B and I watched the movie Jesus Camp last Friday. He wanted me to record (ahem, I mean “time shift") it so that we could watch it again but I’d already returned it. So I put it in my Netflix queue and browsed some of the 624 flixters reviews of the movie. Yes, 624. It has to be a record. Obviously this doc really hit a legion of hot-buttons and one or two of my own, so it is the subject of today’s cultural vulturalism.
I found the reviews by the people who claim to be Fundamentalist or Evangelical Christians the most interesting and even unpredictable. One cautioned against letting children watch such potent material. I believe that this is a film parents should watch with kids and be prepared to spend hours discussing. Mine was vocally angry through most of it; his outrage at both the arrogance and manipulation of the budding televangelists were dead on.
He saved particular scorn for the poodle-coiffed, pied piper Becky Fisher and his BS detector pegged each time he recognized the way she used accusation, guilt and catharsis as tactics to break down her impressionable charges or her fast, easy dismissal of young people’s diversity and freedom of thought. I watched, without further comment, because I wanted to hear my son's perceptions uncolored by my own. I only broke my silence twice. The first time to answer his question, “Who are these enemies she’s talking about? I responded, me, you—anybody who doesn’t believe as they do.
I also felt inclined to point out Ted Haggard's sordid history/future after this film was edited. In light of his scandalous "fall from grace" the haggard one’s smarmy on-camera muggings and fatuous protest to the filmmakers seem particularly camp and grotesque, yet strangely reassuring. The dude was high on more than Jesus. Ted was the only person who appeared in the doc whose comportment and convictions seemed insincere from the first note. Gosh, how surprising. The other subjects, scary as we found them, do seem to be without artifice, while Mr. Walk Both Ways Haggard clearly loved his closeup above all.
Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18
Most gratifying for a parent, was my son's shrewd connection of all the military paraphenalia so rapturously embraced by these little soldiers of Christ and how their brand of fundamentalism was as raw and intolerant as anything coming out of the madrases of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. These little crusaders, who are no doubt well-coached to say so, claim that they are spiritual warriors, but in their combat fatigues, fascist-stiff-
armed salutes, camouflage war paint and martial kick/punch dancing, seemed less about the beatitudes and more ready to strap on explosives and meet Jesus head on. Body language speaks volumes. So do words.
“There are two types of people – those who love Jesus and those who don’t."
Why would anybody want to make that distinction? Am I reading too much into this to believe that this is exactly the sort of stark duality that sets up two classes of people? Jews. Aryans. Heteros. Homos. Believers. Infidels. Intolerance is always served up two scoops at a time.
Equally chilling was the little girl who approached a couple of African American gentlemen and asked one of them, with barely a how’d do, if he thought he was going to heaven. When the puzzled man answered in the affirmative, she shot back quizzically, “Are you sure?”
Afterwards, she remarked to a friend, “I think he was a Muslim.”
As I said earlier, I was most interested in the responses from the Christian reviewers who expressed ‘that these people are not like us.’ It gives me some comfort to take them at their word, but I would caution them, as I do my moderate Muslim and Jewish friends, that the radical proselytizers and zealots have so thoroughly stolen their show that perhaps they bear some responsibility for rebalancing the scales. Jesus Camp shows just how far all moderates have to go to rebalance the equation of democracy and civil discourse in this country. B made the connection between this film and Stanley Kramer’s glorious Judgment at Nuremberg, which we watched about a month ago. I offered that both films showed that while philosophies of intolerance may begin with monsters, they can only be perpetuated by the bourgeois, respectable, ordinary folks.
As the credits rolled, I turned to my son and quoted Mr. Jefferson’s admonition that “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." He asked me to explain and I told him that this was his generation, that it's clear that the bright, articulate young people he saw in this film are not going to be satisfied preaching on street corners and megachurches, but will march their self-righteous intolerance into the halls of government and when they gain power, will trample on your civil liberties in the name of salvation and persecute anybody they believe to be ungodly. Though people of my generation have created these little mullahs, it will be people of his generation that would have to confront them.
Some of these sparkly eyed little charmers will grow haggard on pharmaceuticals and the
temptations of alternative lifestyles. Some of the brightest will succumb to the relentlessly moderating influence of education. But enough will get through the grid that you better be ready, I advised, with activism, knowledge, arguments and convictions just as compelling as theirs. If your generation isn’t up to it, you might end up living in a red white and blue Iranish theocracy and watching your own children say the Christian Pledge of Allegiance in compulsory Jesus Camps. We grew up checking for Reds under our beds. I’m nostalgic for them. Ms. Fisher’s little morality squad is much scarier.
Not that I wasn’t raised with some pretty traditional values--particularly regarding pledging allegiance. The nuns at St. Ursula told us that for an American to pledge allegiance to any but the American flag is treason. Simplistic, but the lesson stuck.
We’re renting Jesus Camp again, for more family viewing and discussion and I would encourage parents of all faiths to not to try to protect their children from such controversial viewing, but encourage it, the better to help their kids become critical thinkers.
The documentary style is as clean and unbiased as anything I’ve ever seen or studied and I thought the choice of Mike Papantonio to provide commentary and counterpoint was particularly well made. Jesus Camp opens a window on a world that people of moderate leanings would rather disavow. People of faith, be they Christians, Muslims or Jews, hurry to distance themselves from such zealotry, but if Jesus Camp teaches anything, it is that silent complicity in such radicalism is like ink in water. It spreads so quickly that before we know it, we’re all stained. The Net says that Jesus Camp has been shut down by its founder in the interest of protecting her young charges. I say this is a hydra, with more heads than you can possibly imagine.
