Film Muser

Film Muser Rating : 4 / 5
Release Date : September 15, 2006
Running Time : 84 minutes
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In the documentary Jesus Camp, we are given a firsthand look at the American Evangelical Christian conservative movement and how their youth are being molded to be their future political and religious leaders. The film focuses on a handful of young children and their time at the “Kids on Fire” summer camp run by Pastor Becky Fischer in North Dakota. While at the camp the children are taught fundamentalist Christian ideals and filled with the fear of eternal damnation as they are prepared for a war to reclaim America for Christ.

This is a powerful film showing impressionable children being used to further a political agenda. It is no secret that this type of stuff is going on, but it is a different story to actually see it in action. Pastor Becky Fischer doesn’t try and hide her intentions, continually referring to fundamentalist Muslims training their children for a holy war, and the need for Americans to start doing the same. While being interviewed at the camp a young girl talks about how they are being trained for a war, and how she is not afraid of dying. She then adds that being a martyr would be “cool”.

The fundamentalist Christian scenes are juxtaposed against scenes with Mike Papantonio, a radio host and moderate Christian, who questions the Evangelical Christian invasion of Washington, D.C. and how its influence is slowly destroying the fundamental separation of church and state. Near the end of the film, Fischer is a guest on his radio program and makes a statement that I found quite disturbing. It went something like this:

Democracy is the greatest political system on the Earth, but having to give equal freedom to all people is going to destroy us.

The reaction of Papantonio following his interview is priceless as he tries to make some sort of sense about what had just been discussed. I really liked his confrontations with Fischer, accusing her of taking advantage of the children to further the cause of adults. I would have liked to have seen more scenes with Panantonio.

This film is filled with so many scenes that will be found shocking, and it doesn’t matter what your political tendencies are. I guarantee that this movie will be sure to invoke a strong reaction (no matter whether you agree with them or not) from many scenes including Harry Potter being ruthlessly condemned for being a warlock, a child being told that “science doesn’t prove anything” (isn’t that an oxymoron?), and when cups representing the government are smashed by the children with hammers. And let’s not forget about the scenes where the young children are writhing on the ground crying in a religious awakening.

I highly recommend this film to anyone who cherishes the idea of democracy and the separation of church and state. We are given a great insight into the movement that is underway in the United States to make this idea a thing of the past. Seeing such young children manipulated through fear and their naivety by adults wishing to make political gains is disturbing and quite moving.

Memorable Scene
Pastor Ted Haggard was the President of the National Association of Evangelicals. There is a scene in the film during one of the Pastor’s sermons where he is speaking about how everything is explained in the bible. He continues along this path stating that the bible says homosexuality is bad, so it obviously must be bad. What makes this scene so interesting doesn’t actually happen until after the film was released. In November of 2006 Haggard resigned from his post after admitting that he had taken services from a male prostitute and purchased methamphetamines.