This past Saturday, The Times published a feature article entitled, "Churches try scaring people straight." Evidently some local congregations are taking advantage of the Halloween season to set up 'religious' haunted houses. One has a demon taking over as a tour guide to try to "talk people into joining his army and believing his way." While some might consider this creative, it certainly is not of God.

There is no way that unconverted people will be scared straight. The sin nature may tremble, but can only be scared to death, not life. Look at the Scriptural examples of people like Esau, Pharaoh and Felix. True righteousness is the gift of God in Christ, and is received only through the work of the Spirit in the heart by the faithful preaching of the Gospel, Romans 10:14,15. It is not something into which we can scare people.

You can show people horrid scenes of hell, and play act scenes of drive-by shootings, wrecked cars from drunken driving, etc. and send them home scared, but that will not send them to heaven. Salvation is union with the Lord Jesus Christ, seeing how God's wisdom has ordained that He die as the Substitute of His people, and how He has satisfied the righteousness of God in their behalf No playhouse, musical, drama, or film can reveal this. Only the Gospel does. Read I Corinthians 1:21.

Ironically, a "religious haunted house" whose purpose is to scare people straight, is really a tool of Satan to distract people who are already in darkness. The god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ... should shine unto them, II Corinthians 4: 4