Jesus Camp!

[Mr S]

This documentary is crazy! Shows how right wing evangelicals brainwash their kids...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Camp

Jesus Camp is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a Pentecostal/charismatic summer camp for children who spend their summers learning and practicing their "prophetic gifts" and being taught that they can "take back America for Christ."[1] According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view" and tries to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community".[2]

Jesus Camp debuted at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, and was sold by A&E Indie Films to Magnolia Pictures. Controversy surrounding the film was featured in several television news programs and print media articles in 2006 (see links below).

On January 23, 2007, Jesus Camp was nominated for the 2006 seventy-ninth Annual Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Documentary Feature.[3] It lost to Davis Guggenheim and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

Jesus Camp is about the "Kids On Fire School of Ministry," a charismatic Christian summer camp located just outside Devils Lake, North Dakota and run by Becky Fischer and her ministry, Kids in Ministry International. The camp was started in 2001, but closed after the film's release due to telephone calls, letters, and other negative reactions, as well as due to vandalism of the campground.[4] The film focuses on three children who attended the camp in the summer of 2005—Levi, Rachael, and Tory (Victoria). The film cuts between footage of the camp and a children's prayer conference held just prior to the camp at Christ Triumphant Church, a large charismatic church in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City.

All three children are already very devout Christians. Levi, who has ambitions of being a pastor, has already preached several sermons at his father's church, Rock of Ages Church in St. Robert, Missouri. He is homeschooled, with his mother explaining that God did not give her a child just so he could be raised by someone else eight hours a day. He learns science from a book that attempts to reconcile young-earth creationism with scientific principles.[5] He is also taught that global warming is a political speculation, and that the Earth's temperature has only risen by 0.6 °F. Levi preaches a sermon at the camp in which he declares that his generation is key to Jesus's return. Rachael, who also attends Levi's church (her father is assistant pastor), is seen praying over a bowling ball during a game early in the film, and frequently passes Christian tracts (including some by Jack Chick) to people she meets, telling them that Jesus loves them. She does not think highly of non-charismatic churches (or "dead churches," as she calls them), feeling they aren't "churches that God likes to go to". Tory is a member of the children's praise dance team at Christ Triumphant Church. She frequently dances to Christian heavy metal music, and feels uncomfortable about "dancing for the flesh". She also does not think highly of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, claiming that their music is mostly about "girls and boys".

At the camp, Fischer stresses the need for children to purify themselves in order to be part of the "army of God". She strongly believes that children need to be in the forefront of turning America toward conservative Christian values. She also feels that Christians need to focus on training kids since "the enemy" (Islam) is focused on training theirs. She refers to the Earth as "a sick old world" and wishes for Jesus' return, aka the Second Coming. In the preparation meetings before the camp begins, she asks other staff members how they should prepare for "demonic forces" that may be stirred up during camp services.

Fischer is shown preaching a sermon where she mentions the Harry Potter character and claims that had he existed in biblical times, he "would have been put to death". Fischer admonishes the children-- many whom are in tears-- to "clean up your act" and not be hypocritical in their actions. As several tearful children gather around her, she pours water on their hands to be "washed in the water of [God's] word."

During a rainy night at the camp, the boys tell each other ghost stories. A counselor admonishes the boys that ghost stories "do not honor God".

Various activities are held during the camp that revolve around conservative political values, ranging from the support of George W. Bush to anti-abortion sentiments. These activities include more than just adult members expressing their opinions to the children in the camp; these kids take an active part in them and fervently uphold these conservative political ideals. While the main focus of this movie is religion, the political undertones can help viewers to understand the context of the camp as a mobilization unit in terms of how they can or want to change society.

In one scene shot at Christ Triumphant Church, Lou Engle preaches a message urging children to join the fight to end abortion in America. Engle is a founder of the Justice House of Prayer and a leader of Harvest International Ministries, the religious organization with which both the church and Fischer's ministry are affiliated—an affiliation not advertised in the film. He prays for Bush to have the strength to appoint "righteous judges" who will overturn Roe v. Wade. By the end of the sermon, the children are chanting, "Righteous judges! Righteous judges!" In another scene, a woman brings a life-sized cutout of Bush to the front of the church, and has the children stretch their hands toward him in prayer. This is a derivative of laying hands, a common practice in charismatic Christian circles.

