This is an interesting movie but its message is fundamentally flawed. The filmmakers use scenes of a few very dedicated Pentecostal Fundamentalist families to leave the impression on the viewer that they have just seen a representative sample of the 80 million or so Americans who self identify as Evangelicals. Statistics about Evangelicals are occasionally flashed on screen as we watch the Pentecostal Fundametalists, in an apparent effort to equate the two groups.
As an Evangelical, the movie opened my eyes to how many Americans may view us and our perceived political movement.
There was a great deal of focus in the movie on "soldiers" and "warfare", while Jesus Camp was being portrayed on screen as a Christian equivalent of Islamic madrassas. To the non-Evangelical this can easily appear to be a scary thing. The huge difference is that these sort of camps (not just the one in the movie but what I have personally attended), don't feature AK-47's, hand grenades, or strap on suicide bombs. The children are being trained to engage in spiritual warfare, not physical warfare- and the movie fails to make that clear.
Do they go too far with their indoctrination of the children? That is a legitimate question but I don't know that the film brings anything new to the table. Children become just as enthralled and emotional about a wide variety of things as these children are about Jesus. Regardless of their indoctrination, each will still have to make a personal choice on following Jesus when they get to an appropriate age- and none of the featured children seem to be mature enough to have made that decision yet.
So the real question here to me is- should parents be allowed to subject their children to such indoctrination? If you believe in freedom, you've got to say yes. The indoctrination going on in the film may be different in content but it is not different in form from any number of competing ideologies that children are exposed to, and yes, indoctrinated into every day.
As an Evangelical, the movie opened my eyes to how many Americans may view us and our perceived political movement.
There was a great deal of focus in the movie on "soldiers" and "warfare", while Jesus Camp was being portrayed on screen as a Christian equivalent of Islamic madrassas. To the non-Evangelical this can easily appear to be a scary thing. The huge difference is that these sort of camps (not just the one in the movie but what I have personally attended), don't feature AK-47's, hand grenades, or strap on suicide bombs. The children are being trained to engage in spiritual warfare, not physical warfare- and the movie fails to make that clear.
Do they go too far with their indoctrination of the children? That is a legitimate question but I don't know that the film brings anything new to the table. Children become just as enthralled and emotional about a wide variety of things as these children are about Jesus. Regardless of their indoctrination, each will still have to make a personal choice on following Jesus when they get to an appropriate age- and none of the featured children seem to be mature enough to have made that decision yet.
So the real question here to me is- should parents be allowed to subject their children to such indoctrination? If you believe in freedom, you've got to say yes. The indoctrination going on in the film may be different in content but it is not different in form from any number of competing ideologies that children are exposed to, and yes, indoctrinated into every day.