Onward, Christian soldiers ... [YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS MOVIE]
I am seriously, profoundly and breath-takingly disturbed right now. zjman and I just finished watching Jesus Camp. We've been meaning to see it since it came out in theatres, but we didn't get there, so we decided to bring it with us on our mini-vacation. This is a movie that follows an Evangelical pastor, Becky Fischer, on her mission to bring a new generation to Christ, and what she and the rest of the Evangelical population expect from these kids, some of whom are as young as six.
WOW. I normally don't blog about stuff like this, but there are too many things in this movie that beg to be addressed. As a mother, a person who believes in and advocates tolerance, and a citizen of the United States, I feel obligated to share my feelings.
First, a few statistics.
1. 43% of Evangelical Christians are "born again" before the age of 13.
2. 75% of the home-schooled children in the US are Evangelical Christians
3. 25% of the American population - roughy 80 million people - identify themselves as Evangelical Christians
And a few quotes.
"Creationism is the only possible answer. To everything." - parent of home-schooled Levi, who feels called to be a pastor and was first saved at 5 years old, on teaching him from the textbook Exploring Creation with Physical Science.
"God is not in every church." - 9-year-old Rachael, describing "dead" churches where they don't do things like "speak in tongues and jump up and down and shout 'Hallelujah, God!'"
"America is supposed to be God's nation." - visiting pastor at the camp while speaking to the kids about how it's their generation's duty to reverse the abortion laws in the US (yes, you DID read that correctly)
"[These kids] will do anything you tell them to, and it's who gets ahold of them." - Debbie, founder of a Christian clinic located next to a Planned Parenthood which the kids visit on a prayer walk
And finally, my personal favorites. These are statements made by Ted Haggard, former pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, who is featured in the film, and who, prior to his departure from the church, spoke to President Bush and his advisors every Monday morning.
"There's a new church like this every two days in America." - referring to his mega-church which claims a memberhsip of approximately 14,000
"We need to make sure our nation has a core belief." - on the Evangelical movement's goal for America.
I am completely and totally appalled that something like this is even legal, let alone accepted and even promoted in America in the 21st century. From beginning to end, Becky Fischer - who appears to be a charming, pleasant woman who genuinely believes she is doing the right thing - and her fellow ministers use tactics akin to brainwashing and pyschological warfare to get these kids doing what they want them to do. At one point in the film, in a room full of a few hundred children, she asks how many of them have fallen by the wayside and become hypocrites and liars like the other kids in school? How many have used cuss words like the other kids? How many have talked dirty just like the other kids? It's clear that the kids are very uncomfortable, and some begin crying and look really scared - so she tells them to come up front and have their sin washed away (by pouring bottled water on their hands). And then she tells them to go pray on what they've done, and repent because they have some serious repenting to do.
Wow. Last time I checked, adolescent and tween-age kids want nothing more than to conform to the norms they see around them. They want to fit in. Yes, you try and teach them that they're each special, and they're each capable of anything - but you don't do it by telling them that fitting in is WRONG. Or BAD. Or worthy of the same punishment you'd dole out to someone who's committed adultery.
There were other surreal moments in the film when these kids were speaking in tongues, and laying hands on people to fill them with the holy spirit, and evangelizing to people around them in a bowling alley, at a park and on the street. Disturbing, yes, but primarily because the things that these kids are saying are clearly things they've learned from hearing them repeated so much. The phraseology, syntax and speech patterns are so painfully obviously copied from the adults in these kids' lives that it's difficult to watch the words come from their mouths. They're like little parrots.
In one scene, which was VERY difficult to watch, the kids go with one of the adults to a clinic that's been founded by an Evangelical Christian woman named Debbie. It sits next door to a Planned Parenthood in a strip mall. The kids are on a "prayer walk," where they go to different places in their town and pray on them by laying their hands on the walls. In the clinic scene, Debbie tells the kids that over 50% of the girls who come in there are "abortion-minded," but that the love of God and the prayers of the children turn the girls around and show them that they have other options.
And that they don't feel that same love next door at Planned Parenthood.
The kids also go to Washington and stand in front of the Supreme Court with red stickers saying "LIFE" taped across their mouths, singing and swaying and crying.
First of all, NO ONE under 18 should be involved in any kind of abortion protest. It turns my stomach to think that people use these kids - whose opinions are formed for them before they ever know that there are alternatives - as tools in a political war.
Levi's mother says at one point that the kids are not forced to do this. I disagree. I don't understand how indoctrination into a movement from the time you're born without information that other options exist is not a form of coercion. Kids want to please their parents - it's the motive behind most of the things they do. So why would they question the things they're being taught? They're not only going to accept them, but they're going to do it gleefully, and even expand on the ideas if that will garner even more praise.
We have a very serious situation coming about in this country. If you didn't see it during both of the Bush elections, it's not necessarily because you weren't looking. This has been in the works for many, many years, but because of where we are geographically (for my circle of IRL friends), we've been somewhat insulated from it. But it has finally gained enough support that it became a groundswell, and then a wave, and now aspires to be a storm of Noah-esque proportions to wipe the sin from the world.
