Jesus Camp

Just watched this documentary yesterday, obtained from the Whitehorse Public Library. Wow. What a fascinating subject, and very very overtly political.

The doc. follows three children who are members of an evangelical Pentecostal church who all attend the annual 3-week 'Jesus Camp'. The children's pastor, Becky Fisher, is an extremely charismatic and influential person-to an alarming degree.

The children have religous parents, whether laypeople or actively involved in the church as pastors/etc. In one particularly awful scene, Levi's mother is teaching him how 'science doesn't have all the answers' and global warming is a big to-do about nothing. "The world's temperature has only risen 0.6F"

They believe strongly in creationism, bibles for every student, the Pledge of Allegiance (but wackier, like pledging to the bible instead of the flag), anti-choice and notably, George Bush. They also speak in tongues/gibberish, which is pretty crazy. I expect snake handling to come next.

The children are fully indoctrinated in this 'Army for Jeebus' diatribe. And they don't seem to see themselves as wrong--I mean, one little girl was handing out Chick Tracts, and those are nutjob rantings. Seriously, whatckjob certified.

Levi also postulates that people who aren't Christian are 'sick' and he feels strange around them. Maybe it's because they don't feel that convulsing/speaking in tongues is normal and accepted??

Another little girl, Rachael, loves Jesus heavy metal and is in a Jesus dance troupe. She looks like just a little kid dancing in her basement, except she doesn't idolize Britney or Paris (good) but idolizes Jeebus (bad) and believes 'dancing for the flesh' is a sinful and bad thing. First of all, she is 10 years old and spouting parental discourse like that? Yikes.

God film. I mean, good film. Honest typo, I swear!

Watch it and weep! Haha, as a fairly liberal feminist, it makes my skin crawl, but it is so interesting. Like watching a frightening spider crawl up the wall, knowing that it will land on your head at some point and you'll regret squashing it when you had the chance. Oh, religion...