“Jesus Camp” was a very evocative documentary. It received a lot of critical acclaim for being an honest and impartial exposé of the Evangelical Christian community, but it was difficult for me to see why this was. I honestly thought that the film was actively intending to portray Evangelicals in a negative light, but I think I’ve realised why I came to that conclusion.
The co-director of the film had this to say about it:
“They’re not doing anything illegal, and if you want to raise your children as liberal progressives, to be amped up about environmentalism and being pro-choice, you can do that. Some of the arguments against the film were so knee-jerk, it made me realise the far left and the far right have a lot in common.” (Ewing, 2016)
This statement prompted some reflection for me. She's not wrong. Parents will raise their children according to their beliefs, whether it is intentional or not. It’s unavoidable that parental values and morals will reflect in their children in some capacity, whether the children take these on wholeheartedly, find they disagree and reject them, or compromise on a mixture of both reactions. I myself am not religious, and I am a firm believer that everyone should have the freedom and capacity to pursue the happiness they desire. Is my negative response a knee-jerk reaction because of my personal opinions?
The thing is, I don't think that parents teaching children their religion is a bad thing in and of itself. I think there is a distinction Ewing neglected. I take issue with how parents and camp coordinators in this film went about teaching the children, not necessarily in what they were being taught.
Becky Fischer, a Pastor and head coordinator for Jesus Camp, said herself that what they were doing was not unlike militant Palestinian training camps in the Middle East. She acknowledged that children are the most impressionable and therefore key to growing and sustaining any movement. This is the first red flag for me - it’s a targeted attempt to seize the loyalty of children before they’ve even had the chance to discover where their loyalties might lie.
This I think also leads into all of the other instances where I found myself very repulsed by what was going on. This concept of choice. I think this is the distinction - of course children are going to be raised surrounded by ideas that are not their own, but the nature of society with intersection of family, education, work, media and friend environments gives those children so many ideas that they must as a matter of course make conscious decisions about which of those ideas they resonate with. In indoctrinating impressionable minds - taking them away from any environment that may present other opinions - a child’s right to learn and develop informed personal opinions is not only stunted but removed almost entirely. It also neglects to teach them important critical thinking skills and how to deal appropriately with internal or external conflict.
“One of the problems with faith-based teaching is it teaches children not to trust their own reason and intuition, undermining their ability to have confidence in their own knowledge and ability to process information. There is a lot of psychological damage that follows when people are trained not to trust themselves.” (Terico, 2010)
In the documentary, children were shown to break down and sob when told that they were fake believers, or sinners, for acting differently at school than they did at home. 10-year-old Andrew Sommercamp said that when he questioned his religion, “it [made] me a faker, it [made] me feel guilty and bad.”
My instinctive objection to Jesus Camp is not that I don’t agree with the actual content being preached to the children, but the fact that the authority figures in their lives deliberately erase alternative content. Of course, this objection is ultimately a liberal one to communitarian debate. You could say that I’m wrong, and it’s not so awful that children aren’t given choice because their families and communities have a right to uphold their values and traditions. I don’t disagree with this as a statement, but I do disagree when exercising this right comes at expense to a child’s liberty, personal development and self-esteem.
S O U R C E S R E F E R E N C E D
Ewing, H., & Grady, R. (2006). Jesus Camp [DVD]. United States: Magnolia Pictures.
Hesse, J. (2016). The kids of Jesus Camp, 10 years later: 'Was it child abuse? Yes and no'. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/06/jesus-camp-christian-documentary-kids-10-years-later
Holden, S. (2006). Jesus Camp - Review - Movies. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/movies/22camp.html
Tarico, V. (2010). Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light. Richmond: Oracle Institute Press.
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