In Review: Jesus Camp

Movie Review by Joe Carter |

The Academy Award-nominated documentary Jesus Camp exposes a group of Americans that are insular, close-minded, xenophobic, and obsessed with tying religion to politics. I’m referring, of course, to film critics: “the scariest movie you'll see all year” (TV Guide); “a genuine subversive threat to the nation” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) ; "...one of the most unnerving films of the year." (L.A. Times) "...the possibility of a right-wing Christian American version of what happened in China no longer seems entirely far-fetched." (The New York Times). Such hyperventilating reactions to the film say more about America than anything in this 2005 documentary, recently released on DVD.

Your own reaction to the film will depend on how shocked you are by Pentecostalism. The film is obstensibly about "evangelicals" yet every Christian depicted in the documentary attends some sort of charismatic church. The casual viewer would be left with the impression that being “saved” causes all evangelicals to speak in tongues, convulse uncontrollably, weep hysterically, and vote Republican.

Exposing the voting patterns of these strange creatures is the primary motive (if not the sole reason) for this documentary. It is not just that these people hold strange beliefs but that they hold strange beliefs and are (a) allowed to vote for Republicans and (b) indoctrinate their children who will one day be allowed to vote for Republicans. Pentecostals have existed in America for over a hundred years, but since they tended to vote for Democrats, the Cultural Elite took no notice of them. It is only after their political realignment that it became clear that their intentions are to install a theocracy and make glossolalia the national language.

The film is also clear in establishing that Pentecostalism equals evangelicalism equals “Religious Right.” What is more difficult to establish is that the people at the “Jesus Camp” have any direct political influence. In order to establish the connection, the filmmakers include snippets of Christian radio broadcast by leaders of the Religious Right, the smooth-talking shepherds of these tongue-speaking sheep. Their attempts to subvert democracy are exemplified by the Religious Right’s support of Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. The casual viewer could be forgiven for leaving with the impression that Alito was a snake-handling “evangelical” from West Virginia rather than a Catholic from New Jersey. Indeed, the film never mentions that the Religious Right rejected Harriet Miers, a bona fide evangelical from Texas, for an East Coast papist.

Such nuance would be hard to fit into the caricature -- and the one thing this film has no room for is nuance. To ensure that no one mistakes the key message of the film (“a frightening, infuriating, yet profoundly compassionate documentary about the indoctrination of children by the Evangelical right” – New York magazine), the filmmakers include Mike Papantonio, an Air America radio host, to serve as the Greek chorus. Papantonio comes across as an unreconstructed bigot; the type who, in a less politically correct age, would be warning about the nefarious influence of the Jooos. He is even more intolerant—and less articulate—than the children at the church camp. Yet he is portrayed as the "film's voice of reason" (Seattle P-I).

Aside from the political angle, your reaction to the film will—once again--depend on how shocked you are by Pentecostalism. Having spent much of my life around charismatic Christians, I found the extended scenes of the church services downright boring. Speaking in tongues? Check. Being slain in the Spirit? Check. Weeping, hand-raising, women preaching? Check, check, check. There is nothing portrayed in the film that doesn’t go on in churches in every city in America. Some people will find such a thought terrifying, which shows how out of touch they are with the people in their own country.

Indeed, it makes you wonder about the political judgment of those who are threatened by the people—especially the charming kids—in this film. The main character of the documentary is, after all, a Pentecostal children's pastor who runs a church camp in North Dakota. In case you missed that let me point it out again. A Pentecostal children’s pastor. Who runs a church camp. In North Dakota. If this is the biggest threat to secularism that we can come up with, then I hereby renounce my membership in the Religious Right.

While there is much that I disagree with, and even find strange, about the charismatic movement, there is nothing about it that is politically dangerous. What is dangerous, however, is the way that some of our fellow citizens are willing to vilify and dehumanize those with whom they disagree (“the "saved" children in the hypnotic, upsetting and bleakly humorous Jesus Camp are like an extroverted version of Village of the Damned” -- Baltimore Sun). Jesus Camp doesn’t tell us much about evangelicals or the Religious Right. But it speaks volumes about the anti-populist and anti-religious attitudes of secular America.