This, my friends, is a rant. A serious rant, no less. I would suggest (A) seeing Jesus Camp yourself or (B) skipping to the movie clips with descriptive captions.
About three weeks ago I went to see the movie Jesus Camp with some friends from GCF. It's dark, and confusing, and it makes you think hard about where you are on the spectrum compared to the wackos portrayed.
On the one hand, I agree with them that:
1. Widespread, government-sanctioned abortion is a social ill.
2. Kids are going to imbibe some sort of ideology.
3. The public schools have their own form of ideology.
And then there's the other hand.
First, I strongly disagree with doing that to children (see movie clips below). I remember being furious when I drove past someone holding up a picture of an aborted baby on the street when I had A. in the car with me. His parents and I, though coming from different perspectives, jointly agreed upon what was age appropriate and wouldn't traumatize him at his stage of development. Yet here was someone, most likely a Christian, holding up something more gory than anything you could see in an R-rated movie for the viewing of general audiences.
I disagree with the obvious encouragement of hysteria in children (i.e. the spooky humming and shouting by adults) in the name of the "Holy Spirit." If being "touched by the Holy Spirit" means five year olds experiencing epilepsy, then I'm converting to Buddhism. Frankly, it creeped me out more than the Exorcist. I'm going to stop there.
The part I feel I can speak to more authoritatively is indoctrinating children with strong opinions about things they can't possibly understand. Unfortunately, some kids are going to know about rape, incest, and birth deformities when they are three. I think we can agree that is not optimal. Yet it's not possible to have an informed opinion on abortion without understanding these concepts. Kids are smart, but they are also mimics. They can't make judgments about complex moral issues until at least their teens. Unless you really think a child can understand the controversy surrounding abortion, you shouldn't use them as tools, and you shouldn't actively engage their emotions. Making them bless a cardboard cut out of George Bush? I think even Dr. F. would have blanched at that sort of "political activism," I hope.
Second, there's the thoughtless hypocrisy. Spotlighted by Ted Haggard, of course. See the clip below where he mocks the discussions of general assemblies about homosexuality because he thinks it's such a clear issue in the Bible. I guess the National Association of Evangelicals could perhaps have benefitted from some discussion about the topic. Yes, we all sin, but the hypocrisy comes in when someone publicly harangues against sin rather than trying help the people affected by the sin. Perhaps Haggard and the leaders of the Jesus Camp are involved in caring for pregnant teens and fighting AIDS, but that is certainly not where their emphasis is.
Then there's the commercialism. I have no problem with Dannon as a water retailer, but what precisely is the connotation of washing away sins with a plastic water bottle? Sorry, but in the realm of symbolism, the Catholic Church has got it all over you guys when it comes to significance. And the shirts that link Christianity and commercial products. What are we saying with the word "Jesus" written to look like the Reeses Logo? Are we saying there is some sort of correlation between Christ and a peanut butter cup? Are we trying to make Christianity palatable? It never seems to occur to these people that perhaps I'm not ashamed of Christ, but I'm not so sure of myself that Christ might not frequently be ashamed of me. Until my actions are faultless, I'm not going to go around advertising (literally) my Christianity to people who see only a fragment of my actions.
Featurette by the creators of Jesus Camp. Footage of children experiencing seizures, being "baptized" with a bottle of Dannon water.
Is any scandal complete until Jon Stewart comments on it? The clip shown is from Jesus Camp.
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2 comments:
That's... um... totally creepy. I went to pentacostal camps as a teenager. Looking back, they were not healthy or sound--and they didn't even begin to enter the realm of politics, thank God! It was just all about experientialism and nearly nothing about doctrine. Explains why I can never understand my results when I take quizzes about what kind of Christian I am. It makes me sad, really...
Speaking of which, do you know what a Methodist is?
The Methodist movement was started by the Wesley brothers. It was sort of a working-class England, back-to-the-Bible movement (read Adam Bede). Methodists are Arminian, which is why they, in the US and Canada, they tend to oppose the Presbyterian churches(read Anne of Green Gables). My impression is that most established Methodist churches have deteriorated into spiritual Elk's Lodges.
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