JESUS CAMP

I always try to hold my expectations relative when reflecting over a movie. This exercise will typically keep 8’s from being 5’s and 4’s from being 7’s. (On a 1-10 movie rating scale of course…) For the first time that I can recall, after exiting Jesus Camp last night, my expectations were neither right nor wrong, but were completely off. I had no idea what I was walking into. I was not expecting the political overtones, the often dark cinematography, or the frightening manipulation of children that often occurred in the name of Jesus within the film. More so, I had no idea what to do with the mixture of truth that I saw interweaved into such a harmony of lies. My brain and my heart were overloaded and yearned for conversation with others.
What does the moderate Evangelical think of the film? What does the conservative Evangelical think when a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush is brought out at camp to pray over? What does a Liberal think of the emphasis on praying to end abortion, especially with prayers of fire and tongues? (What are these labels that I am using and that we put on people?) What does a person not intentionally following the ways of Jesus think of the film? How does this film affect their thoughts towards Christianity? Do the students that I have been trying to point towards Jesus over the past years view me the same way that these kids thought of the main pastor in the film? Did I sound like that? So many questions for so many people with such a longing to hear other perspectives.
The messages of this film were powerful. The chief message seemed to speak of the sea of Evangelicals that are “taking over America.” The producers really brought to light some of the lingo that Evangelicals partake in. For those of us immersed in that world, we often don’t realize that the lingo we speak is foreign to others outside of our bubbles. We also don’t realize the craziness behind what we are saying. The producers did an extraordinary job of bringing out these idiosyncrasies. I am still processing whether or not these messages were fair or if they were manipulated to send an anti-Evangelical message to America. We will probably never know. It is probably part of the mystery and brilliance of the film. Something that I do know is that I will be using this film as a conversation piece for years to come. There is such potential for rich conversation dripping with truth and reality from the themes and overtones that this film brought to the table. Jesus Camp caused me to think and it made me want to have conversations with others. For this I am thankful because conversation, after all, is what film is all about.