This was my response to a recent comment on another board regarding this movie and its disgusting, disturbing subject matter:
Furthermore, this is the absolute WORST kind of child abuse.
These adults should be in prison.
You hit the nail on the head. I'm sure we're not the first on this board to consider religious indoctrination of children as a kind of abuse. But this goes beyond the pale. It's absolutely appalling. This is brainwashing. Of the very youngest children. It's a legal, sanctioned cult. I suspect many of these kids will have serious emotional and psychological issues when they become adults. The woman leading this thing is a full-on fruitcake. These parents are allowing an obviously mentally unstable woman to shape the entire future lives of their children. (And incidentally, it seems not only to be religious indoctrination, but political as well, ultra-conservatism as a life-style.)
When I was a kid I went to several Christian Summer Camps, in the 70's. It was all Jesus, all the time, all the games and entertainment and social interaction was somehow related to and filtered thru Christ Our Lord. They would even take popular songs of the period and change the lyrics, these were the hymns we sung and the tunes we danced to. Part of one sticks in my mind to this day, it was The Carpenters "We've Only Just Begun" and the opening lyrics were "We've only just begun, To live our lives for Christ on Earth..." And so on. You get the picture. But this was mild, tame stuff compared to Jesus Camp. My upbringing was in a fairly normal, average southern Christian household and as a reasonable, rational adult my psyche still has trouble coping w/that ingrained religious belief. I can't imagine what these kids will have to go thru as adults.
One can clearly see that these children are merely parroting what they have been taught by the "grownups" (I use that sarcastically, since these folks never really grow up). This is the nature of childhood. That's what kids do, no matter what you teach them. Can you imagine the peer pressure in that place if you dare to question the party-line? How are they different from the Hitler Youth, young teens who murdered innocents in the name of their Fuhrer because they believed in him? Or the skinheads and bigots who openly teach their children to hate other races and proudly boast about what they've done on Jerry Springer, their kids spouting racist dogma w/o any trace of a real or meaningful understanding of what they're actually saying and the despicable, intolerant lifestyle their promoting? If this was, er, what... "Quetzalcoatl Camp" instead of "Jesus Camp" it would be recognized for the cult it truly is and this woman would be a criminal and on the run, one of the FBI's most-wanted, like that recent psycho who was marrying teens several at at time. She's David Koresh w/o the guns; she's nuts, she's scary and dangerous and only more so because her madness is validated and sanctioned by our society.
H
Furthermore, this is the absolute WORST kind of child abuse.
These adults should be in prison.
You hit the nail on the head. I'm sure we're not the first on this board to consider religious indoctrination of children as a kind of abuse. But this goes beyond the pale. It's absolutely appalling. This is brainwashing. Of the very youngest children. It's a legal, sanctioned cult. I suspect many of these kids will have serious emotional and psychological issues when they become adults. The woman leading this thing is a full-on fruitcake. These parents are allowing an obviously mentally unstable woman to shape the entire future lives of their children. (And incidentally, it seems not only to be religious indoctrination, but political as well, ultra-conservatism as a life-style.)
When I was a kid I went to several Christian Summer Camps, in the 70's. It was all Jesus, all the time, all the games and entertainment and social interaction was somehow related to and filtered thru Christ Our Lord. They would even take popular songs of the period and change the lyrics, these were the hymns we sung and the tunes we danced to. Part of one sticks in my mind to this day, it was The Carpenters "We've Only Just Begun" and the opening lyrics were "We've only just begun, To live our lives for Christ on Earth..." And so on. You get the picture. But this was mild, tame stuff compared to Jesus Camp. My upbringing was in a fairly normal, average southern Christian household and as a reasonable, rational adult my psyche still has trouble coping w/that ingrained religious belief. I can't imagine what these kids will have to go thru as adults.
One can clearly see that these children are merely parroting what they have been taught by the "grownups" (I use that sarcastically, since these folks never really grow up). This is the nature of childhood. That's what kids do, no matter what you teach them. Can you imagine the peer pressure in that place if you dare to question the party-line? How are they different from the Hitler Youth, young teens who murdered innocents in the name of their Fuhrer because they believed in him? Or the skinheads and bigots who openly teach their children to hate other races and proudly boast about what they've done on Jerry Springer, their kids spouting racist dogma w/o any trace of a real or meaningful understanding of what they're actually saying and the despicable, intolerant lifestyle their promoting? If this was, er, what... "Quetzalcoatl Camp" instead of "Jesus Camp" it would be recognized for the cult it truly is and this woman would be a criminal and on the run, one of the FBI's most-wanted, like that recent psycho who was marrying teens several at at time. She's David Koresh w/o the guns; she's nuts, she's scary and dangerous and only more so because her madness is validated and sanctioned by our society.
H