Jesus Camp Film
Yet another film helping reinforce opinion and stereotypes of Christians and the sub-culture?Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's Jesus Camp film might raise some eyebrows when it releases.
"A growing number of Evangelical Christians believe there is a revival underway in America that requires Christian youth to assume leadership roles in advocating the causes of their religious movement. Jesus Camp follows a group of young children to Pastor Becky Fischer's 'Kids on Fire Summer Camp', where kids are taught to become dedicated Christian soldiers in God's army and are schooled in how to take back America for Christ. The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future."
Read a review HERE.
posted by go to www.chadjarnagin.com at 8/22/2006
4 Comments:
Oh, my. I don't know what to think about this.
This kind of film will probably fuel everything that hinders western evangelicals. Epecially since it is following something real.
What doesn't God just not allow people to use His name for things that make HIM out to be what He is NOT?
Dale Anderson
Dale- Why doesn't God....? Well, only He knows.
Through out history His followers have been people of fault and failings. My guess would that He IS bigger than stupid things that make US look more strange than it does HIM.
I will be looking at the film when it comes out. Should be interesting.
Word
Chad
Looks like an interesting film, very interesting subject matter.
It's sort of strange, though -- I read what the film had to say about itself on the website, read David Byrne's take on it, and watched the film clips on the website, and I felt like I was watching three different things.
What I mean by that -- David Byrne's review makes it sound like these kids are being indoctrinated at some sort of Nazi brainwashing camp for right-wing politicians.
The web site speaks of the right-wing political movement that is intimately tied to all this "scary Evangelical Movement" stuff.
And the film clips, though they may not be representative of the actual contents of the entire film, didn't speak at all about politics, but were simply a woman who was saying she was passionate about getting young people to be as serious about living for Jesus as people in the Middle East are about Islam and Judaism, in other words willing to lay their lives down for what they believe. Of course her speaking is overlayed by images of some sort of spooky-looking Charismatic church service with people laying hands on one another and praying, and other kids flopping around on the floor, apparently "slain in the Spirit" (I know that's what it's called, because the first church I went to after becoming a Christian was Charismatic, heh).
And then you've got the 10 year-old girl who seems pretty typical for her age, but she likes Christian music instead of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, and says she wants what she does to be for the Lord and not for her flesh.
So, I guess some of the questions raised could be -- is it really honest-to-goodness Christ followers, trying sincerely to serve Jesus from a sincere heart, who are being made fun of, or are these really the stereotypical white Republican right-wing patriotic bumper-sticker Christians who are such easy fodder for this sort of film?
And is the hip new left-wing seeker-friendly emergent Starbucks crowd laughing along with everyone else here, and are they the real Christians while these in the film are the fake ones?
Or are all these distinctions artificial, superficial, and hurtful? And are my comments too long, and do I ask too many questions? :-)
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