October 14 movie: Jesus Camp. As alluded to in the previous post, last night Georg and I saw Jesus Camp with D. and S. As you've probably heard it's a documentary about an evangelical summer camp that indoctrinates children to be "soldiers for Jesus." The movie was actually less scary than I was expecting. I was expecting it to be like Soldiers in the Army of God which I saw a few years ago on HBO. Now that was fucking scary.
Not that Jesus Camp is all sunshine and lollipops; there are plenty of disturbing scenes. For instance a home-school mother smilingly telling her son that "science doesn't explain anything" and "creationism is the only thing that makes sense," and then making her children say a Pledge of Allegiance variation where they pledge to "the Christian flag," whatever that is, and to the Bible. Or (I think this is the worst) a scene where they drag out a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush in church, and have all the children put their hands on it and pray. I think they intended the children to pray at GWB, not to him, but it seems that the distinction would be easily lost on small children.
Of course it was disturbing to see children, sometimes quite young, be the subjects (or victims) of indoctrination techniques. Georg compared it, accurately I think, to an EST encounter group from the 70s. Except that since children are so suggestible, it doesn't require much to work them up into a highly emotional state of almost mass hypnosis.
It didn't help that one of the children in the movie looked uncannily like the little girl next door to me. The girl in the movie comes off as so sincere, so eager to please her parents by becoming the good little soldier for Jesus. Every time she was on screen I wanted to say, no, Kelsey!* Don't give that lady a Chick tract! Just be a kid! It was heartbreaking.
(*Kelsey is the name of my neighbor. I think the girl in the movie was named Rachel.)
It was almost a relief when a total hypocrite like Ted Haggard shows up in the movie. I think the high water mark for Haggard is when he meets a tween preacher who the movie has been following. He asks the boy if people like his preaching because he's a kid, or because of his "content." The boy looks confused, and Haggard helpfully tells him, "Keep doing the kid thing until you're 30, and by then, you'll have good content!"
I read on the movie website that Haggard was unhappy with how he came off in the movie. But S. mentioned having direct experience with him (saw him on a panel at a conference) and that his short appearance in the movie was very accurate.
The last thing I want to say is a point S. made. In all the preaching in the movie there was nothing about helping other people. Plenty of sobbing over plastic fetuses, but not one word about what a soldier for Christ might do for a person after they are born. No social justice, no food or clothing or shelter or visits to the sick or anything that might improve people's lives. The only outreach these kids learn is to ask people if they have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and hand them a tract. It seems to me that there were a few words in the Bible about giving to the less fortunate in this world, not just hectoring them about their place in the next world.
I have a friend who is about to go on a mission, giving up her life and her family for a whole year to work for the needy. My friend is living her faith in a concrete way. She's everything the people in Jesus Camp are not.
In his latest book, "The God Delusion", Richard Dawkins equates the indoctrination of children with religion as "child abuse". At least I was not guilty of that!
I hate to play Devils, er Christians advocate here, but the absence of positive images of Christians in this film does'nt prove much. There are countless examples of Christians doing good deeds in the name of the Lord.
Dad, that's interesting because Georg and I talked about the same thing. The lengthy scenes of working these kids up into an emotional frenzy, telling them the devil is clawing at them every time they think a "bad thought," makes you start to wonder about emotional child abuse.
Paul, I think we're in agreement here, in fact my post ends with a positive example of a Christian doing a pretty huge good deed in the name of her faith. I don't think the movie is intended to prove anything about all Christians. It just struck us that this particular group of people, despite their obsession with making Christ the focus of every moment of their lives, apparently find good works irrelevant to a Christian life.
Your point is well taken that I don't know the people in the film don't do good works, only that the film doesn't show it.
The movie is misleading just like any portrayal of a group as large and diverse as "Christians" is by necessity be misleading to some degree. Especially in a situation like this, where the specific subgroup they portray is on the fringe (a charismatic church who are shown speaking in tongues).
Although I have read that everyone in the movie except Haggard were happy with it, and found it an accurate portrayal of themselves and their beliefs.