Keep the faith.
-@V@-
I found the reviews by the people who claim to be Fundamentalist or Evangelical Christians the most interesting and even unpredictable. One cautioned against letting children watch such potent material. I believe that this is a film parents should watch with kids and be prepared to spend hours discussing. Mine was vocally angry through most of it; his outrage at both the arrogance and manipulation of the budding televangelists were dead on.
He saved particular scorn for the poodle-coiffed, pied piper Becky Fisher and his BS detector pegged each time he recognized the way she used accusation, guilt and catharsis as tactics to break down her impressionable charges or her fast, easy dismissal of young people’s diversity and freedom of thought. I watched, without further comment, because I wanted to hear my son's perceptions uncolored by my own. I only broke my silence twice. The first time to answer his question, “Who are these enemies she’s talking about? I responded, me, you—anybody who doesn’t believe as they do.
I also felt inclined to point out Ted Haggard's sordid history/future after this film was edited. In light of his scandalous "fall from grace" the haggard one’s smarmy on-camera muggings and fatuous protest to the filmmakers seem particularly camp and grotesque, yet strangely reassuring. The dude was high on more than Jesus. Ted was the only person who appeared in the doc whose comportment and convictions seemed insincere from the first note. Gosh, how surprising. The other subjects, scary as we found them, do seem to be without artifice, while Mr. Walk Both Ways Haggard clearly loved his closeup above all.
Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18
Most gratifying for a parent, was my son's shrewd connection of all the military paraphenalia so rapturously embraced by these little soldiers of Christ and how their brand of fundamentalism was as raw and intolerant as anything coming out of the madrases of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. These little crusaders, who are no doubt well-coached to say so, claim that they are spiritual warriors, but in their combat fatigues, fascist-stiff-
armed salutes, camouflage war paint and martial kick/punch dancing, seemed less about the beatitudes and more ready to strap on explosives and meet Jesus head on. Body language speaks volumes. So do words.“There are two types of people – those who love Jesus and those who don’t."
Why would anybody want to make that distinction? Am I reading too much into this to believe that this is exactly the sort of stark duality that sets up two classes of people? Jews. Aryans. Heteros. Homos. Believers. Infidels. Intolerance is always served up two scoops at a time.
Equally chilling was the little girl who approached a couple of African American gentlemen and asked one of them, with barely a how’d do, if he thought he was going to heaven. When the puzzled man answered in the affirmative, she shot back quizzically, “Are you sure?”
Afterwards, she remarked to a friend, “I think he was a Muslim.”
As I said earlier, I was most interested in the responses from the Christian reviewers who expressed ‘that these people are not like us.’ It gives me some comfort to take them at their word, but I would caution them, as I do my moderate Muslim and Jewish friends, that the radical proselytizers and zealots have so thoroughly stolen their show that perhaps they bear some responsibility for rebalancing the scales. Jesus Camp shows just how far all moderates have to go to rebalance the equation of democracy and civil discourse in this country. B made the connection between this film and Stanley Kramer’s glorious Judgment at Nuremberg, which we watched about a month ago. I offered that both films showed that while philosophies of intolerance may begin with monsters, they can only be perpetuated by the bourgeois, respectable, ordinary folks.
As the credits rolled, I turned to my son and quoted Mr. Jefferson’s admonition that “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." He asked me to explain and I told him that this was his generation, that it's clear that the bright, articulate young people he saw in this film are not going to be satisfied preaching on street corners and megachurches, but will march their self-righteous intolerance into the halls of government and when they gain power, will trample on your civil liberties in the name of salvation and persecute anybody they believe to be ungodly. Though people of my generation have created these little mullahs, it will be people of his generation that would have to confront them.
Some of these sparkly eyed little charmers will grow haggard on pharmaceuticals and the
temptations of alternative lifestyles. Some of the brightest will succumb to the relentlessly moderating influence of education. But enough will get through the grid that you better be ready, I advised, with activism, knowledge, arguments and convictions just as compelling as theirs. If your generation isn’t up to it, you might end up living in a red white and blue Iranish theocracy and watching your own children say the Christian Pledge of Allegiance in compulsory Jesus Camps. We grew up checking for Reds under our beds. I’m nostalgic for them. Ms. Fisher’s little morality squad is much scarier.Not that I wasn’t raised with some pretty traditional values--particularly regarding pledging allegiance. The nuns at St. Ursula told us that for an American to pledge allegiance to any but the American flag is treason. Simplistic, but the lesson stuck.
We’re renting Jesus Camp again, for more family viewing and discussion and I would encourage parents of all faiths to not to try to protect their children from such controversial viewing, but encourage it, the better to help their kids become critical thinkers.
The documentary style is as clean and unbiased as anything I’ve ever seen or studied and I thought the choice of Mike Papantonio to provide commentary and counterpoint was particularly well made. Jesus Camp opens a window on a world that people of moderate leanings would rather disavow. People of faith, be they Christians, Muslims or Jews, hurry to distance themselves from such zealotry, but if Jesus Camp teaches anything, it is that silent complicity in such radicalism is like ink in water. It spreads so quickly that before we know it, we’re all stained. The Net says that Jesus Camp has been shut down by its founder in the interest of protecting her young charges. I say this is a hydra, with more heads than you can possibly imagine.
Keep the faith.
-@V@-
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