Kids on Fire

I have just witnessed the most disturbing film of all time. It's called Jesus Camp.

A central player in the film is Becky Fischer, a pentecostal preacher and organizer of a summer camp called "Kids on Fire." I wish I was making that up. The film opens with a fun little song and dance routine put on by a bunch of kids, singing about how great Jesus is. I'd say that's a normal part of church; no problem there. Except the boys are dressed in camouflage(with their faces painted to match), the kids are carrying sticks as though they were weapons, and the dance moves kind of looked like karate(little kid karate). Becky then proceeded to stand in front of these children and tell them what a terrible world we live in and asked the kids why didn't God "just fix it". She also told them how fat and lazy Americans are. Judging from the size of her, I'd guess she doesn't believe in leading by example. It all ended with the children on their feet, shaking uncontrolably and speaking in "tongues" (read "gibberish").

Next we meet some of the little children who will be attending the "Kids on Fire" camp. Seriously, what self respecting parent would let their children attend a camp where the name implies that they will be SET ON FIRE?! Anyway...we meet little Levi, an 11 year old who already has a career preaching. Levi is home schooled by his mother(according to the movie, 75% of homeschool children in America are evangelicals). She asks him what he would think if a public school science teacher were to say creationism is stupid, to which he says he wouldn't agree. Then she asks him the same question, only about evolution. I think you can guess what his reply was.

We also get to meet his little sister, who prays to Jesus with all her heart that he will...help her get a strike while bowling. Really? Apparently, God cares deeply about your bowling average. Guess I'm fucked. She also decides to walk up to a random woman and tell her that God cares about her, and that she should follow a righteous path(or something similar, it all sounds the same to me). When her Dad asks her why she did it, she said God told her to.

The entire film is like this, swaying back and forth between absolute absurdity to shocking horror at the brainwashing these kids are enduring. I had to fight back tears a couple times while watching it. One of the sermons these children went to had this message: "a person's a person, no matter how small." But the message wasn't about the acceptance of others, like Dr. Seuss intended. No, instead the pastor/preacher/whatever the hell you call him then proceeds to open up a small box, containing tiny plastic models of human embryos at various stages of development. He tells them that one-third of their friends wanted to be there today, but couldn't because they weren't given the chance to live. Then the children had red tape with the word "Life" written in black placed over their mouths, and then led in a prayer about wanting to be washed in the blood of christ. Their doctrine of "Life" apparently only extends to the unborn, however, as the day before Becky told the kids that Harry Potter would have been put to death for being an enemy of God, no matter how big a hero he was. A death sentence pronounced upon a fictional character...these people have a big problem distinguishing fact from fiction.

Probably the most powerful message pushed on these kids is that they're the most important generation ever. Here's a nice little quote from Levi's little sister: "...we're being trained as soldiers..." In fact, the theme of war runs throughout the entire film. The evangelicals are fighting a war to win back America for christ, and they're using their children to do it for them. At one point the children are asked, "How many of you want to be those who would give up their lives for Jesus?" Of course, they all raise their hands. In the beginning of the film, Becky talks about how Islamic children are taught from a young age to use guns and grenades, and says no wonder they're willing to kill themselves when they get older. Apparently, she thinks this is a great idea. The evangelicals even have a flag and a pledge of allegiance. Here's the flag:














Before you denounce the evangelicals as just a bunch of whackos who aren't representative of America, let me remind you of two things.

1) You don't have to be numerous to be dangerous.

2) The evangelicals make up 28.6% of the American population(according to this study). That's 85,800,000 (estimated US pop 3 hundred million) of these crazy nutjobs.

One last thing: the voice of reason in this movie comes by way of a Christian radio show host. He shows up a couple times, and each time he's pointing out what's wrong with evangelism. Of course not all Christians are like the evangelicals, and it's great to see a christian with a little influence doing something to keep these people in check. I hope more follow his example.

I took so many notes during this movie, I can't possibly put it all down here. You really should just watch the movie. I'll end with a couple of choice quotes:

"I can go into a playground of kids that don't know anything about Christianity, lead them to the Lord in a matter of, just no time at all, and just moments later they can be seeing visions and hearing the voice of God, because they're so open. They are so usable in Christianity." -Becky Fischer

"If the evangelicals vote, they determine the election." - Ted Haggard, then leader of the National Association of Evangelicals



"God hears the cries of children" -Becky Fischer