The Atheist Next Door

My partner and I watched the documentary Jesus Camp last night. It was one of the scariest things we have ever seen. We went to Blair Witch on our first date.

The film predominately follows three children Rachel, Tory and Levi, and their families. Levi says he was saved when he was five. The children are isolated from others, except through church or when evangelizing. They are home schooled and facts such as evolution and global warming are distorted and are turned into something unbelievable. Their home seems to be a highly controlled environment.

This is bad enough but the real issue is how these children have been indoctrinated into a very evangelical Christian fundamentalist community. They eat, sleep and think Jesus. Their parents declare that this is a culture war and they plan on taking the country back.

The church and Jesus camp are horrifying. The children are taught to speak in tongues, they weep, and shake. They are criticized for trying to fit in with their friends. They are encouraged to evangelize. They are terrified of sin. Warlocks (Harry Potter) are the enemies of God. The camp pastor, Becky Fischer, says that she likes to get them younger than seven or eight. This allows her properly inculcate them in their very narrow and perverse vision of what it is to be a Christian.

To my mind the actions of Becky Fischer, a Pentecostal children’s minister, are bloodcurdling. She ministers to the children and runs the Jesus camp in North Dakota. She says that children are so usable in Christianity. She characterizes Muslims as the enemy. She wants to see the children lay down their lives, like they do in Islam, because she knows the truth. She appears to be succeeding, at one point the camp attendees scream when asked if they want to be “those who will give up their life for Jesus”. This while their smiling parents look on. Children as young as six attend this camp.

As the camp begins, pastor Becky prays over power point presentations and microphones to keep them from malfunctioning. In one of her blessed power point presentations, she teaches the children that the “Punishment for sin is death.” The campers are taught that the Government is evil and that they are at war. After a highly charged session on abortion, they are told they have made a covenant to stop abortion. Later in the film the children are taken near a Planned Parenthood clinic to pray.

The film includes a trip to Evangelical Disney Land, disgraced pastor Ted Haggard‘s New Life Church. He talks about a new mega church being built every second day in the country. He preaches that it is “massive warfare every day-let the battle begin.”

This was filmed just before Ted Haggard’s fall. After preaching against homosexuality for years pastor Ted was forced to admit to “sexual immorality” after being accused of having a relationship with a male prostitute.

The counterpoint in the film is Mike Papantonio of the Ring of Fire radio talk show. He is the voice of reason in the film. He claims that the evangelicals have it upside down. They are not behaving as Christians. He calls for the rest of America to wake up. This group has taken over the White House and the Supreme Court. When interviewing Pastor Becky she says that she would like to see more churches indoctrinate their children. He tells her that there is a very special place for people who mess with children.

These people have short-term thinking. We are near the rapture, so destroy the earth. Teach children to be soldiers in the army of god. The children are on loan from god so lets use them for what we perceive, as his will. Convert at any cost.

From Wikipedia:

Fischer’s ministry is heavily criticized for using well known and sophisticated physiological procedures for behavioral modification. Fischer begins her children’s camps by repeated breaking down and rebuilding procedures similar to techniques developed by military interrogation specialists.^[21] Many film clips from the film Jesus Camp show Fischer and her team reducing young children to tears in situations where high pitched vocal audio prompting, repetitive singing and chanting help manipulate the subjects into a state of heightened stress. Some review of the methods used in the ministry raise questions about mental abuse.

Becky says she looks at this sick old world and says God lets get out of here. Let us pray that she does.

Richard Dawkin’s interview Ted Hagard.

Bill Maher’s comments

Interview with with Jesus Camp directors Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady

Jesus Camp on Youtube.