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JESUS CAMP (2006)
MADMAN DVD (region 4)
d. Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady; pr. Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady; ph. Mira Chang, Jenna Rosher; m. Force Theory; ed. Enat Sidi; cast. Pastor Becky Fisher (as herself)
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Monstrous Danger posed by the US Evangelical Religious Right
Jesus Camp is proof positive that there is much to dread from the evangelical Religious Right in contemporary America, here seen cruelly indoctrinating children in the absurd belief in Jesus Christ and the dogma of “sin”.
The Christianization of American politics in the Bush War on Terror years is the background context to this study of faith-based militant Christian child abuse: the phrase “God Bless USA” lingering like a dangerous current over the events depicted here. The desire to “reclaim America for Christ” is the insidious nonsense that motivates hypocritical evangelists throughout the country to use their power and influence to ensure that “Christian children” grow up with no hope of ever achieving true freedom of mind or any capacity for independent, rational thought.
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Evangelism and Home Schooling in an Era of Church and State Collusion
The entanglement of politics and religion, the fusion of Church and State made possible by the born-again Christian President George W. Bush, and the impact of this on the most impressionable of humans, children, is the subject of Jesus Camp, a documentary which follows three children of evangelical parents (Creationists) as they attend a camp led by a children’s minister.
The evangelical intent to bring children to God as expressed here is nothing short of criminally indictable child abuse – that it is permissible under the yoke of “religious freedom” is an abhorrent indictment of American society and an education system that allows home-schooling. The spectacle of children mouthing inane gibberish in the delusion that they are speaking in tongues in the way of their elders is frightening to watch, especially since it is clear that these children have no comprehension of the issues underlying this religious charade and are merely aping the militancy of those who indoctrinate them in the most vile and pernicious Christian trash.
Pentecostal children’s minister Becky Fisher emerges in this film a monstrous woman, a child abusing, deluded charlatan whose cretinous insensitivity to the need for reason as a dominant force in children’s education makes her criminally liable, if not (alas) indictable, for her influence over young minds – and woe the home-schooling parents who entrust their children to this “teacher”. And especially telling is Fisher’s belief that American Christianity has been ennobled by President Bush, whose open declarations of faith in God she takes as the incentive to brainwash children into being ready to lay down their lives for the gospel just as her Islamic enemies train their children for Holy War in the name of Islam. And, as a radio commentator – a Christian voice in opposition to the evangelicals – points out: President Bush advocates that Creationism be taught in school.
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The Indoctrination of "Christian Children"
The spectacle of these “Christian” children being indoctrinated in war-like drivel is truly pitiful – a pre-teen boy saying that he was saved when he was 5 because he wanted more out of life – especially as these children have no real understanding of the mind-control that is being exerted over them and accept it uncritically.
And worse still is what the film explores as dear to the heart of the evangelical movement – home schooling – for it is here that Creationism is allowed to be indoctrinated as the only possible answer by Christian parents who refuse to allow their children a meaningful choice, let alone the ability to decide for themselves. But it is in showing this “shepherding” of children to a theist belief that Jesus Camp exposes not only the narrow-minded ignorance of the evangelical movement in contemporary America but the dangerous madness of it.
But the real abomination is the indoctrination of the belief in “sin”: telling children before school age that the Devil is out to get them, Pastor Becky urges them to reform their ways lest they be hypocritical in the eyes of the Lord. Although these children seem to accept this nonsense, it is clear that they have been brainwashed (a 9 year old believing in Hell) – and in interviews with these kids, it is clear that there is no hope for them. Revealing the circumstances in which these children are indoctrinated is fascinating, but it is by giving these children the opportunity to speak for themselves that the horror here emerges: these children have lost all individuality. The belief in God indoctrinated into them has robbed them of their individual will, their choice and has in effect robbed them of their innate human rights, all in the name of the “saviour” Jesus Christ.
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Christian Evangelism, Ignorance and Child Abuse in the Name of Religious Freedom
Ignorance prevails amongst the evangelicals depicted here, who entrust their children to charlatans. What Jesus Camp reveals is child abuse.
That the most powerful “land of the free” tolerates this religious indoctrination of children by perverted, deluded adults who wish no separation between Church and State makes a mockery of the US Constitution. Ultimately though, the terrifying vision presented in Jesus Camp is the America maesuse possible by the fusion of Church and State in American politics that is ultimately the legacy of the George Bush War on Terror era. That is the real totalitarian agenda of the evangelicals – the take over of American politics by fundamentalists courted by Karl Rove and George Bush. But Bible camps are simply a part of the bigger picture of the evangelical movement, much of which is centred on the “mega-church” phenomenon.
As Jesus Camp moves onto documenting the activity within a mega church in Colorado Springs (which has the highest concentration of such in the USA), the viewer gets to see minister Ted Haggard, who gets to meet the President once a week and who was later revealed to have paid a gay male escort for sex over several years just as he condemned homosexuality from the pulpit. That this uber-hypocrite represents the public face of the evangelical Christian movement to the point of being a consultant and advisor to the President of the United States is as clear a reflection on the country’s acceptance of this religion into politics. Ultimately though, the realization that these children will grow up just like their parents and vote the same way is enough to remove any view of the United States as a nation worthy of the international stewardship demanded of a superpower.
Yet despite revealing this monstrous underpinning of the Religious Right, Jesus Camp itself is a surprisingly no-judgmental documentary.
It manages both outrage at what these people are capable of and yet sympathy with their right to believe as they do. This makes for a spellbinding documentary exploring the extent to which faith-based America is ensuring its continuance in a secularized world and indeed, through the election of George W. Bush, pushing to bring Christianity into this secularized political scene. Although the material here is objectively disclosed in the manner of the best impartial documentary-making, it is in the greater implications for America’s future that the dread and outrage emerges.
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