Saturday, April 17, 2010

Jesus Camp...


Have you seen this movie? I had never heard of it until recently. Jay told me about it, and he found it on Netflix. (clearly I've been living under a rock...seeing as how this film was nominated for an Academy Award) He dropped it in the "play instantly" cue, so we watched it.

The movie follows Becky Fischer and her Kids On Fire camp in Devil's Lake, North Dakota.
I have to be brutally honest. I was shocked by some of it. There was a whole section devoted to abortion...something I consider to be controversial and adult themed. The pro-life advocate gave a room full of children a speech about abortion. Quite frankly, I would be horrified if I learned that my four year old child attended a camp and learned about abortion. I would be horrified if my six year old child asked me to send her to Washington D.C. to stand outside the capitol building with a red tape bearing the word LIFE over her mouth.
I don't know when it is appropriate for my children to learn about abortion (I'm sure I'll cross that bridge at some point), but I know that I should be the one to tell them what it is. I don't want them to learn about it from a stranger at church camp.
Ted Haggard was also featured in this film. I was sad to see the children admiring him...knowing that only a short time later it would come out that he was seeing a male prostitute and buying crystal meth. How awful that must have been for those children who viewed him as a leader and role model.
Overall, I would recommend this movie to anyone. I think it did a good job of documenting the Evangelical churches without bias.