By Jessica Reed
Jesus camp is a new documentary from Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, who filmed the 'Kids on fire summer camp', where children are 'taught to become dedicated christian soldiers in God's army'. I didn'thave a chance to see it yet the Internet-buzz around it is unmistakable. This youtube clip broadcasting extracts of the film is indeed spine-chilling, showing pastor Becky Fischer proudly admits to 'wanting to see these children 'radically laying down their lives for the Gospel'. ABC news reports that in the past decade and a half, attendance to roman and christian college is up 70 percent, as sales of chrisian music is up 300 percent. Needless to say, the camp has unflexible conservative views (pro-life, anti gay-marriage, and fierce supporter of the current US administration); their rethoric is awfully similar to Bush's infamous line 'you are either with us or against us'.
The Stranger, Seattle's independent weekly, blogged it in really simple terms:
Take a quick looky-loo at this ABC news report about the new documentary Jesus Camp—about kids being indoctrinated into Christianity. The footage here is HEE-LARIOUS! Then… HORRIFYING! Then… HEE-LARIOUS! Then it gets so HORRIFYING you’ll never think anything is HEE-LARIOUS again because you’ll kill youself.
A stern rebuttal posted by a reader quickly followed:
It is the stupefaction at, dismissal of, and mindless ridicule of these people and what they believe that will leave this country and this entire Western society crippled in the coming age. Only real, vital, and informed discourse on the topic of religion, with regard to and empathy for differing worldviews, can dismantle the inevitably ill effects of this movement.
Two ways to look at the issue indicate the same fear: indoctrination slowly takes choice away from these children. As Tony Curzon Price recently brought to our attention in this blog, maybe society as a whole could use some supermarket theory so as to 'sell them choice' - but will this ever be enough? You can see the documentary's trailer here.
Elsewhere: IMDB reviews of the movie + in openDemocracy's forums, members debate the true impact of the evangelical right on US Politics.
