Episode 7: Fake Hell

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Text version of the episode:

So, another way that I’m pretty positive that the church that I grew up in was a bit over the top was, for Halloween, we weren’t allowed to celebrate Halloween. And, I can kind of understand this. Halloween is about like, witches and goblins and death and the devil, kind of, or at least that’s what they said. I can see how if you’re religious, you’re saying “no” to Halloween. Instead of Halloween, us kids got Hallelujah Night.

We’d dress up as a non-scary thing and come to church, and there’d be candy and games and bobbing for apples, and we’d spend the evening kind of soaking wet, and then we’d go home. Honestly it was a safe option, and all my friends were in church anyway so I was never mad about it.

One year, though, I distinctly remember that while there was Hallelujah Night going on, there was also “Fake Hell”. And I don’t know if they called it like “Hell-lelujah” Night? Probably not, they probably just called it Hell. It was basically like a haunted house for adults. I snuck in, because my Dad was in there, and I wanted to know what was going on. So, I poked my head in through the back door behind a curtain, and I remember seeing like adults that I knew from the church all dressed up like demons. They’d all painted themselves red or were wearing red shirts and red face paint and, I’m not sure I remember who it was but someone was dressed up like Satan - and they were all screaming and moaning and pretending to be burning alive and in pain. Basically, they wanted to simulate what Hell was like so no one would do anything bad and get sent to Hell.

What a weird, weird church.