are known for sin-hating, devil-chasing “hard” preaching. The men — women need not apply — who pastor such churches take pride in the fact that their toe-stomping sermons cause sinners and saints alike to fear God. And in some instances, not only do church attendees fear the Almighty, but they also fear the preacher.

There are two methods commonly used by preachers to cause people to fear God. First, there are various Bible verses that promote fear of God. The book of Hebrews says that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon said that the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep his commandments. The Bible also says that people should fear he who has the keys of life and death, “he” being, of course, God. Then there are also various Bible stories that remind people of what might happen if they disobey God. Preachers remind congregants that disobeying God shows that they have a lack of fear. Church members who are not regular attendees or faithful tithers are told that their disobedience reveals a heart that does not fear God. No matter the sin, according to Evangelical preachers, the root cause is a lack of fear of God. If people feared God they would do all that God commands them to do. Of course, far too many Evangelical preachers confuse their personal convictions and way of life with the laws, commands, and precepts found in the Bible. I have written several posts in the past about the long list of rules and regulations that can be found in many Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches. (Please see An Independent Baptist Hate List and The Official Independent Baptist Rulebook) These rules and regulations are little more than personal interpretations of various Bible verses. There are no verses in the Bible that prohibit many of the things that Evangelical preachers preach against, but this does not keep them from conflating personal beliefs with the teachings of the Bible. While many Evangelical churches have softened their stance on many social issues, plenty of churches still preach against “sins” such as alcohol drinking, drug use, gambling, mixed bathing, movie attendance, swearing, immodest clothing, long hair on men, pants on women, rock ‘n roll music, dancing, petting, and premarital sex. Preachers scour their Bibles looking for verses and stories that can be used to prop up their peculiar social and moral codes. Again, the main purpose is to put the fear of God into people so they will not do the things that preachers and churches consider sin.

The second method that Evangelical preachers use to promote the fear of God is the telling of personal stories that are meant to remind people of what happens when people ignore God and live in ways that show a lack of fear. Remember, people show that they rightly fear God by obeying God and the teachings of the Bible. People who attend church, yet ignore God’s commands, are treading on thin ice, and if they do not repent, God could bring judgment down upon their heads. Preachers often tell stories about former church members who ignored their preaching and stern admonitions, only to find themselves being punished or even killed by God. Years ago, I listened to a preaching tape by Calvinistic Southern Baptist evangelist Rolfe Barnard. His sermon was titled, God kills people. Will he have to kill you? The purpose of Barnard’s sermon was to provoke church members to explicitly obey the commands of God. Threatening people with death was certainly a good way to get their attention. Of course, despite all the fear-mongering, most church members remain passive attendees who throw a few shekels in the offering plate and say, great show for a buck.

Evangelists are often the best storytellers. These merchandisers of fear and judgment use unverifiable stories about people in other churches who did not fear God. With thundering voices and apocalyptic pronouncements, these men of God tell stories about people who angered God. This God made them sick, took away their jobs, killed their children, or caused them to suffer any of a number of other reversals of fortune. Instead of seeing such things as shit happens, evangelists see these things as signs of God chastising his children.

I vividly remember a revival meeting with Don Hardman in the late 1980s when the evangelist left the pulpit and came down to where the church teenagers were sitting. With a raised voice, Hardman pointed his finger at each teenager, telling them that GOD sees everything they do. He then recited a list of the typical “sins” committed by rambunctious, hormone-raging young people. By the time he was done, I could see that the teenagers were fearful. I thought, at the time, that God was using Hardman to ferret out sin and rebellion against God. I now know that the church teenagers did not fear God as much as they feared Don Hardman. Or perhaps they feared being found out. Either way, come invitation time, numerous teenagers came to the altar to pray. I suspect very little changed for these teenagers, but by coming to the altar to pray, they showed, outwardly at least, that they had received God’s and Evangelist Hardman’s message.

