3) Jesus Camp
There were a couple of deeply affecting religious documentaries that came out in 2006. One, Deliver Us From Evil, dealt with the heartbreaking and infuriating results of child abuse in a Catholic church parish. Another was Jesus Camp, a look at a children’s summer camp catering to devoutly fundamentalist Christian families. This second one touched closely to personal experiences from my own life, but it’s also a troubling portrait of the deceptive forcefulness with which anyone committed to a cause can shackle another person in with them when they’re unable to tell them “no thank you.”
Such is the case with the “Kids on Fire” Bible camp depicted in the documentary. The film focuses on the apparently well-intentioned leader of the camp named Becky Fischer, as well as a few of the campers in particular. We see them at the camp and at home, being taught specific values and lessons specific to their parents’ religious principles, insulating them from the secular world around them.
This includes a number of bizarre activities to which description can’t do justice. The overwhelming perception by the film’s end, and the dominant reaction, is that these children are indoctrinated, even brainwashed. That isn’t necessarily unique to religion, however, even though it may be more severe when eternal salvation is what’s on the line. It can extend to all sorts of political and environmental causes that children who are too young to know what they’re talking about and being used for get roped into by adults.
There are a lot of creepy elements of the Kids on Fire organization, but what’s most striking about this is how easily children are treated as tools or plant seeds rather than human beings.
