Gambling, including but not limited to card games and sports wagering

Attendance at a dance other than one organized and supervised by Covenant University staff

Inappropriate dress (men): too casual, sneakers, sloppy

Inappropriate dress (women): short skirts/dresses, tight shirts/dresses, bare shoulders, bare torso, bare knees, too casual, sneakers, sloppy

**Appeals for 5-point violations should be submitted to the respective Resident Assistant within 48 hours of notification. Evidence is encouraged but not required. All appeal decisions are final.

As a child, every year when Halloween came around, while other kids wore colorful masks and red capes, old sheets with holes for eyes, while their parents shuttled them from house to house—in neighborhoods far too hilly and separated to walk—while they filled up pillowcases with chocolate and candy I’d never been allowed to touch before, my brothers and I sat around the kitchen table bowing our heads in prayer. Halloween was a satanic, sinful day, filled with temptations and overindulgence, and we prayed for the souls of the children encouraged to participate by their shameful and irresponsible parents. My parents hung up a cross on the front porch where everyone else’s plastic skeletons or light-up pumpkins would be, which scared parents and children away from the farm faster than if we offered a bowl of homemade raisins.

I’d only ever heard of Hell Houses before. When I was very young, fliers would sprinkle the doorstep of our church each year, just as much a sign of the beginning of autumn as leaves falling off the trees. My parents considered taking us once—a different way to pray and become aware of the temptations around us—but after consulting with our pastor, they decided it wasn’t a good idea. Or they were told as much. The next year, the leaflets were destroyed as soon as they hit the speckled pavement.

Covenant’s Hell House was a forty-year tradition that started when Dr. Felix Chastain, the school’s founder, president, and pastor, who insisted on being referred to by his full name and title whenever addressed publicly or privately, wanted to use the holiday as a teaching experience—a way for students to participate in and experience the college-specific temptations that could send you straight to, well, hell. When graphic posters showcasing horned red devils dripping in bedazzled blood started popping up on bulletin boards around campus, I was intrigued. I wanted to know what my parents and hometown pastor felt such vehement hatred toward; what got them heated enough to dedicate entire dinners and sermons to debunking the devilish practice.