Review of Jesus Camp (2006) by Ana A — 06 May 2010

Becky Fischer: "And while I'm on the subject, let me say something about Harry Potter. Warlocks are the enemies of God! And I don't care what kind of hero they are, they're an enemy of God and had it been in the Old Testament, Harry Potter would have been put to death!".

Crowd: "Amen!".

Becky Fischer: "You don't make heroes out of warlocks!".

He wasn't a Warlock, lady. Harry Potter is a wizard.

Anyway, 'Jesus Camp' is, honestly, an extremely fascinating documentary. If you haven't seen it, Christian or not, it is a very compelling look at how WRONG some Christian churches can get.

First of all, rating and reviewing a documentary is bit hard to do. There are two points this movie makes - One is an extremely GOOD thing, and the Second is an extremely BAD thing.

The one GOOD thing is that in the opening minutes of the film, it is made VERY CLEAR that the Christianity of the Bible is NOT the Christianity of the church being profiled. Within the opening minutes of the movie, the radio host that kind of acts as a narrator says 'I am a bible-believing Christian, and this is not the Jesus the bible talks about.' He goes on to say how Christians are NOT supposed to be these mean-spirited hateful people, but gentle, loving, and truthful.

The BAD thing is you'd think after hearing something like that, you'd get jsut a straight-up 'this is how DON'T do Christianity' movie, but unfortunately, they managed to turn it into a political, Conservative-bashing movie. You're roped into this movie thinking 'this will be an interesting look at Christianity' but what you get it 'George Bush was evil, and everyone who didn't vote Left is dangerous.'.

Anyway, this is a very well made documentary. It will send shivers up your spine, and you do feel just so bad for some of the kids.

Being a DEVOUT, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christian myself, I must say there has indeed been a disconnect between the God of the bible and the god Becky Fischer and her church is worshiping. The scary thing is... it's not even a 'cult' there. Thousands of churches across our country are just like that. It's a scary thing!

But the movie itself is well made, it makes you think, and has some great editing.

I usually like to end my reviews with another quote from the movie. I present to you one of my favorite quotes from the movie.

"Shhhenya! Dooya! Malik-Fay-Shay-Or-Suu- BLAH!".

"She's not in a trace. She's hookin' up with the spirit.".

[Speaking in tongues scene].

3/5.