Many Evangelical preachers save their best fear-mongering stories for unsaved church attendees. This kind of story is used to show unsaved people what could happen to them if they put off getting saved. Every Evangelical preacher knows of people who heard the gospel and had an opportunity to be saved, yet put off their decision to another day. And before they could be saved, some sort of tragic accident happened that led to their death. Once dead, these sinners no longer had an opportunity to make things right with God. They should have feared God and taken him up on his offer of eternal salvation, but because they didn’t, they are now burning in Hell.

I wish I could say that I did not use such manipulative stories and means to get people saved, but I did. I justified it, at the time, by reminding myself that the Apostle Paul became all things to all men so that by all means he could save some. What is the harm of a psychologically manipulative story if the end result is sinners saved from the fiery pit of Hell? I employed all sorts of justifications for my use of heart-wrenching, tear-inducing stories of human tragedy, suffering, and death. Believing that I somehow had to get people’s attention, I used these stories to force people to see the brevity of life and the importance of putting their faith in Jesus Christ. Over the years, hundreds and hundreds of people came forward at invitation time, knelt at the altar, and asked Jesus to save them. Nearby, at the same altar, would be saved church members who were also doing business with God — confessing secret and not-so-secret sins.

Putting the fear of God into people is good for business. Without it, I suspect many people would not bother to attend church. Without fear and threats of judgment, most people would choose to sleep in on Sundays and enjoy a leisurely brunch before they turn on the game. I know I would have. One of the greatest joys that came with becoming an atheist was that I no longer feared God. Since God doesn’t exist, I no longer have a need to quake in my boots at the very mention of his name. Of course, Evangelicals are fond of reminding me that there is coming a day when Bruce Gerencser WILL fear God, but I am confident that when that day comes, the fear-inducing God will be AWOL. This God is little more than a tool used by preachers and churches to keep asses the pews and money in the offering plates. Remove fear from the equation, and I suspect there will be a lot more Baptists at the lake on Sunday morning.

Did you attend a church where the preacher regularly made use of fear-inducing sermon illustrations? Was his fear-mongering successful? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Beware of Evangelical Haunted Houses

Bruce Gerencser 11 Comments

halloween

I grew up in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches that believed Halloween was a Satanic holiday. I heard my pastors tell countless stories about the evils of Halloween. This was in the days when Mike Warnke traveled the land passing himself off as a former Satanist. In 1972, Warnke wrote a bestselling book titled, The Satan Seller. Warnke’s writing would lay the groundwork for later writers such as Lauren Stratford (Laurel Wilson), who wrote Satan’s Underground, and Johanna Michaelsen, who wrote The Beautiful Side of Evil. These three authors, along with radio shock-jock Bob Larson, helped fuel the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. While their shticks varied, one thing they all had in common — well, besides being exposed as frauds — is their opposition to Halloween.

Many Evangelical churches believe it is important to replace evil things with good things. (Please see The Evangelical Replacement Doctrine and The Replacement Doctrine: How Evangelicals Attempt to Co-opt the “World”) In their minds, Christianity shouldn’t be all about what Christians can’t do or what they are against. As a teenager, I saw this put into practice at Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. Instead of having Halloween parties or letting families decide for themselves whether Halloween was evil, the church-sponsored replacement events focused on fall or harvest. I really don’t remember much about these parties, but two highlights come to mind. One year, the event was held in the country, complete with a hayride, apple-bobbing, and trying to make-out without being caught by the youth director. Several of us decided to wrap the youth director’s car with crepe paper. Cool right? Well, he didn’t take his car home that night. The automobile sat all night, and come morning, a heavy dew caused the color to leach out of the paper, ruining the car’s paint job. To this day, they are looking for the boys who committed this vandalous act. By God, I will take their names to my grave! I’m no snitch. Another year, the church held a fall event in the church’s annex. The highlight of the night was a blindfolded trip through what was billed as Joe’s Body. We were led down lines that displayed various things that were meant to represent the various parts of Joe’s body. It was quite gross, more funny than scary.

