Jesus Camp

I put off seeing Jesus Camp for a while because I was actually afraid to watch it. But, after hearing about it, repeatedly, in the blogosphere, I figured I had to see it. And I'm glad I did...sorta.

The film follows three young children through their stay at Becky Fischer's "Kids on Fire" camp. The camp's purpose is to train young children to become warriors in the fight to "take back the nation for Christ." If this sounds familiar, it's because those words came from Mike Huckabee's mouth.

Jesus Camp was a horror movie...splashed with comedy (y'know...when you laugh because it's easier to do than cry). It's an 84-minute child abuse extravaganza. Throughout, children are crying with joy as they feel the love of Jesus. And they're also crying because...well...they're being emotionally abused. They're told that when they swear or watch Harry Potter that they're doing the work of the devil and that they're going to hell.

My favorite quotes from the movie were those of Becky Fischer:

It's no wonder, with that kind of intense training and discipling, that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam. I wanna see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I wanna see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places, you know, because we have... excuse me, but we have the truth!

And they recruit children because they can be brainwashed so easily:

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're so open. They are so usable in Christianity.

I believe people should be free to practice religion...but we let FAR too much happen in the name of religion because we tiptoe around it, trying not to offend anyone.

Anyway, I found some great news on the IMDb website:

Since the making of the film, Becky Fischer, children's pastor for Kids on Fire, announced that due to negative reactions to the camp after the film, including telephone calls and vandalism, the camp, which was held once a year for three weeks, has been discontinued indefinitely and will be replaced by other events.

I wonder what the "other events" are...