Jesus Camp

There are some things I won't forget - the documentary Jesus Camp is one of them. The film examines through as unbiased-as-possible eyes the unbelievable world of the fundamentalist Christian Evangelical; more importantly, how they go about spreading their faith: indoctrinating impressionable children.

No doubt nearly every child is exposed to and taught religious doctrine at very young ages. But rarely are their fragile emotions and impressionable minds taken advantage of to such great extents; such is the case when the fundamentalists teach their children the ways of God. A good example of their tactics is when Becky Fischer, the camp director, is preparing a Power Point presentation and decides to change the type font of the word "Death" so that the word looks like it's dripping in blood. She then goes on to explain that this generation of children learn better through audiovisual content instead of reading words in a book (like the bible.) In fact, we never see any of the children actually reading from a bible - they are either being taught through music, videos, presentations - things that are easy to enjoy.

This, in my opinion, is the whole gimmick to the Evangelical movement. People go to the megachurches because it's like going to a concert instead of, well, church. Indeed there's nothing wrong with celebrating any religion in such a format, though I think that because it's that much easier to practice, it will also be that more influential. A long story short: people have attention deficit problems and Evangelicals have recognized that. They also recognize that children are easy to influence. Or as the saying goes: get 'em while they're young.

The result is boys and girls who are doubtful of any other alternative to what has been taught to them. That means complex issues such as abortion, homosexuality, evolution, and even global warming have already been resolved for the children as one hundred percent wrong. Because of this, the children become outspoken footsoldiers for the fundamentalist Evangelical Christian movement.

Boys and girls younger than ten solicit pro-life paraphernalia on D. C. street corners. One girl jay walks to ask a man if he thinks he'll be going to heaven. And an eleven year old boy preaches to other Evangelicals his age and younger. When the boy converses with Ted Haggard, a very well known Evangelical preacher (who has recently resigned after admitting to allegations that he had immoral relations with a former male prostitute), Pastor Ted asked the boy if he thought people liked his preaching because of his content, or because he was a child. After the boy was at a loss of words, Haggard said that when the boy's thirty, he'll know. Hopefully, he'll know more than that.

As the credits roll, a boy and a girl stand on a corner trying to hand out pamphlets to passerby, one of them aks the other, "Do you ever think people think we're trying to sell something?" They decide they don't think so.