oscar jubis
10-20-2006, 01:27 AM
JESUS CAMP (USA/2006)
Becky Fisher, an evangelical pastor from suburban Kansas City, is watching footage of kids attending a "Kids on Fire" summer camp. She notes their passionate, fevered commitment to "radically lay down their lives for the gospel" and exclaims: "Liberals should shake in their boots". Damn right, Miss Fisher, you scare the bejesus out of me! And so does your 80 million Evangelical army. I'm scared of kids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to God, referring to non-fundamentalist churches as "dead churches", crying while holding miniature fetus dolls, regarding anyone who doesn't share their beliefs as an enemy, disregarding science, viewing everything as either an act of God or the Devil, and I'll be damned...praying to a cardboard Dubya. This documentary produced and directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (The Boys of Baraka) feels like a horror flick, except it's all real.
Jesus Camp is bookended by news reports of Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation to her post as Supreme Court Judge (July 1, 2005) and the nomination of Samuel Alito a few months later. The filmmakers unobstrusively record the kids' indoctrination into God's army by parents, Ms. Fisher and her associates. There are a few scenes involving a radio commentator (Mike Papantonio) warning against the activities of the Christian Right which amount to needless editorializing. Except that these scenes set up a chilling interview of Fisher by Papantonio in which the pastor states that "democracy is bound to destroy itself because we can't give everybody equal rights".
Becky Fisher, an evangelical pastor from suburban Kansas City, is watching footage of kids attending a "Kids on Fire" summer camp. She notes their passionate, fevered commitment to "radically lay down their lives for the gospel" and exclaims: "Liberals should shake in their boots". Damn right, Miss Fisher, you scare the bejesus out of me! And so does your 80 million Evangelical army. I'm scared of kids reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to God, referring to non-fundamentalist churches as "dead churches", crying while holding miniature fetus dolls, regarding anyone who doesn't share their beliefs as an enemy, disregarding science, viewing everything as either an act of God or the Devil, and I'll be damned...praying to a cardboard Dubya. This documentary produced and directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (The Boys of Baraka) feels like a horror flick, except it's all real.
Jesus Camp is bookended by news reports of Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation to her post as Supreme Court Judge (July 1, 2005) and the nomination of Samuel Alito a few months later. The filmmakers unobstrusively record the kids' indoctrination into God's army by parents, Ms. Fisher and her associates. There are a few scenes involving a radio commentator (Mike Papantonio) warning against the activities of the Christian Right which amount to needless editorializing. Except that these scenes set up a chilling interview of Fisher by Papantonio in which the pastor states that "democracy is bound to destroy itself because we can't give everybody equal rights".