Friday, February 23, 2007

Jesus Camp, the Movie


I just watched the scariest movie I've seen in my life. There were no monsters or blood & guts. There were no huge explosions or Freddy Kruegers. But there was definitely evil. Jesus Camp is about the effort of Evangelical Christians to use their children to proselytize Christianity and God to America. In doing so, they not only brainwash their poor kids, they turn kids against themselves by stressing "the devil's constant and disguised intrusion into their lives. All their innate optimism and innocence, and any tolerance they might have had (most parents of these kids stole that from the very beginning) is brainwashed straight out of these kids and they are taught to hate, to discriminate and to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude.

And to make it all worse, these kids are taught that they must change the political system to be real Christians -- that Bush is to be adored and revered (there's a scene with kids literally kneeling and crying at the "feet" of a cardboard Bush!), that Harry Potter is a warlock and are fakes (not to even mention any other religion or -- god forbid -- agnostics or atheists!). Adult leaders pass out plastic models of embryos and go off about "killing babies," at which point these kids are literally sobbing almost as hard as they were earlier in the movie when they were told what sinning retches they are and how they must repent for a lifetime of sins -- at the age of frikkin' six or seven!

My heart broke for these poor kids! To me, this is child abuse. To belittle and demean a child until they are sobbing and hateful of themselves is just wrong. Instead, these kids need acceptance, love, and EDUCATION -- about a variety of different belief systems.

What really gets me is that the behavior I witnessed in Jesus Camp, especially from adults, is the antithesis of Christianity! It's hateful bigotry and brainwashing!

Tomorrow we'll watch An Inconvenient Truth...

Stumble Upon Toolbar

3 comments:

vailian said...

John saw this in Minnepolis and was equally horrified. It seems they are encouraging extremism and religious hatred. Not a clever thing to do in these polarised times, IMO.

Goofball said...

I, as a European Christian, am just as equally horrified about the views that these extreme 'Christians' take on. Where's God's love in all of this??? They are just as scary as moslim terrorists and other extremists. And what freaks me out the most is that they do influence American politics and as a result world politics. Scary thought.

Anonymous said...

while i appreciate that the makers of Jesus Camp let interviewees do all the talking, they were obviously very selective about what they let into the final movie release; over all, there is some useful truth in this flick... as long as it's taken with a grain (or maybe a bucket) of salt

Related Posts with Thumbnails