There is also a scene at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Levi and his family go on vacation to hear its now-disgraced pastor, Ted Haggard. Levi highly admires Haggard, and is thrilled to meet him. He informs Haggard that he too wants to be a pastor and has already preached sermons. Afterward, Levi, Rachael, Tory, their families and several other children take part in a Justice House of Prayer rally held by Engle in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Additionally, there is a debate between Fischer and Mike Papantonio, an attorney and a radio talk-show host for Air America Radio's Ring of Fire. Papantonio questions Fischer's motives for focusing her ministry efforts on children. Fischer explains that she does not believe that people have the freedom to choose their belief system once they pass childhood, and that it is important that they be immersed in evangelical Christian values from a young age.
[edit] DVD

The DVD, released in January 2007, includes several deleted scenes. In one of them, Levi's father and mother suggest that the next president may well have been at Kids on Fire. In another, a woman takes several of the kids to a pro-life women's clinic located next door to a Planned Parenthood clinic. In an interview, the clinic's director says that she was very pleased to see children so passionate about ending abortion.

The DVD also includes commentary by Grady and Ewing. They reveal that when they arrived in Kansas City, there was a great deal of excitement over the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. However, according to Grady and Ewing, Fischer and the others did not see their activism for socially conservative causes as political, but as a matter of faith. They also reveal that Fischer and the others did not understand why some of the scenes of them speaking in tongues and praying over objects were included in the film.
[edit] Controversy

Jesus Camp was screened at Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival against the wishes of the distribution company, Magnolia Pictures.[6] Magnolia had pulled Jesus Camp from the festival earlier in the summer after it purchased rights to the film, in a decision apparently inspired by Moore's association with the film festival, with Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles saying "I don't want the perception out in the public that this is an agenda-laden film."[7]

According to Ron Reno of Focus on the Family,

"The directors' claims that they were simply trying to create an 'objective' film about children and faith ring hollow. I don't question the motives of the Christians shown in the film. Indeed, the earnestness and zeal with which the young people pictured attempt to live out their faith are admirable. Unfortunately, however, it appears that they were unknowingly being manipulated by the directors in their effort to cast evangelical Christianity in an unflattering light."[8]

In November 2006, Fischer announced that she would be shutting down the camp indefinitely due to negative reaction towards her in the film. According to Fischer's website, the owners of the property used for the camp shown in the film were concerned about vandalism to the premises following the film's release and thus will not allow it to be used for any future camps. Fischer has said that the camp will be indefinitely postponed until other suitable premises can be found, but it will be back.[9]
[edit] Reviews and awards

Jesus Camp received an 86 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, counting 83 positive reviews vs 12 negative reviews. It received a 7.6/10 on the Internet Movie Database, reviewed by over 7,000 viewers.

Michael Smith of the Tulsa World gave the film three stars out of four, describing it as "impressive in its even-handed presentation", "straightforward" and "a revealing, unabashed look at the formation of tomorrow's army of God."

The Chicago Tribune reviewer Jessica Reaves also gave the film three stars out of four and writes that Jesus Camp is "an enlightening and frank look at what the force known as Evangelical America believes, preaches and teaches their children" and concludes that what the filmmakers "have accomplished here is remarkable—capturing the visceral humanity, desire and unflagging political will of a religious movement."[10]

David Edelstein of CBS Sunday Morning, New York, and NPR finds Jesus Camp "a frightening, infuriating, yet profoundly compassionate documentary about the indoctrination of children by the Evangelical right."[11]

Some reviewers responded negatively to the film; Rob Nelson of the Village Voice called the movie "[an] absurdly hypocritical critique of the far right's role in the escalating culture war",[12] and J.R. Jones of the Chicago Reader criticized the film for "failing to distinguish the more fundamentalist Pentecostals" and for inserting "unnecessary editorializing" by using clips from Mike Papantonio's radio show.[13]

Jesus Camp was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Documentary Feature section of the 2007 Academy Awards.[