Jesus Camp

Jesus Camp

Summary: Jesus Camp follows several children going to a summer Evangelical camp and the camp leader.  It includes Evangelical ideas of global warming and the education of the homeschooled children.  The watcher observes several sermons during and before the camp, however, the majority of the movie is the reactions of the children to the sermons and the ideology of the speaker.

The beginning of the movie sets the tone as the Pentecostal children minister gives a sermon and mentions American's as being to 'fat and lazy' when she herself could be considered obese.  From here the minister continues to say several hypocritical comments.

This Means War

The children minister's main goal with her conferences, sermons, and camps were to 'train' children in the way of the lord.  The opening scenes of the conference the children minister held and the camp demonstration this with the children performing a war dance including the use of face paint.  The children minister believed that children were the future.  The minister wanted to train the children as the Muslim train their children in religious practices.  In fact many, if not all, religion have some form of training of children with some being more extreme then others.  However, this minister wanted to train the children to the point that they would lay down their life for Christ similar to Muslim suicide bombers.  This brings the Crusades to mind, where war was waged in the name of the lord.  The fact that the children saw themselves as part of God's army makes me think that the minister was some what successful.  The children saw themselves as warriors, peace warriors, and saw martyrdom as being 'cool'.

Evangelical Children

In the Evangelical belief, to be saved one must experience a born-again baptism.

43% [Evangelicals] born-again before age of 13

After watching this documentary, I can easily believe this statistic.  Moreover,

75% of homeschooled children are Evangelical

This brings about the question of education among the Evangelical, who have a strong belief in creationism.  One of the children in that this documentary follows happens to be one such homeschooled Evangelical.  We observe one of his lessons from his mother with highlights explaining how there is no global warming occurring and the fallacies of evolution.  This particular scene starts off with the boy finishing watching a Christian cartoon, then having lessons with his mother about the global warming and then evolution.  Here, anyone familiar with the melting of the polar ice caps and the change in ocean currents would have pity for the child's one-sided education.  Moreover, it reminded me of Sarah Palin who at first said there was no such thing as global warming during her campaign as vice president during 2008 elections.  During that time, I couldn't understand how she could have come up with that conclusion.  Now, I see the influence of her religion on her knowledge.  The evolution discussion, however, was far more one-sided bordering on the side of hate for the theory.

"...[creationism] is the only possible answer to all the questions..."

One of the mothers reasons for fallacy of evolution was that "....science doesn't prove anything...".  It's interesting to note that she is saying this while living in a house with all the conveniences of science.  

There is also a sense of nationalism to God being taught as well.  Another child is shown plaguing allegiance to the Christian through the Christian Flag.  The philosophy of there being 'two kinds of people in the world: those that love Christ and those who do not' as gives support to this group of Evangelicals nationalistic behavior.

Camp

The location of the camp is Devil's Lake, and no matter how you look at it this must have been intentional.  I as the viewer only wishes to understand why anyone would want to have a Christian camp at Devil's Lake.  More notable was camp sermons.  From the few scenes we got from the other activities, the camp seemed to be filled with enjoyable activities.  In the sermons however, there wasn't a smile in the crowd, and at times there was crying.  From the few segments we were able to watch, the sermons appeared to be a form a emotional abuse.  Popular fictions like Harry Potter were condemn because of the use of sorcery.  The teaching of pro-life were established without consideration of all sides of the issue with abortion.  I am in no way encouraging abortions.  However, I am a strong supporter of knowledge.  Without knowledge, important decision cannot be intelligently made.  

Popular versus Official - Evangelical

The camp itself doesn't appear to be part of the mainstream religion of Evangelical, but more of a popular religion.  Although the camp is very organized, some of the rhetoric is inconsistent.  There is also an aspect of ethnocentric with both the Christian flag and the belief that there are 'dead churches'.