Review of Jesus Camp (2006) by Edith N — 17 Dec 2009

Sometimes, There Is Such Thing as Too Young.

I've got no issue with raising your child in your faith. Or lack thereof. I went to church, to Sunday School, to summer day camp as a child. (Though to be fair, I have very scant memories of church day camp, none of them religious. Mostly I remember that Soft Batch cookies should not be eaten in 90-degree heat.) Heck, one of the reasons I know as much of the Bible as I do is that I paid attention in church--and when I wasn't, I was reading the entries in the missalette for the readings done elsewhere in the month or so it covered. Yeah, Sunday School involved a lot of colouring, but I still know more of the Bible than just about anyone else I know regardless of religious stance. So that, I have no problem with. I'll also admit that the distinction between raising your kids in the faith, whatever faith, and brainwashing is a fine one. The difference, I think, is a matter of tone. My mother encouraged me to learn everything, learn all I could, both inside and outside the Catholic tenets. Obviously, Catholicism is right, but that doesn't mean there's nothing of value anywhere else. These people are teaching their kids that anything that disagrees with their stance is wrong, and probably it's the product of Satan.

These children are being raised in the Evangelical faith. They attend a three-week summer camp every year, one with preaching and so on. One, Levi, is encouraged to preach to the other children. (He's referred to at one point as "the boy with the long hair, but he has very short hair and a very long rat tail, as we used to call it back in the '80s when it was cool.) The children are taught to mock other faiths, to mock the secular world entirely. We see one child, Rachael, reading a Chick Tract, with all its paranoia, conspiracy theory, and flawed both theology and history. The child is then called and told it's her turn for bowling, and she prays to Jesus to help her bowl. (I don't think it helps.) They hand out tracts and so forth to other people at the bowling alley. The children are shown weeping over abortion, a concept the youngest almost certainly--given the stance their parents must have about sex ed--don't understand. (It's one of the problems I'd had with my own church, actually; you don't put pictures like that on display at the family mass.) We see Levi being homeschooled. His mother says that, if she can teach as well as the schools, why shouldn't she? But what she's teaching him about science is not how science really works.

Most of the focus not on the children is on youth pastor Becky Fischer. (Who, by the way, has no right to criticize other people for being fat, though she certainly isn't lazy.) She says that liberals watch the movie and fear what these children are becoming. The thing is, though, my reaction to the children was not fear. My reaction was pity. I feel so sorry for these poor children. They are being taught one view of God and being taught that looking to any other is giving way to Satan. Rachael even says that God is only in churches where people are on their feet and being loud, that He is not in churches where people sit quietly. (I refer her to Matthew 18:20, which makes no such distinction.) It's clear from what she says, though, that she doesn't know what goes on in those churches. Levi and his mother don't know anything about the real workings of science, just enough to reject their own strawman version. During the credits, Rachael says, based on no evidence, that a trio of black men in a park are probably Muslims.

In counterpoint, we have radio host Mike Papantonio. He preaches a much less isolatory Christianity. Frankly, a less scary--yes, she's right, but not for the reason she thinks--Christianity. He speaks of separation of Church and State, of not indoctrinating children. (Fischer believes you can't choose faith later in life, a direct contradiction of the experiences of many, many devoutly religious people.) He points out that, opposite of what they say, there are actually quite a lot of religious people--people of their own particular stripe of religion--in government. (We are told, at the end, that liberalism is dead and that the majority of Americans are conservative. How liberals keep getting voted into office if this is true is not covered.) This is actually a kind of Christianity practiced by most American Christians, one of tolerance and acceptance. This is not the Christianity where you're told to have your children preach to their friends, though how they get non-Evangelical friends if they're homeschooled is also not covered.

By and large, the film does not particularly comment on these children and their beliefs; it doesn't have to. Even Fischer believes that the film makes them look bad. These are children who only know what they are told, and what they are told is scary. Not the political stuff, which I just find depressing. However, these churches are always so big on the Hellfire. True, they are also taught to love God, but it's at least in part because of the consequences if they don't. And, of course, it's very important to love God and do God's will--or what Fischer and the omnipresent Ted Haggard, hypocrite, tell them is God's will. They're told that it's "a sick old world," and they will probably see the End Times in their lives. The government is their enemy. Rachael is excited at the prospect of martyrdom. Another girl, Tory, is afraid of "dancing for the flesh" and clearly believes that there's something wrong with sex. I hope some of these children prove Fischer wrong about how you can't change your faith later in life.