Having come of age in an anti-Halloween environment, I refused to let my children practice Halloween – a fact which should surprise none of my readers. Not one of my six children went trick-or-treating — ever. Every year, I would remind congregants about the evils of Halloween, and every year, without fail, church members would quietly and secretly ignore my admonitions. Unlike the pastors of my youth, I wasn’t a big proponent of replacing worldly things with Christianized versions. I took the approach that Christians were called by God to holiness; that we had a duty to stand against Satan and the world, even if it meant we did without.

chick tract halloween
Jack Chick Tract on Halloween

Some Evangelical churches have decided to reclaim Halloween for Jesus. Instead of preaching against Halloween, these churches and pastors repurpose the holiday, sponsoring hell houses, haunted houses, and other “scary” events. Some of the events have turned into huge money makers for their sponsors. On such church is Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas. Trinity describes Hell House this way:

Hell House was first opened in October of 1991 and is a creative alternative to the traditional haunted house. It is a theatrical dramatization of real life situations. Each year over 10,000 [at $13 a pop] people walk through its doors with an ambiguous expectation.

With Hell House now entering its 29th year, we attempt to keep that ambiguity going by offering new, fresh, in-your-face scenes and ideas. This year there are 11 scenes, with the walk-through taking an estimated 45 minutes (not including waiting in line). The maze-like walk will take your group through the scenes. Each scene will give you a look into the real life “hellish” issues that some deal with everyday.

Hell House is not meant for children under the age of 13. There are guns, blood, violence, intense scenes, and disturbing images.

What this blurb doesn’t say is that Trinity uses their Hell House as a means to evangelize teenagers and adults. Scare attendees, cause them to be fearful, and then swoop in and tell them that the answer to their fears is THE GREAT PUMPKIN — also known as Jesus.  As the following one-minute videos show, Hell House is all about evangelizing impressionable, vulnerable teenagers.

Video

Video

Evangelical-operated haunted houses and similar events exist for one purpose alone: to manipulate teenagers into making a decision to ask Jesus to save them. I have long argued that Evangelical churches and pastors almost always have ulterior motives; that their friendly smiles and benign “ministries” are just pretexts for what they really want: conversion and addition to membership. It’s all about the numbers. These preachers know that more asses in the seats equals more Benjamins in the offering plates. Rare is the Evangelical pastor or church that does something with no expectation of return — either by adding to their membership or improving their image in the community.

It is for these reasons that people should avoid Evangelical-sponsored Halloween events, even if the activities seem innocuous in nature. Most communities hold safe, fun secular Halloween activities. Why not support them, instead? Let’s not let Evangelicals steal yet another holiday! My God (Loki), they stole Christmas from Santa and Easter from the Easter Bunny, turning them into holidays about a virgin-born baby, his death 33 years later, and his resurrection from the dead.  Don’t let them do this to Halloween! Keep the witches in Halloween!

Other posts about Halloween

Halloween: Ten Reasons Why People Should Never, Ever Carve Pumpkins or Wear Costumes

Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Eleven Reasons Why Celebrating Halloween is a Sin

Annual PSA Concerning Halloween and its Satanic Origins

Halloween is a Satanic Holiday

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About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

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Unbelievers and Their Fears of Hell

Bruce Gerencser 18 Comments

hell

I am often asked if I still fear going to Hell when I die. I suspect every Evangelical-Christian-turned-atheist, has had, at one time or the other, thoughts about what happens if they are wrong. If Evangelicals are right about God, Jesus, sin, salvation, and life after death, those of us who have — with full knowledge of what the Bible says — walked or run away from Christianity will surely face the eternal flames of Hell. This is where Pascal’s Wager often comes into play. Since none of us can be absolutely certain that Christianity’s teaching are false, shouldn’t we hedge our bets and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior? Of course, the same could be said for EVERY religion. If we really wanted to cover all the bases, shouldn’t we embrace every deity? All any of us can do is make rational decisions about religious belief. I have weighed Christianity, Jesus, God, and the Bible in the balances and found them wanting. Could I be wrong? Sure. But, I am 99.99% certain that I am not. And when it comes to the Evangelical version of the Christian God, I am 99.99999% certain that their God is a myth.

