Last night I attended a midnight screening of Jesus Camp. Just as I plumped myself into my seat, someone directly in front of me turned around, and lo and behold - it was my No 1 Fan! Unfortunately she wasn't beside me so we couldn't make snide remarks together (and anyway I didn't want to interrupt her tryst) but I'm sure she was making loads on her own.
After watching this film, one comes out convinced that one has witnessed a great life-changing power at work: the power of mass hysteria, suggestion and Christian Fundamentalism.
It is sad enough to see adults brainwashed. But seeing kids being subjected to this, with many rituals which resemble what might be construed as satanic ones, and you begin to sympathise with Dawkins' characterisation of religious indoctrination as child abuse. At least adults consent to it, but when you see people shouting at kids to psyche them and press hands on their heads to induce
The usual brainwashing techniques were unveiled in good order. The kids are sent on a guilt trip to Mars as they are excoriated for being lazy because they allegedly don't want to fast (nothing is said of how their lazy god won't lift a finger to end suffering in the world) and accused of being phonies and hypocrites who act differently in and out of church: they are shouted at and emotionally abused until they break down. Sensory overload is triggered with a cacophony of noise (not least from other hysterical kids) to confuse, disorient and render vulnerable to suggestion. Peer pressure is utilised by making 9 year old kids evangelise and preach to each other and to others; whether they actually understand what they're talking about or are just repeating blindly what they've been told is unclear and frankly doubtful. Public communist confession sessions where participants indulge in self-flagellation. Meanwhile, the adults admit the kids are "open" and "usable". In other words, they're taking advantage of their gullibility and suggestibility. As the Jesuits said: "Give me the child for his first seven years and I’ll give you the man". Becky Fischer's version is that if you get a child from the ages of 7-9, you get him for life (though the film follows several children and visits several places, these are loosely tied together by the imposing figure of Becky Fischer, who runs the titular camp).
Yet, in a moment of cruel irony, the brainwashing of Palestinian children (to become suicide bombers) is condemned. This is almost as funny as Jack Chick's "Ten common "Logical Fallacies" made by Muslims" (almost all of which he is guilty of himself) [Addendum: Thanks to Kat's reminder, I have now included a Google cache version thanks to MDA).
It comes as no surprise to find out that 75% of homeschooled children are the children of Evangelicals' (as opposed to Evangelical children, but there isn't much difference anyway) are home-schooled. This is good because they can be indoctrinated with as few countervailing forces as possible, and the kids do not have to mix with any infidels.
The kids are pumped full of Republican ideology (the Evangelical strain, not the Rockefeller variety). Despite claims that the kids are not being used for political ends but rather religious ones, it is hard to envision how denouncing Global Warming as a liberal conspiracy (of all things) has anything to do with religion. Even the endorsement and blessing of a life-sized cutout of George W. Bush is suspect (not least since they seem not to have read Why Christians Should Not Vote for George W. Bush). And when they cheerfully proclaim that America gets a new megachurch every 2 days and that Evangelicals determine the election (thank the gods, not quite), this puts paid to their lies.
At one point, it is proclaimed that the nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Evidently they seem to have forgotten about tolerance, love, open-mindedness and Church-State separation (their fundie version of the Pledge of Allegiance is a particularly vile perversion of the last). Indeed, the cognitive dissonance is evident when, when reminded of these things, the Evangelicals just go on chanting their mantra as if they hadn't heard anything. This amounts to the "lala I can't hear you" method of argument which is popular in many parts.
Aside: You gotta love the boy with the mullet. The mullet must be the most convincing proof of the non-existence of God. Ever.
Preparing for the camp, the adults pray over the equipment, electricity system and microphones. Their god is thus reduced to a cosmic handyman. There is also the perception that Satan is actively out to interfere with the camp - by disrupting the electricity. I don't know about other people, but if I were the Devil I'd hire a better campaign manager - maybe Karl Rove will do. It is no far stretch to imagine the titanic battle between Good and Evil taking place in the depths of one's body, in the digestive system, with Evangelicals praying for each E Coli bacterium to be vanquished by their Holy Antibodies, or praying each time they visit the bathroom not to be visited by constipation courtesy of Satan, and viewing each bowel movement as another triumph in the struggle against the Enemy (ergo, "Holy Crap!")
In yet another deliciously ironic moment, during the camp the kids are told that Sin is like a cute, fuzzy, furry lion cub at first, preying on the young and defenceless. Then it grows on you, and before you know it it has turned into a giant ferocious lion (which incidentally was as cute as the cub). Funny - that seems to describe what they're doing to the kids: getting them when they're young and impressionable with rock concerts and gimmicks like gelatinous slime hands, and before you know it you're a paranoid, fag-hater whose opposition to abortion results in untold misery for teenage mothers.
Farcical moment after farcical moment follows, with the kids being told that Harry Potter is an evil warlock. Evidently their fact-fiction circuits are broken (then again, they already are by definition since they believe the Bible is literally true). The kids, manipulated into a state of nerve-wracking guilt, wash their hands of sin - with water from mineral water bottles (reminds me of conducting Holy Communion in your car with Coke). One kid proclaims that this generation is said to be the key generation because Jesus is coming back soon. Sorry to break it to ya kid, but people have been saying that for millennia - you need to read up on Christian History The best part is when the analogy of a balloon is used to describe Faith - if one prays and reads the Bible, the balloon is blown into and gets bigger, but if one neglects their god, air is let out from the balloon. What happens when one becomes so religious and fanatical that the balloon explodes is not explained (no one ever looks at the implications of being a sheep to be fleeced for wool or killed for meat by the shepherd either).
The lives of these kids already sound sad enough, but add to that the fact that sharing jokes about bodily parts with their friends at school is considered sinful and that ghost stories are unaccpetable too because they do not honour their god and you wonder how deprived their childhoods are. It's no wonder that those growing up in an environment of deprivation and restriction are eager to similarly deprive others of their rights.
Co-religionists are attacked as well. One kids says that their god likes to go to noisy churches where people jump, not quiet ones where people sit down and go "we worship you". Luckily no one talked about Catholicism, otherwise all the conspiracy theories about the Pope being the Antichrist would come out, and after all what we want is a fair and balanced film, don't we?
Despite Jesus being the Prince of Peace, the kids are geared up for War (if you don't believe me, listen to Becky Fischer chants "this means war"). An illusory enemy is conjured up (Sin/Satan/Liberals
No film about fundies would be complete without a mention of abortion and so we see the kids being told rubbish about abortion. Besides the fact that their god has commanded infanticide before and is responsible for most of the abortions in the world (natural abortions), thus putting it in the position either of a hypocrite [according to their view of abortion] or of someone who invokes the "do as I say, not as I do" rule, the claim that evidence is un-Biblical is sketchy at best. In any case, if abortion is ever banned in America, the Evangelicals are going to see the greatest benefit since the Bible Belt has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the Union.
Near the end of the movie, they moved to New Life Church in Colorado Springs, and except for the people, it looked exactly like City Harvest Church. Appropriately enough for a film showing Christians condemning hypocrisy, Ted Haggard featured in this segment condemning homosexuality.
In conclusion, perhaps the most chilling part of the movie is when Becky Fischer proclaims that although democracy is the greatest system of government, it destroys itself because people have equal freedoms. The inevitable takeaway is that she (and by extension, other fundamentalists) wants to take away people's freedoms.