Please, if you don't want that to happen, make yourself heard. Use your vote to remind our leaders that a burning desire for separation of church and state is WHY we have this country in the first place. And that's it's too precious a gift to let a minority number of a single generation tear it out of our hands.
WOW. I normally don't blog about stuff like this, but there are too many things in this movie that beg to be addressed. As a mother, a person who believes in and advocates tolerance, and a citizen of the United States, I feel obligated to share my feelings.
First, a few statistics.
1. 43% of Evangelical Christians are "born again" before the age of 13.
2. 75% of the home-schooled children in the US are Evangelical Christians
3. 25% of the American population - roughy 80 million people - identify themselves as Evangelical Christians
And a few quotes.
"Creationism is the only possible answer. To everything." - parent of home-schooled Levi, who feels called to be a pastor and was first saved at 5 years old, on teaching him from the textbook Exploring Creation with Physical Science.
"God is not in every church." - 9-year-old Rachael, describing "dead" churches where they don't do things like "speak in tongues and jump up and down and shout 'Hallelujah, God!'"
"America is supposed to be God's nation." - visiting pastor at the camp while speaking to the kids about how it's their generation's duty to reverse the abortion laws in the US (yes, you DID read that correctly)
"[These kids] will do anything you tell them to, and it's who gets ahold of them." - Debbie, founder of a Christian clinic located next to a Planned Parenthood which the kids visit on a prayer walk
And finally, my personal favorites. These are statements made by Ted Haggard, former pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, who is featured in the film, and who, prior to his departure from the church, spoke to President Bush and his advisors every Monday morning.
"There's a new church like this every two days in America." - referring to his mega-church which claims a memberhsip of approximately 14,000
"We need to make sure our nation has a core belief." - on the Evangelical movement's goal for America.
I am completely and totally appalled that something like this is even legal, let alone accepted and even promoted in America in the 21st century. From beginning to end, Becky Fischer - who appears to be a charming, pleasant woman who genuinely believes she is doing the right thing - and her fellow ministers use tactics akin to brainwashing and pyschological warfare to get these kids doing what they want them to do. At one point in the film, in a room full of a few hundred children, she asks how many of them have fallen by the wayside and become hypocrites and liars like the other kids in school? How many have used cuss words like the other kids? How many have talked dirty just like the other kids? It's clear that the kids are very uncomfortable, and some begin crying and look really scared - so she tells them to come up front and have their sin washed away (by pouring bottled water on their hands). And then she tells them to go pray on what they've done, and repent because they have some serious repenting to do.
Wow. Last time I checked, adolescent and tween-age kids want nothing more than to conform to the norms they see around them. They want to fit in. Yes, you try and teach them that they're each special, and they're each capable of anything - but you don't do it by telling them that fitting in is WRONG. Or BAD. Or worthy of the same punishment you'd dole out to someone who's committed adultery.
There were other surreal moments in the film when these kids were speaking in tongues, and laying hands on people to fill them with the holy spirit, and evangelizing to people around them in a bowling alley, at a park and on the street. Disturbing, yes, but primarily because the things that these kids are saying are clearly things they've learned from hearing them repeated so much. The phraseology, syntax and speech patterns are so painfully obviously copied from the adults in these kids' lives that it's difficult to watch the words come from their mouths. They're like little parrots.
In one scene, which was VERY difficult to watch, the kids go with one of the adults to a clinic that's been founded by an Evangelical Christian woman named Debbie. It sits next door to a Planned Parenthood in a strip mall. The kids are on a "prayer walk," where they go to different places in their town and pray on them by laying their hands on the walls. In the clinic scene, Debbie tells the kids that over 50% of the girls who come in there are "abortion-minded," but that the love of God and the prayers of the children turn the girls around and show them that they have other options.
And that they don't feel that same love next door at Planned Parenthood.
The kids also go to Washington and stand in front of the Supreme Court with red stickers saying "LIFE" taped across their mouths, singing and swaying and crying.
First of all, NO ONE under 18 should be involved in any kind of abortion protest. It turns my stomach to think that people use these kids - whose opinions are formed for them before they ever know that there are alternatives - as tools in a political war.
Levi's mother says at one point that the kids are not forced to do this. I disagree. I don't understand how indoctrination into a movement from the time you're born without information that other options exist is not a form of coercion. Kids want to please their parents - it's the motive behind most of the things they do. So why would they question the things they're being taught? They're not only going to accept them, but they're going to do it gleefully, and even expand on the ideas if that will garner even more praise.
We have a very serious situation coming about in this country. If you didn't see it during both of the Bush elections, it's not necessarily because you weren't looking. This has been in the works for many, many years, but because of where we are geographically (for my circle of IRL friends), we've been somewhat insulated from it. But it has finally gained enough support that it became a groundswell, and then a wave, and now aspires to be a storm of Noah-esque proportions to wipe the sin from the world.
Please, if you don't want that to happen, make yourself heard. Use your vote to remind our leaders that a burning desire for separation of church and state is WHY we have this country in the first place. And that's it's too precious a gift to let a minority number of a single generation tear it out of our hands.