"Jesus Camp" implicates both "camps"

June 28, 4:04 PMSt. Louis Presbyterian ExaminerAlicia Donathan

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The documentary, "Jesus Camp," released in 2006 and directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, cuts both ways: it is a disturbing look at a particular strand of Evangelicalism, and an equally disturbing glimpse of those who look at them (secular folk and non-Evangelicals).   

The film is a bona fide documentary--nothing made up--that ends up being a mockumentary in spite of itself (or perhaps that was intentional?).  It follows two Missouri children, ages roughly 10 and 12, through their experience attending a local Pentecostal church in suburban Kansas City and a summer Christian camp in North Dakota, run by Becky Fischer.  The film focuses almost exclusively on Pentecostal Christian culture--tongues, Holy Spirit, and all (minus the snake-handling)--and includes some incisive interviews with the kids growing up in that culture.  

A brief and disappointing glimpse into the homeschool education of two boys, in which global warming and evolution were dismissed with the tossing-out of a few one-liners; the rather astonishing emotional frenzy induced at meetings in the camp; a fiery insistence by one child that people attending other types of Christian churches (less animated ones) are not truly worshiping God and thus "dead"; and the declaration of Fischer that kids are the most easily "used" by Christianity; all combine to reveal an alarmingly superficial, yet persistent, evangelical subculture.  

One girl read and distributed what looked like Chick Tracts.  (For those who don't know, these are a series of tracts created by Jack Chick, notoriously unnuanced and inflammatory.)  

While all this was enough to give most people (Christians included) the willies, so was the narrative.  Christian (non-evangelical) radio host Mike Papantonio provided the commentary to the film, ultimately interviewing Fischer at the end.  Papantonio was clearly appalled at what he referred to as "indoctrination" of children (versus simple "learning"), and insisted on the evils of blurring the ever-sacred separation of church and state.  While not explicit, Papantonio's perspective is likely closer to the filmmakers' own, and to the majority of their audience, than anything else in the film. What was disturbing about Papantonio's views was that they were equally superficial, un-thought-out, and both philosophically and historically weak.  

The explanatory bylines of the film were similarly skewed: Though the film followed exclusively one strand of Christianity--namely, Pentecostalism--the bylines continually fed the viewer statistics about "Evangelical Christians" in America.  This latter category is incredibly broad, and includes huge numbers of non-Pentecostal, non-tongue-speaking, non-charismatic folks, many of whom would fit the category of "dead" churches shunned by the little girl in the film.  The tone of the film, therefore, was subtly alarmist, leading the viewer to see all Evangelical Christians in this light, and to fear, like Papantonio, for the safety of a secular state.  The fundamentalists are coming!  Theocratic militants!  An American jihad!  So it goes...And it certainly doesn't help that the film included an interview with Ted Haggard, of all people.  

While every film is limited in perspective, and this one is as particular as any--more of a case study than anything else--it is still problematic in that it takes a very particular Evangelical experience and labels it in such a way as to make seem ordinary.  

Ultimately, though, the political and cultural goals of these Pentecostals were pretty simple, if their means were not agreeble to most: A resurgence of Christians in government, the outlawing of abortion, and the transformation (or restoration) of America into a distinctly Christian nation.  To those goals, a Presbyterian like myself can say, "Amen!...But you can keep the 'tongues.'"