When Evangelicals deconvert, they often minimize the deep psychological marks left behind by their religious past. Intellectually, the notion of an eternal jail in the bowels of the earth is absurd. So is the notion of God fitting non-Christians with an eternal body that will survive endless torture in the flames of Hell (actually the Lake of Fire). And even more absurd is the belief that people who never heard of Jesus will be cast into Hell for what they SHOULD have known. Some Calvinists even think that it is possible that there will be infants in Hell. Since God played a divine sorting game before the world began — you are elect, you are not — there could be infants who are non-elect, and who are therefore condemned to go to Hell.

Rejecting the intellectual absurdities of Evangelicalism frees our minds from bondage, but deep within the recesses of our brain lie thoughts seared into our minds from years of religious indoctrination. Most Evangelicals are cradle Christians, having been born and raised in and around Evangelicalism and its way of thinking their entire lives. Teachings about God, salvation, and Hell make deep impressions on children. This is why many Evangelical churches have programs geared towards “reaching” children for Jesus. Born into sin, these lying, cheating, vile little vipers need Jesus, Evangelicals believe, so they do all they can to win people to Jesus when they are young. Fearing that their children might die before getting saved, Evangelical parents and the churches they attend often psychologically pressure children into asking Jesus into their hearts. It is not uncommon to hear of Evangelical children making professions of faith at ages as young as four or five. Both my wife and I got saved the first time at age five. Evangelicals believe if they don’t reach people when they are young, that it is increasingly likely that these people will NOT accept Jesus as their Savior. Get them when they are young and we will have them forever, the thinking goes.

Former Evangelicals then, must deal with deeply seated beliefs about Hell. Intellectually rejecting these beliefs is one thing; flushing them out of our minds is another. I left Christianity in 2008. I vividly remember nights when I would wake up terrorized with thoughts about being wrong and going to hell. (Christians told me that this was the Holy Spirit trying to get my attention.) These thoughts so bothered me that I sought out the counsel of people who were farther along the path of deconversion than I. I even talked to my counselor about  my fears of being wrong and spending eternity in hell paying for the wrong decision. Everyone told me that my thoughts were quite normal — an Evangelical hangover of sorts. It is naïve for people to think that they can spend decades (or a lifetime as I did) in Evangelicalism and then one day walk away without there being any psychological baggage. Some people can leave Evangelicalism with a single carry-on bag. Others leave with numerous suitcases. Once we are on the other side of faith, it takes time to unpack these suitcases. It is not uncommon for unbelievers to have contradictory beliefs. I know I did. It takes time to sort through these beliefs, discarding those that no longer fit our evolving worldview. Evangelicals raised in evangelistic churches are taught that becoming a Christian is an instantaneous decision. This decision is called being born again — the instantaneous moment in time when people go from lost sinners to saved saints. Deconversion is rarely that simple. While I can remember the moment when I said to myself, I am no longer a Christian, getting to that point was a long — often contradictory — process. And so it is now. I have not arrived. I am still on a journey of sorts. While I know where I have been, I don’t know where I am headed. Christianity taught me that life is all about the destination. Atheism and humanism teaches me that life here and now IS the destination and what is most important is the journey.

Thoughts about hell, for Evangelicals-turned atheists, are vestiges from their religious past. When fear of eternal damnation and punishment arise, attack them with reason. Why am I having these thoughts? Where did these thoughts come from?  Doing this strips these fears of their magical power. Keep doing this, and in time you will learn to laugh at such thoughts when they arise. And just remember as you day by day, month by month and year by year move away from your religious past, these kind of thoughts will eventually fade into the fabric of your past. Come the last Sunday in November, it will be eight years since I darkened the doors of a church. It has been years since I have had a fearful thought about hell. Writing about my past and Evangelicalism has helped to ameliorate my fears. I encourage those who have left Christianity to write about their experiences. Publicly, privately, on a blog, in a journal, regardless of the method — write. There’s something cathartic about putting feelings on paper (or on a computer screen).

I correspond with a number of people who use me as a sounding board. They know that I will never betray their confidences, so they have the freedom to share their raw feelings with me. If you need someone to “listen” to you, please write.

For those of you who long ago left Evangelicalism, how did you deal with thoughts of judgment and hell? Please share your thoughts and substitutions in the comment section.