I caught these letters to the editor in the latest issue of Newsweek Magazine. A few weeks previous they had run an article about so-called Christian Hell Houses. I am glad to see that I am not the only one to take offense.
I feel sick and sad after reading about Hell Houses in your Nov. 6 issue ("Visions of Hell"). As a small-town pastor, I cannot fathom why religious people, in the sweet name of Jesus, would drown out the truth of God's love with visions of blood and violence to frighten the searching and vulnerable into seeing God as persecutor rather than Savior. So often Christ's message is twisted into an ugly either/or formula based on human terms. Fortunately, God still brings life from death, and our salvation has more to do with his willingness than our worthiness.
Rev. Marie Duquette
Faith Lutheran Church
Baltimore, Ohio
What if next year's hell house dramas include a family-values senator beaten to death by five juveniles he enticed on the Internet, a pro-life fanatic sentenced to eternity in hell for murdering an abortion-clinic doctor and a televangelist who contracts syphilis from a male escort in the front seat of his car? It seems a shame to limit victims of the Devil to those the radical right sees as evil, while ignoring worthy candidates from its own ranks.
Philip D. Gross
Sonora, Calif.
Hell houses are nothing new to me. We had six here in Chattanooga just this year, and I wince in shame every time I hear about them. For every soul they might save, surely many more souls react with disgust and annoyance that whatever vague appeal Jesus Christ's example held has been doused in a "Carrie"-esque bloodbath. I'm left to pray that the one recent example of true Christ-like behavior—the Amish community and its inspirational response to horror and tragedy—is enough to overcome the embarrassments that are Hell Houses.
Billy Faires
Chattanooga, Tenn.
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