Fundi Halloween

This is one of the more off-beat twists I've come across in the ongoing saga of the fundamentalist Christians' efforts to discourage celebration of Halloween. Should we maybe call it the "war on Halloween"?

Anyway, instead of trying to scare the hell out of people, they want to scare kids out of Hell. Or something like that: Playing up the 'fear' factor: Haunted house-style productions used to promote repentance, salvation by Cori Bolger Jackson Clarion-Ledger 10/27/05.

It's a few nights before the opening of the House of Destiny at First Baptist Church of Florence and dozens of amateur actors are practicing their lines.

In the basement, the Gatekeeper of Hell, portrayed by church pianist Betty Sapp, welcomes a visitor into the fiery underworld with her best high-pitched cackle.

"Well, well, well ... we've been expecting you," Sapp says. "You didn't think God would send you down here, did you? What, with all those good works you've done, you thought you'd go to heaven ..."

It is kind of frightening, isn't it?