Rachel Grady’s and Heidi Ewing’s movie, Jesus Camp, raises interesting points, if not the blood pressure of those opposed to its content. The film focuses almost entirely on the children with only a few exceptions. Pastor Becky Fischer, a Pentecostal Children’s Minister, runs the “Kids on Fire” Camp in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota.
Citing the number of children under the age of 15 in the world, she asks the viewer where we should be putting our energy and focus, answering that this is precisely where “our enemy” is focused. Of the Nation of Islam she says, “It’s no wonder with that kind of intense training and disciplining that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam. I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam.”
How then does Fischer’s approach to children differ from the Nation of Islam? “Excuse me,” she says, “but we have the truth.”
To a child her agenda is cloaked, marked by her view of a child’s vulnerability as their strength, saying, “I can go into a playground of kids that don’t know anything about Christianity, lead them to the Lord in a matter of just no time at all and just moments later they can be seeing visions and hearing the voice of God because they are so open. They are so useable in Christianity.”
Having set the tone, Fischer concedes the majority of the spotlight to her young charges whose words throughout the film might move a person to tears for one of two reasons: the children’s thirst for knowledge, or the ease with which children can be exploited.
As an atheist, I have more faith in man than is supposed by the way children are treated and then assumed to turn out. While it is unmistakably true that an abused child oft times grows into an abusive adult, there is a significant percentage that step out of their upbringing, taking the stance of "the way my parents raised me was certainly not good enough," and replacing it with a system that works better, and less violently, for them.
That said, it cannot be denied there are those children who don’t make it out from under their upbringing. They are either beyond help (e.g., Shirley Phelps Roper) or are killed before they get a chance to see that something might be amiss (e.g., The Jonestown Massacre).
If we are to believe the parents of the Jesus Camp kids have the unconditional right to their religion to the point that they can and should be allowed to instill their children with even the slightest taste for violence and an intolerance, if not hatred, for others, then we must also concede that any religion (Nation of Islam) has the same unconditional right.
Article comments
1 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
While I do not agree with some of your perpectives, you have the key points lined up. The parent is the teacher of the child, and if the parent allows someone to "get to the kid first" with an intelligent upbringing, that parent can no longer be heard to whine about society. The first society the child knows is mommy and daddy. If mommy and daddy don't care, SOMEONE ELSE WILL. Children are a valuable commodity, and the parent who cannot see even this is truly a fool who deserves to lose his child to a sick culture.
2 - Baritone
Diana,
I saw Jesus Camp several months ago. I found it most disturbing. They are in fact training those children to be warriors for Jesus. The militant approach they take is tantamount to brainwashing. Young minds are the easiest to mold, and as they grow into adulthood, they will be much more difficult to change. Most of them will be dyed in the wool "true believers" upon reaching their majority. That what we - atheists, agnostics and other less ardent christians - likely would look upon as mental and emotional abuse is, unfortunately, considered by their parents to be none of our business.
Obviously, coming between a parent and his or her children is a dicey proposition. Defining just when active, concerned parenting becomes abuse is difficult at best. There are people for a number of reasons have no business having or raising kids. But, in a supposedly free society restricting parenthood smacks of an authoritarian or even totalitarion society, which we find repugnant. Given several historical precedents, the government certainly cannot be assumed to provide better child rearing skills than a child's natural parents. Government or other outside intervention in some instances such as that illustrated in Jesus Camp might be preferable, but very difficult to pull off.
Baritone
3 - Pirate Aggro
I just saw Jusus Camp for the first time this weekend. The movie is scary for anyone who is not an Evangelical Christian. While I do not agree with everything you wrote, I agree that the movie is indicative of American Culture. When I was growing up in Colorado, radical Christians were around but they were a fringe group not to be taken seriously and easily ignored. Now, living in the heartland again after a 9 year absence, the landscape has changed. Now it is hard to hear a point of view other than the radical religious right. Now it is impossible to ignore them because, as the woman in the movie says, their goal is total domination. More moderate voices have been silenced. The more moderate churches are dwindling in the shadow of the mega-churches.
4 - patrick
i appreciate that the makers of Jesus Camp let the people interviewed do all the talking; over all, there is some truth in this flick as long as it's taken with a grain (or maybe a bucket) of salt