The Children's Jesus Camp Story
I was fortunate (blessed?) enough to score an early copy of “Jesus Camp” from Netflix, even though it was flagged as “Long Wait.”
As I watched the movie, as I saw so many young minds being twisted, knotted, ripped, shredded and generally reconstituted into crippled mush, I could feel an emotion rising up inside me. A complex emotion, an amalgam of baser feelings. Part rage, part terror. Part indignation, part resignation. Part confusion, part resolution.
It was an emotion I had only felt once before: on the morning of October 12, 1998, when I learned Matthew Shepard had died. Which, incidentally, was also the last time I cried.
One overarching theme resonates throughout “Jesus Camp”: We truly are in a culture war. Complete with soldiers, training academies, casualties — and bloodshed.
Get your hands on a copy of this movie and watch it. Because there is one thing about which we and the theocrats agree wholeheartedly: Too much is at stake.
—
Twenty-five years ago, the novelist James Clavell was horrified to learn that his young daughter had been taught to recite, verbatim and perfectly, the Pledge of Allegiance but had no idea at all what the words “pledge” and “allegiance” actually meant. His response to the incident was a dystopic short story, set in an American classroom shortly after the United States had been conquered by some unspecified foreign power. He called it simply “The Children’s Story.” While you’re waiting for your copy of “Jesus Camp” to arrive from Netflix, take the time to read Clavell’s prescient warning.
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The Children's Story is a spectacular book. I first picked it up 5 or 6 years ago thinking it looked out of place next to Shogun. After looking at the first page, I quickly read the entire book while still standing in the aisle, then bought it.
This is a great example of why any notion that populism and campaigns for hearts and minds should not trump the principles and laws of liberty.
I've not seen it yet, but I found it interesting that while alot of more moderate Christians accused the film makers of selective editing to make things look more radical than they actually were, the evangelicals (including those appearing IN the film) thought it was a fair and accurate depiction.
I'll certainly have to pick this up. I also need to watch the HBO special about the evangelical Christian movement as well. The name escapes me at the moment.
I had run-ins with fundamentalist Christians in high school and my early years in college.
That HBO documentary is scary. Haggard et al come across looking like idiots. See also the dude in the beard singing creationist songs to kids.
So, to repeat the mantra: the only thing I ask of the religious is that they consider the depths to which religion has sunk man.
Scary stuff. To say that that stuff bastardizes the principles I was raised with is a gigantic understatement.
I think, though, that this is an examination of some extremely radical people, and not really the mainstream of even evangelical Christians.
To tether these crackpots to others who might be churchgoers or view their faith as a means of being better people is like condemning capitalism because of the Enron scandal.
I think the way to stop them is to expose them to the rest of us, religious or not, so they can be marginalized. A good bunch of those kids will throw that crap out the window once they reach puberty anyway. "I was saved when I was 5." Hogwash. My son is 4 1/2 and can't even conceptualize God.
Sometimes I think I would be less shocked to come across a Martian, than one of your American "fundamentalist Christians"!
What is it, something in the water?!
LouisC
Montreal