Jesus Camp
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Rated: PG-13
Website: www.jesuscampthemovie.com/
WorkNameSort: Jesus Camp
Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (The Boys of Baraka) take on this film’s hot-button subject matter with as much objectivity as possible. Still, Jesus Camp, like David Kuo’s book Tempting Faith, seems intended for an audience of progressive analyzers of the country’s cultural/theological divisions since the election of the Bush administration and its outspoken religious-right pandering. Liberals will be outraged by the eye-opening revelations the film presents about the indoctrination of children into evangelical soldiers of Christ. Parents send their kids to a cult-like Bible camp in North Dakota, where they practice televangelist techniques, speak in tongues and pray for righteous Supreme Court justices. They home-school them so the impressionable minds won’t be infested with left-wing propaganda, such as evolution and global warming. Then they pack them off to super-churches in Colorado for more brainwashing. The pastor of the super-church documented in the film happens to be none other than Ted ‘Gay-Hookers-‘n’-Methamphetamineâ?� Haggard, a feather in the cap for any liberal viewer ready to shout, ‘Hypocrisy!â?� It should be noted that most of the young adults in the film seem like wonderful people with brilliant minds and bright futures ‘ shame on the parents who aren’t allowing them to think for themselves and receive proper education.
This article appears in Jan 24-30, 2007.