There is something rather unnerving about the award-winning documentary film, Jesus Camp. This film follows three children, 12 year-old Levi, 10 year-old Tory and 9 year-old Rachel, who go to an Evangelical Christian summer camp, “Kids on Fire”, ironically held at Devil’s Lake, North Dakota.

Where filmmakers such as Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine) or Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) tend to be more provocative in their style, presenting material in a way that may be perceived by some as biased toward the filmmaker’s personal opinion, the co-directors of Jesus Camp, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, simply show it as it is. There is no narration and little hint of editorial manipulation. The camera merely records the reality - the beliefs and attitudes of the kids, their parents, the preachers and, in particular, camp organisor and pastor, Becky Fischer.

Becky Fischer

Fischer, who states on her website, ‘Kids in Ministry’ (http://kidsinministry.com), that she feels the film is “a fair look” at her movement, is a big woman, dominating not only in her physical stature, but, more importantly, in her religious fervour and passionate resolve to use children to “take back America for Christ’. As she vehemently chants in front of a hall full of children, “This is war!”, and it is a war of sorts, a cultural war, and “Kids on Fire” is the boot camp.

Jesus Camp opens with a montage of Missouri highway shots and sound bites from news reporters and politicians underscored with a simple, but ominous, bass monotone. This, perhaps, is the only time where the co-directors could be accused of bias, as the effect of the scene is to convey a foreboding sense that something evil awaits. That evil, as Air America radio host and Christian, Mike Papantonio, presented in the film as an opponent of Fischer’s extremist Evangelicalism, tells us is the “entanglement of religion and politics”. But for me, it is not so much the threat of that dangerous liaison which provides what is unnerving in this film, but rather, the blatant indoctrination of young impressionable minds.

These children are, quite literally, being brainwashed into believing there is only one religion, one God, one morality - and that singularity is patriarchal, heterosexual, anti-abortion and very much one-eyed. These children are home-schooled because, as one of the camp pastors claims, the Government took God out of their classrooms. These children are taught that global warming is not an environmental issue, but merely political grandiloquence; that evolution and natural selection are falsehoods; that homosexuality is evil; and that U.S. President George W. Bush is, as Fischer claims, “doing God’s work”. These children, as they dance to heavy metal Christian rock music, wearing camouflage and face paint, holding wooden swords, are being trained, quoting Fischer, to “take back America for Christ”.

For a documentary shot in the style of cinéma verité, the camera work and sound are superb. There is one particularly epigrammatic scene where Fischer is taking her car through a car-wash. The camera looks out through the windscreen. Streaming down over the glass, the water, coloured by a red backdrop, looks like blood - the blood of Christ which the Evangelists throughout the film implore their God to rain down upon them. There is also a night scene when lightning and rain beset the youthful campers who are in their hut telling ghost stories, their faces lit by torches, providing an atmosphere reminiscent of a B-grade horror movie. But the kids are chastised for playing in a fashion that emulates the work of the devil. And the devil, as Fischer tells her charges, “goes after the young”. Even J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, hero of children and parents around the world, is a tool of Fischer’s devil as she preaches to the children, “You don’t make heroes out of warlocks”.

This is an extremely well-crafted documentary that deserves the critical acclaim it has received. If you thought the work of filmmakers like Moore or Spurlock were the epitomical exposés of the perversity that undermines the culture of the world’s most powerful nation, think again. What Ewing and Grady do with Jesus Camp is not make such bold judgements. They merely show the increasingly powerful Evangelical community of the United States as it is. If, as Fischer claims, “the devil goes after the young, those who cannot defend themselves”, then so too, as this film shows, do the Evangelical fanatics of middle-America. That is what is unnerving about this film. That is what makes this film an important document in understanding why the United States is a nation, a culture, that warrants concern. This is definitely a ‘must see’ film, but be warned - if you have any sensibilities for the vulnerability of children, you may not like what you see.

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