Outchurched Blog Archive Jesus C One Punk Under God

Jesus Camp derailed me for about a month. My reaction to the movie was akin to a Vietnam Vet watching Platoon.

I literally had flashbacks from my church experience, and several of them weren t pleasant. Ultimately, though, I think Jesus Camp will have a cathartic benefit, in that it pissed me off enough to re-experience some of those things that I don t think I want to have much of anything to do with religion anymore even poking at it with a stick (though the compulsive stick-poking is likely to continue American Christians have a remarkable propensity to gravitate towards amazing stupidity.).

CraigBob and Lol from Out of Fellowship discussed the movie with me over coffee (and my prodigious chain-smoking) afterwards. Both Craig and I felt that there wasn t much in the Jesus Camp movie that we hadn t seen/experienced (or worse, participated in) before.
People laying on the ground, slain in the Spirit?

Check.
Overbearing women who focus on cramming children s heads full of fear in the name of Jesus because they haven t had a date in 15 years? Check.

The demonization of Science and Reason? Check.
Unbridled emotional manipulation labeled as being the work of God?

Check.
The desire to usurp Democracy and establish a Christian Nation? Check.

In the coming weeks the documentary film Jesus Camp opens nationwide, in limited release. It s importance demands an audience. There have been just a handful of films this year that I would say have to be seen.

Like Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck were before them, this latest crop needs to be seen by anyone concerned about the future of America and her place in the world.

I agree with Jeff Musall (quoted above) that Jesus Camp is a movie worth seeing, as it offers a glimpse into the tragically comical world of Contemporary Christianity, which like it or not, affects us all. Sadly, or fortunately, we just get a glimpse.

I wonder if the American Church could withstand further scrutiny.
While Grade-B Scumbag Ted Haggard is featured in the film, and gives rather dubious advice to Levi, the aspiring minister, he s quite fortunately not the focus of the film. The focus is generally on Becky Fisher, the leader of the camp, and several of the camp s attendees.

Had it focused more on the pre-exposed Haggard, it d have been a colossal waste of time, because Haggard is the same obvious hypocrite, yesterday, today, and forever. (This clip from The Root of All Evil of is a potent demonstration of Haggard s scumbagliness and inherent dishonesty (gay prostitution, infidelity, and methamphetamines aside it s impossible for Haggard to be intellectually arrogant because he s lacking any semblance of actual intellectualism.)
Becky Fisher and the kids parents deserve some credit for giving the filmmakers seemingly unrestricted access while filming.

There are some scenes that would have reflected far more negatively on the subjects had the filmmakers not made a conscientious effort to present the core story, which is about the camp and the kids faith. The narrative is almost completely driven by Fisher or one of the campers. According to the filmmakers, they purposefully toned down or omitted some of the charismatic events they recorded while filming as they felt it detracted from the actual story.

So, the Christians who whined about how inaccurately depicted the services were are correct they were watered down so that the sight of people rolling around in the floor wouldn t be distracting or disruptive. These same whiny Christians are also correct in stating that the movie doesn t represent all of Christendom. DUH another standard dumb-Christian non-argument.

The movie doesn t claim to represent the width and berth of Christendom, it s about a camp in North Dakota a pretty mainstream charismatic one where some pretty non-uncommon things are (or were, as is now the case that the camp has closed because of negative publicity/vandalism) happening.
Becky Fisher seems like an amalgamation of a bunch of people I knew from church the caring people who weren t bright enough to realize the negative consequences of their actions. Fisher, in a lot of ways, in a personification of the adage the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

She tries to come up with illustrations that will have an impact with the kids so she dramatically panders to them with little plastic aborted fetuses and dripping-blood lettering. Standard fare seen it all before. Have you ever worked with kids?

It s no minor task to get them to sit still for 10 minutes, let alone sit through a whole church service being told how crappy and wicked they are, that society is, and how important it is to submit to God s authority, as manifest through the clergy.
It seems that the kids in the movie just parrot or mirror what adults have told them, and haven t been taught critical thinking skills. Their parents are likely in for one hell of a rude awakening when those kids are in their late teens.

Interestingly, there was a trailer for 42-up, a continuation in a BBC series in which a group of kids are interviewed every seven years.

Fourteen English children from various parts of society, all born about 1957, have their lives looked at every seven years by Michael Apted and his TV camera. This episode brings us up to 1999 and 42 years old.

All are still alive and eleven out of the original fourteen are still participating. (Ironically, one of the drop-outs is a prominent BBC TV producer.)

The Jesus Camp kids would be VERY interesting to hear from in 7-14-21 years.

