reviewed by Kevin Murphy
"Shocking." "Scary." "The first horror documentary."
Liberal voices have liberally applied hyperboles to Jesus Camp, the 2006 film documenting an evangelical Christian youth camp. Earlier this year it earned an Academy Award nomination—one of a handful of other "incredibly depressing" films, as Jerry Seinfeld quipped at the awards ceremony.
It should come as no surprise that people are surprised by what they see. The documentary does, after all, depict an extremist slice of religious Americana. As a moderate Catholic, however, it’s frustrating to be clumped into the same group as these loud Bible-thumpers. The uninformed moviegoer, watching some peculiar group of charismats speaking in tongues and declaring war on Islam, may be inclined to assume that just about anyone who goes to church is equally radical. (Numerous critics have given evidence of this unfortunate tendency.)
Allow me to state the obvious: Extremism will be found in almost any belief system or culture, from Islam to government (e.g., communism) to American society. Coupled with audiences that flock to shock, you have a recipe for successful movies like American History X or Super Size Me, or TV programs like Real TV. Network news shows scrambling to broadcast videos from the latest school shooting and publishers vying for "controversial" blockbusters like Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, the bestselling manifesto of dogmatic atheism, are siimilar cases in different media.
While it is important to educate the public about the dangers of this or that form of extremism, the dramatization of such cases, even as a documentary, can prove a double-edged sword. A film like Jesus Camp may bring to our attention important issues in a cogent, albeit sometimes sensationalized way, or it may serve as little more than a form of propaganda relying on an audience that too often fails to utilize basic critical thinking skills while they’re watching. Too many viewers, it seems, base their views of an "other" culture based on carefully edited and selected pictures and words, and in the end draw blanket conclusions at the expense of a far different, and quieter, majority. God knows Christians can be every bit as guilty of this as anyone else.
Pressed at the unfairness of filming only a radical slice of evangelical life, the filmmakers argued that it would have been impossible to cover the spectrum of evangelical Christianity. And, "What makes a good, intriguing film?" they ask. I admit, I was captivated the entire hour and twenty minutes. While I think calling the film "the first horror documentary" is a bit melodramatic, there were some unsettling scenes. In one, Pastor Becky Fisher warns the children about Harry Potter: "Warlocks are enemies of God …. Had it been in the Old Testament, Harry Potter would have been put to death!"
In another scene, Pastor Fisher tells of Islamic training camps, describing Muslim children as young as five that are recruited to serve for Allah. Thereupon follows images of Christian boys dressed up in Army fatigues and makeup, acting as "soldiers for the Lord"—children whom Fisher claims are "so usable in Christianity." The irony is thick, disturbing, and embarrassing to fellow Christians. (Later, concluding one of several anti-Islam rants, Becky Fisher raises her hand and cries, "This means war!" The conclusion to be drawn is obvious: extreme Islam, extreme Christianity (Islam…Christianity…?)…what’s the diff…?
Many of us have seen the movie’s preview, featuring a child in tears, hands clasped, repentant and bearing the weight of some immense guilt. There are several instances of this sort of thing in the film, and it is strange to witness such deep-seated emotions pouring from an eleven-year old. Whether it is genuine guilt, or a form of psychological role-playing on the part of suggestible children hoping to please the adults in their lives, it is difficult to say. Either way, it certainly doesn’t strike me as the sort of thing Jesus would have any of his followers do.
No doubt, Jesus Camp raises important ethical questions, and serves as a reminder to all adults, who are responsible for children, of the need to assess the form as well as the content of the religious education being offered to their kids. .
The film was engrossing. I would even say I liked it. It captured, very effectively, a unique cast of "characters"—some likable and empathetic, others hypocritical, but all claiming to serve the Lord in whom they have a deep-seated faith.
In spite of the filmmakers’ debatable claims of objectivity and even-handedness—in their favor, Pastor Becky Fisher herself approved of the film—the film doesn’t forward the secular public’s increasingly "challenged" understanding of Christianity, either in theory or in praxis. For a believer, Jesus Camp will at times strike one as alternately compassionate and demonizing. Secularists viewing the film, however, are very likely, like Rosie O’Donnell, to draw from it a disturbing correlation between evangelicalism and the terrorist sects of Islam, and that’s neither fortunate nor fair.
Just how many people, one can’t resist asking, have died today—this month, this decade—in terrorist attacks perpetrated in the name of Christianity?
Anti-Catholic, Documentary | 1 Comment »
I don’t know about John, but in spite of my love of mythopoeic literature, I have thus far acquired no interest in seeing this “controversial” movie or reading the Pullman books on which it is base. Other, perhaps, than to discover if the author & moviemakers can somehow manage, unlike their other anti-Catholic storymongering brethren, to tell an interesting tale without relying on the very Catholic tropes, imagery and story arcs one would think honest atheists would wish to eschew, but never seem to do. Perhaps it has something to do with the nature of three-act story structure, and the fact that it is far more reliant on the Judeo-Christian “story” than even most Christian storytellers realize. As someone once asked, have you ever read a really good Buddhist novel? (Poetry, yes, novel…not yet, but I’m open to suggestions.)