by nomo » Tue Jun 13, 2006 4:36 pm
Don't know what to say... except maybe "eep!" I guess you can't start the indoctrination/brainwashing/whatever early enough.<br><!--EZCODE HR START--><hr /><!--EZCODE HR END--><br><br>God's Army<br>Overzealous child soldiers -- and their parents -- in Jesus Camp, a<br>film about Pentecostals, represent only a fraction of Christians.<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11628">www.prospect.org/web/page...leId=11628</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>By Kirsten A. Powers<br>Web Exclusive: 06.09.06<br><br>Trailer: <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=fTscmx3q5Z4&search=jesus%20camp">youtube.com/watch?v=fTscm...sus%20camp</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>Interview with the "Harry Potter" pastor:<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/tribeca/news/iwt/20060510/114731225900.html">movies.yahoo.com/mv/tribe...25900.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>Synopsis: <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/tixSYS/2006/filmguide/event_np_dirstate.php?EventNumber=4083">www.tribecafilmfestival.o...umber=4083</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Gandhi once said if Christians lived according to their faith, there<br>would be no Hindus left in India. He knew how powerful the fundamental<br>tenets of Christianity -- fighting poverty, caring for the least among<br>us, loving your enemies, eschewing materialism and embracing humility<br>-- could be if everyone who called themselves a Christian truly<br>followed them.<br><br>The new documentary, Jesus Camp, which chronicles a North Dakota<br>summer camp where kids as young as 6 are taught to become dedicated<br>Christian soldiers in "God's army," is an illustration of this<br>sentiment in the extreme.<br><br>The film, by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, the duo who also directed<br>the critically-acclaimed The Boys of Baraka, opened to an appreciative<br>and flabbergasted audience at the 2006 TriBeca Film Festival, where it<br>received the Special Jury Award. The directors skillfully captured the<br>daily interactions of a world that would be foreign to most viewers:<br>children speaking in tongues and talking of being "born again" at age<br>5.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The star of the film is Pastor Becky Fischer, who explains the<br>startling mission of her "Kids on Fire" camp: "I want young people to<br>be as committed to laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are<br>in Pakistan." At the camp, the children are asked: "How many of you<br>want to be those who will give up your life for Jesus?" Little hands<br>shoot up from every direction. They are told: "We have to break the<br>power of the enemy over the government." At one point, Becky yells:<br>"This means war! Are you a part of it or not?" More little hands.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>The directors take us into the homes of the children, where we see<br>them "pledge allegiance to the Christian flag" and play a video game<br>called "Creation Adventure" that debunks evolution. A mother helps her<br>children with homework and informs them that, "Global warming is not<br>going to happen. Science doesn't prove anything."<br><br>The film takes us back to the camp, where the children are gathered<br>for their daily teaching. Suddenly, a camp counselor places a<br>life-size cardboard cutout before the group. No, it's not Jesus. It's<br>George Bush. Clapping erupts and Becky encourages them to "say hello<br>to the President." Becky claims that "President Bush has added<br>credibility to being a Christian."<br><br>Statistics about the spectacular number of "evangelicals" in the<br>United States are ominously flashed onscreen throughout the movie,<br>implicitly suggesting that Becky and her assembled camp are giving us<br>a peek into the inner workings of the "evangelical movement." But it<br>might be worth questioning the conventional wisdom that the 100<br>million Americans who call themselves evangelicals all march to the<br>same beat. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson have a<br>vested interest in presenting this group as a conservative monolith<br>under their exclusive and unquestioned control. And while there is no<br>denying the electoral power of the Religious Right, Democrats should<br>not assume that all, or even a majority, of evangelicals naturally hew<br>to the Republican line.<br><br>While it's never disclosed in the movie, Jesus Camp is in fact a<br>Pentecostal camp, which puts it far to the right theologically and<br>politically, even within the evangelical movement. The directors<br>explained that they didn't want to confuse audiences by disclosing<br>this and instead referred to the camp only as "evangelical."<br>Unfortunately, they unwittingly added to the enormous confusion that<br>people like Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets<br>It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, has been trying to clear up for<br>years.<br><br>Wallis, who is the founder and editor of Sojourners, a progressive<br>Christian magazine, spends much of his time traveling the country<br>talking to students and meeting with evangelical leaders. Wallis<br>believes the future of the country is in the hands of moderate<br>evangelical voters. He estimates, based on polls and personal<br>experience, that about half of evangelicals are the immovable<br>Religious Right but the other half are open to, if not hungry for,<br>progressive leadership.<br><br>"The facts on the ground are changing," says Wallis. He reports a<br>marked increase in attendance of his speeches on Christian campuses<br>and the issues he gets asked about the most are not gay marriage or<br>abortion. Wallis says abortion will naturally remain important issue<br>to the moderate evangelical voter, but it is not a litmus test. They<br>want leaders who will acknowledge their moral concerns about this<br>issue and who are committed to decreasing the number of abortions, a<br>position that puts them well within the mainstream of Democratic<br>voters.<br><br>And it's no different if Wallis is meeting with the leader of an<br>evangelical mega-church. One such leader recently told Wallis, "I'm a<br>conservative on Jesus, the Bible and the Resurrection, but I'm<br>becoming a social liberal." When Wallis asked why, he heard what has<br>become a familiar refrain: evangelicals are increasingly despairing<br>over the neglect of the poor, the environment, and the U.S. inaction<br>on fighting the genocide in Darfur.<br><br>White evangelicals make up close to 25 percent of the electorate and,<br>in 2004, a whopping 78 percent of them voted for George Bush. But<br>evangelicals didn't always line up behind the Republican candidate.<br>According to Pew Research, in 1987, white evangelicals were almost<br>evenly divided between the two parties. And today, many evangelical<br>leaders believe that a growing number of these voters are prepared to<br>return to the Democratic fold, but only if Democrats stop<br>misunderstanding, neglecting, and even intentionally ignoring what was<br>and should be a natural constituency.<br><br>Meanwhile, evangelical groups are finding their voice on many<br>progressive issues. U2 front man Bono has talked extensively of the<br>unlikely partnership he has forged with evangelical leaders in<br>fighting the AIDS crisis. One of those leaders is Ted Haggard, a<br>staunch Republican who founded the now 12,000-person New Life Church<br>and heads the National Association of Evangelicals. Haggard personally<br>counseled British Prime Minister Blair on how to persuade President<br>Bush to support Third World debt relief and has made protecting the<br>environment a central issue of concern for his church.<br><br>In February, Christianity Today's cover blasted "Why Torture is Always<br>Wrong." Joining with the Catholic Church, more than 50 evangelical<br>Christian leaders and organizations recently voiced their support for<br>an immigration bill that would allow illegal immigrants to become U.S.<br>citizens without returning to their native countries. And earlier this<br>year, a group of 86 evangelical Christian leaders launched a campaign<br>to educate Christians about climate change and urged the U.S. Congress<br>to enact legislation to curb global warming. The campaign calls on<br>Christians to battle global warming, "which will hit the poor the<br>hardest because those areas likely to be significantly affected first<br>are the poorest regions of the world."<br><br>These concerns sounds pretty progressive. So, why are so few white<br>evangelicals voting Democratic? Wallis believes Democrats have ceded<br>the territory of religion to the Republican side, allowing them to use<br>it to divide the electorate. Or, as Wallis has said, "I think this<br>idea that all the Christians, all the religious people are jammed in<br>the red states and the blue states are full of agnostics is a bit<br>overblown in the media. It's more complicated than that."<br><br>Much, much more complicated. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=nomo@rigorousintuition>nomo</A> at: 6/14/06 1:06 am<br></i>