I find it interesting that there doesn t seem to be a distinction in the American Church between child-like faith (rare) and childish faith (all too common), and I think Jesus Camp essentially demonstrates this.
One of the big questions raised by the Jesus Camp movie (though not addressed or explicitly asked in the film) is are these kids being abused? I d hazard a guess that non-Christians would say yes and Christians would say no.

The reality of the United States is that you can emotionally ( spiritually ) abuse your children however you see fit, as long as they don t have discernible marks from abuse and you feed and clothe them. Children in the U.S.

are essentially property until age 18. Essentially, Christians use the umbrella of religious freedom to teach their kids all kinds manufactured reality.
Science | Reason | Intellect is opposed to God.

Acting like a mindless sheep is pleasing to God.
If it isn t in the Bible it isn t true.
I think it d be interesting to see a movie called Allah Camp and watch Christians react to it, though it s likely that most anything the kids in Allah Camp would have to say would sound just like what the Christian kids have to say, but with different names.

The emotional/spiritual manipulation of children is nothing new it s standard operating procedure. Indoctrination is essential to the survival of Christianity. If you can t attract new converts, you must breed and make more.

Since children look to adults for guidance and a normative view on the world it makes sense, in a dark and underhanded way, to willfully manipulate them with stories of a Paternal/Judgmental (yet somehow Loving!) God who sees everything you do and Judges you from on high. It makes sense, as a control mechanism, to tell children (and gullible adults) that there s something wrong with you if you don t have a personal relationship with Jesus.

Since it s obviously impossible to have a relationship with a possibly historically-based person who allegedly lived over 2,000 years ago this breed feelings of inadequacy which makes children (and adults) all the more malleable.
Jesus Camp provided American Christendom with an opportunity to step up to the plate and make a real statement. The statement that was effectively made was well, that doesn t happen in *my* church those people aren t actually Christians.

Again, a very standard and obvious Christian response.
The primary thing I learned from watching Jesus Camp was that I m no longer a Brainwashed Believer, and that I have a very low tolerance for emotional and intellectual abuse. While I ve thought about going back to church as a sort of sociological experiment, I think I d be much better off sleeping in on Sunday mornings I d definitely be less annoyed.

One Punk Under God is series that s airing on the Sundance Channel. There s no way I m subscribing to Cable TV (I actually don t even have a TV in the house at the moment) to watch it, so I m thankful that at least the .
Jay Bakker, son of Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker, hopes to establish Revolution Ministries, a church looking to reach out to those who have turned away from traditional congregations.

Documentary explores Bakker s professional, emotional and financial struggles while running his church in Atlanta, Georgia.
I don t remember much about Jay s parents aside from memories I have of seeing them on TV as a kid. Tammy Faye wore an extravagant amount of makeup and seemed kinda ditsy, and well, Jim Bakker just always seemed creepy.

Then he proved he was creepy. I m sorry no doghouse needs air conditioning. (That s just WEIRD.

)
The fact that Jim Bakker currently has an active television ministry signals how interested Christians are to have charlatans separate them from their (or God s) money. It d be easy to dismiss Jay because of his heritage, but this is a case where the sins of the father don t seem to have been visited upon the son.
Jay s premise is easy to agree with to paraphrase: I want to be a real, authentic person, and want to communicate who Jesus is through my life.

Works for me; power to you Jay. However, that puts him in the same position we ve discussed here at Outchurched til we re tired of talking about it: how do you embrace a 2,000-year-old mythos and make it relevant and meaningful today? How do you have a church without playing church?

As scenes in the first episode indicate, it s a pain in the ass to bridge God and people through the organizational mechanism known as church.
Jay Bakker seems like a good guy wrestling with a load of religious horseshit piled on him from others. However, that doesn t actually make him interesting.

The reason Jay is on a TV show is because his father bilked thousands of people out of God s money, and his mother was a sort of media spectacle. His day-to-day stuff is marginally interesting but frankly, far less interesting than the day-to-day stuff that folks I ve known in ministry have had to contend with.
All that seems new about Jay is the packaging.

He has tattoos and piercings big deal. Jay s church meets in a bar, and he smokes. So what?

He wears a Social D shirt well, I guess that makes him ok. ;)
As someone who has had non-trivial problems with his parents, I offer the following advice to Jay:
Quit idolizing your parents and get on with your own life. You can t get blood from a turnip, or logic/reason from an imbecile, so dude, get off of the fucking emotional rollercoaster and move on.

Just because you re related to someone doesn t mean that they re a good person or are worth having a relationship with. It s time, Mr. Jay Bakker, to move on.

I d like to propose a game to play while watching One Punk Under God. As you watch the series, note the products and brands displayed throughout. According to Yahoo s T.

V. listing, Ms. Mona Card is responsible for product placement.

Let s see how many of the products she s placed that we can find.
This entry was posted by Rev. Dan on Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 9:09 pm and is filed under .

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