Review of Jesus Camp (2006) by Max P — 08 Dec 2015

This documentary, Jesus Camp by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady is about three kids experience in an Evangelical Christian summer camp that is run by Becky Fischer. The camps main purpose is to help strengthen the belief of Evangelical Christian children.

The whole documentary followed and interviewed three kids who were attending the camp as well as interviewing Becky Fischer on her thoughts of her religion. Everyone who attended the camp seemed believed very strongly in what the camp was about and it showed these people as very dedicated. Throughout the film, many people such as Becky, Ted Haggard (an evangelical pastor), and Lou Engle (a religious leader), about their religious beliefs and and why they believe children are so important to their religion. Also at certain parts of the movie it would jump to Mike Papantonio, an attorney who is a radio talk show host and he answers questions that people ask him on the show. I found these scenes important because it shows a different view of the same religion as Mike is Christian, but he is not Evangelical. This was helpful because it gave me more than one view on a situation. There were also scenes the I felt made no scenes or didn't really make a point in the documentary. One example of this would be one of the multiple scenes of a road or highway and a news broadcast was read or George Bush talking. To me these scenes just feel random and out of place. This documentary helped me personally to understand that there are many different Christian groups are very different even though they all believe that Jesus is God.

The way this documentary was put together was alright as there were random scenes that made no sense and sometimes the transitions were quite abrupt. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to find out another view of Christianity or just interested in the way some people think. The idea is interesting and it did give me insight to how some Christians think but overall I would give this a 3/5.