Today we saw the Academy Award nominated film Jesus Camp at the documentary festival. I’d been wanting to see it for months, so I was quite pleased when I saw it listed in the program schedule. The movie follows a group of kids as they attend the “Kids on Fire Summer Camp” as well as providing insight into the world of evangelical Christians in America, and how they are recruiting children.
The Greek audience seemed to appreciate some ironies in the film (the area where the camp is held is called Devil’s Lake, for example), and at first I was afraid that it would come across as another “look at the crazy Americans” movie to European eyes. But the documentary was surprisingly fair, not only to the evangelicals portrayed but to the Americans who don’t agree with such extremist ideologies. I suppose the most disturbing thing about the movie was the acknowledgment by the adults involved that they were shaping the minds of children intentionally – that children up to nine years old were the best to indoctrinate with the evangelical “cause” – hoping to imprint their doctrines on them forever. My brother-in-law acknowledged that such fundamentalism exists all over the world, among all religions and in many ways (he mentioned Hitler’s youth, by example). It seems to be very easy for the world to exploit its youth for whatever purpose adults desire, and I feel very fortunate to have been raised by parents who insisted on teaching me all points of view and letting me decide for myself what to believe. But I don’t think the adults in this movie meant to do harm to the children they were teaching, I honestly feel like they felt they were doing the right thing in the eyes of God, other evangelicals, and the world.
The tragedy here is that the kids the film focused on were all very bright, thoughtful individuals who no doubt could offer the world any number of things if given the opportunity. I suppose it is a boon to the evangelicals to have such children among them, although I can’t help but hope that the future opens their eyes beyond the small world they were brought up in.
Jesus Camp is showing again at the Olympion Theatre on Aristotelous Friday night, so if you are in town, I recommend it.
3 comments:
i saw jesus camp when it was available on google videos. i wonder how much the greek audience thought about the religious indoctrination of children in greek schools by the orthodox church. it's not called the ministry of education and religion for nothing.
thanos, i agree with you 100%. humanity's religions should be taught to children. children should be well informed and be left to make up their own minds, armed with skills in critical thinking.
dan dennett explores this issue in teach our children well. it's not an easy thing to implement, though.
the creation myth alone should take up a huge chunk of a school year.. there are plenty to study:
http://www.magictails.com/creationlinks.html
http://www.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths.html
i believe that, in america, where church and state are separate under the constitution, people are free to pray in whatever manner they like -- it's merely unlawful for the gov't to establish religion in secular institutions, such as public schools.
regarding indoctrination, it does not equal hallelujahs -- it takes many forms and ranges from the obvious to the subtle.
at least they were being indoc with something positive...better than hate, even if fanatacism in any form is scary :)
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