Wednesday, November 2, 2011

House of Horrors - Religious Style

I just read this article over at Jezebel.  This brought back some bad memories of a similar event (not Halloween-related) put on for YM/YW when I was a teenager.  I can't recall if it was Stake-wide or more of a ward thing.  I am pretty sure it wasn't hosted for non-members.  I was asked to participate in some similarly gruesome scene.  We had drunk-driving accidents, drug overdoses, abortion deaths, date rapes, suicides, etc...all meant to scare kids off sin.  It was pretty horrible.  It seemed so very un-Mormon-like at the time.  Did anyone of you have the privilege of such an experience in YM/YW? Was my ward/stake a fluke?  I'm wondering if this was a Church-wide "object lesson".

6 comments:

  1. Ew. I don't remember anything like that.

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  2. I had a Bishop tell me if I drank, my son would end up an alcoholic. Not quite your like your story but similar in the old guilt and fear routine. Certainly there are perils out there, but for hellsake.

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  3. We had something like that... Not as intense sounding... It focused on drugs and drinking. They did up the makeup and special effects excellently... It seemed very real to me at the time.

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  4. Becky - It was very much ewwww!

    Will - That's weird. Very sins of the father. Not very Articles of Faith. Did you have a son at the time?

    Jen - How did you feel about it?

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  5. Freaked me out a little. And it definitely made me want to stay away from drugs and alcohol. Mostly - it was just gross, and as a super-naive 12 year old, I didn't get it.

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  6. I've never been Mormon, but "hell house"-type events were common when I was involved in evangelical Christianity. I never was in one, but even as a believer the idea of it really offended me and grossed me out. I once heard a radio spot that said, "see two homosexuals bound together forever in fire." It made me want to puke. There is a documentary called "Hell House" that shows a youth group going through the process of creating their program. It's disturbing.

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