Jesus Camp

Not to hammer back on a old theme, one that bores poor Josh, but I just watched Jesus Camp and feel compelled to rant. Nothing is scarier to me than adults who isolate and attempt to brainwash children. Be it the SS Youth movement, the Evalangelicals in this movie, or Tom Emanski with his baseball videos. The head Reverend in the movie states that Palestinian websites have photos of five year-old children being trained to die for their cause. She was pleaing to the masses to catch up on training their children to be troops for god and the Christian way. When did leading a pious life equate into signing up for a religious war?

The people in the movie home-schooled their children in order to hammer home lessons such as; abortion is evil, Intelligent Design is the only true version of the origin of man, and oddly that global warming is a Liberal hoax. I think any time you have to isolate your children for fear of them hearing other ideas in their formative years is incredibly telling to the frailty of one's argument. Further, why teach the children to be so shortsighted about their world? Because they are going to heaven before the icecaps melt, so why worry? Why think about anyone else or future generations? It actually sounds so very un-Christian to me.

What hit me was the effect on the children. A little girl who was moved to dance and do things that other little girls do, had to remind herself that when music moved her she was not to dance for ‘flesh,’ only for Jesus. Who knew that the goofy free sprit of a little girl was really Satan’s attempt to turn her into a flesh-peddler? The girl had to chastise herself for her outburst of childhood innocence. All because she was dancing to Christian rock music!

What scares me is not the beliefs but the fanaticism to which they control and dominate these people’s lives. Worse yet, it empowers the followers to raise their children without any well-rounded exposure to society or alternative views. To be honest, anyone that passionate about anything creeps me out. Get a life and some much needed balance! Don’t move your kids to tears because they want to play and dance and feel sinful for it. Don’t teach them that all their impulses are evil and that everyone who is different than them is lost or evil too. How does that prepare them for our ever globalizing society? How does that teach tolerance and acceptance?

This movie really bothered me and worse yet I can’t even console myself by saying that this is the fringe of America. These people are in power, setting policy and defining law. To think that I was just getting over seeing Idiocracy, which mocks how only the poor and dumb are reproducing, leading this country to a moronic future. As a wise man once said, “good grief!”