Sunday, March 25, 2007

Jesus Camp !!!! I don't think so

About a month ago I heard about a documentary called Jesus Camp. Now I watch a fair bit of documentaries, I even have the Documentary Channel on my Dish, so when I heard about this particular one, I made note to watch it. Other than that Michael Moore piece of slanted crap Fahrenheit 9/11. I have never been more shocked by a film in my life. This film shows how Pastor Becky Fischer preaches (I’m tempted to say program) these children with the blessing of the kids parents. This film scared the hell out of me.

In the first few minutes we see the Becky in action as she preaches and asks the kids if they believe if God and do anything, then we see a mother forcing their kids to raise their hands. It was soon after this in an interview that the Pastor said this.

“I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan, in Israel, and Palestine and all those different places because we have…excuse me but we have the truth.”

This was 11 minutes into the film and all I could think is “Is this person insane? are their parents nuts?” She’s basically wants their kids to go to war for the Gospel. She wants them to taking lives in the name of God? I grew up going to Catholic School and going to church on Sunday and my God is a loving and forgiving God, not a warmonger. I just shock my head. I really am I bad Catholic I guess since I think that this is a horrible thing to teach children.

What really bothers me is that these kids are having their childhood taken away. They can’t play without hearing SOMETHING about Jesus. They can’t even tell stories about at night without some joker going off about, it might be fun now but what would Jesus think. I think Jesus would say lighten up. Let them experience the joys of being a child.

Most of these kids were home schooled because the parents don’t seem to like what the public schools are teaching, Evolution vs Creationism, that sort of thing. Then I watched as they said the Allegiance to the Christian Flag. The Christian Flag!!! I had to stop the DVD so I could recover from the shock and disbelief. This happened a lot while I tried to watch this movie. At one point they were all touching a cardboard cutout of George W Bush because he’s supposed to be an Evangelist as well.

After watching the DVD, I did some further research about this film and I’ve discovered that the Camp has been shut down, at least for a few years.

I first heard about this movie on The Hour, a Canadian Newsmagazine hosted by a former music video channel VJ George Stroumboulopoulos. He’s also had Tony Campolo, Bill Clinton’s former spiritual advisor, and Chris Hedges on the actions of the Religious Right. I’m glad that George is there to let me know what is REALLY going on down there across the border.

Sheesh, All I wanted to do was blog about fart jokes.

My 2 Bytes

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