Jesus Camp

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Buy This Item Jesus Camp by Magnolia  Available from Amazon  $17.99  on 11-29-2008     The feverish spectacle of a summer camp for evangelical Christian kids is the focus of <I>Jesus Camp</I>, a fascinating if sometimes alarming documentary. (Shortly after its release, the movie gained a new notoriety when Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who appears near the end of the film, resigned his post amid a male prostitute's allegations of drug use and sexual misconduct.) For most of the film, we follow a charismatic teacher, Becky Fischer, as she trains young soldiers in "God's Army" at a camp in North Dakota. Some of the kids emerge as likable and bright, and eager to continue their work as pint-sized preachers; elsewhere, the visions of children speaking in tongues and falling to the floor in ecstasy are more troubling. Even more arresting is the vision of a generation of children home-schooled to believe that the Bible is science, or Fischer's certainty that America's flawed system of democracy will someday be replaced by a theocracy. (In one scene, a cardboard cut-out of George W. Bush is presented to the children, who react by laying their hands on the figure as though in a religious procession.) Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady maintain neutrality about all this, maybe too much so (they throw in some interviews with radio host Mike Papantonio to provide a liberal-Christian viewpoint) and one would like to know more about the grown-ups presented here. Power broker Haggard is the creepiest person in the film, an insincere smooth talker whose advice to one of the young would-be campgoers comes across as entirely cynical. Time will tell whether the film's Christian soldiers will be marching onward. <I>--Robert Horton</I> Reader Reviews This film was a clever attempt to misrepresent its subjects in a diabolical way. Many of the statements and actions of the campers and leaders were taken out of context to make Evangelical Christians look like terroristic monsters ready to send their children out with bomb-belts and Bibles, and no explanations are given for the rhetoric that is used in the camp. The war rhetoric that Becky Fischer and others use is clearly understood by Evangelicals to be a spiritual war with demonic forces, but you will not hear that explanation anywhere. People are not the enemy. Satan and his demons are. And by the way, those kids are NOT praying to that cardboard cut-out of George Bush. They are praying to God to protect and bless the President. Pentecostals have a practice of laying their hands on the person for whom they are praying, and since President Bush couldn't be there, they used a cardboard cut-out as a substitute. Those who are farther away stretch their hands in the direction of the person for whom they are praying. Also keep in mind that music is a powerful tool for creating desired emotional responses. Creepy-sounding music is played when the filmmakers want you to be disturbed. When the kids start speaking in tongues, the music alerts you to be afraid, be very afraid--unless you realize that the editors are deliberately manipulating the emotional content of what the camera captured. The bottom line is this--The makers of "Jesus Camp" are as unbiased as fire is cold. They deliberately manipulated the film to cast Evangelicals in a negative light. They are dishonest people with an agenda-laden film.

Jesus Camp Available from Amazon Price: $17.99 Updated on 11-29-2008.

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