Just Saw a Movie: Jesus Camp

GRADE: B+

As a young boy, I spent two summers at a Christian baseball camp sponsored by Athletes in Action. In terms of religiousness, it was only nuanced, so we weren't quite scooping up grounders for the Lord. I mean, we could, but it wasn't necessary. During lunchtime the coaches delivered brief sermons on dedication and success, and at the end of camp some of us won prizes like inspirational sports literature. That was the extent of the proselytizing, and the experience was very pleasant and fun for a certain someone who was raised Miscellaneous Christian.

Now, if we were instructed to call upon the holy spirit to help us steal second or use our bats to smash coffee mugs marked "Government", then it would have begun to resemble the kind of children's Christian retreat highlighted in the documentary, Jesus Camp. "Kids on Fire" is an evangelical summer camp in Devil's Lake (yeah), North Dakota, that uses intense preaching methods to mold children into ministers in the hopes that they will one day "take back America for Christ." It serves as the center of the film's subject matter, and much of its footage will leave you wondering how the filmmakers acquired such a bewildering level of access.

Though the liberal segment of its viewership will be convinced otherwise, Jesus Camp is not in itself an all-out assault on Charismatic Evangelicals' use of children as soldiers in "God's army". Its subjects, themselves, even laud the film as a terrific promotional tool for what they do, going so far as to link Jesus Camp's listings on its Web site. How can this be?

It helps that filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady let the footage do the talking, so what audience members get is what they bring to it. Ewing and Grady also piece it together to highlight the connection between these hardcore evangelized children and their current and future political impact. As a result, most anyone left of center (or even left of right-of-center) will reserve jeers for Becky Fischer, a founder of Kids on Fire. Especially when she praises children, in general, because "they are so usable" for what she's doing. On the other hand, Air America talk host Mike Papantonio's hammering criticism in the film will give evangelical audiences someone to throw popcorn at. So, fun is to be had by all.

Jesus Camp follows three children: 12-year-old Levi, the skinny, long-haired aspiring preacher; 10-year-old Tory, a dancer who fears that at times she dances more "for the flesh" than for the Lord; and 9-year-old Rachael, a freckled redhead who struggles to develop her skills in proselytizing to strangers. The film has a lot of compassion for the kids, and it successfully conveys that they have the same needs, desires, and insecurities as most other prepubescents -- the church is just their outlet. Shy Levi, when practicing his sermon on a lonely outdoor pavillion, imagines a crowd screaming as if he were a rockstar taking the stage. Tory is visibly empowered during a prayer session once she takes the microphone, and the rest of her peers mirror her tearful catharsis in a wave of acceptance.

It's painfully easy to relate to these children no matter what your religious angle happens to be. Based on that, however, you'll either rail upon the injustice done to them or cheer them along in their development as Christians. Either way, Jesus Camp's treatment of its principal tykes will draw some real emotion from anyone who was conscious during the ages of 5 to 13.

I found myself laughing at several moments in disbelief, seeing just how much people can attribute trifles to God's will -- in all sincerity. Before the campers arrive, the counselers make their rounds, combining their prayers for the audiovisual equipment in the auditorium to work properly, and, with special attention, to bless the PowerPoint. (I'm not saying I've never asked Christ to ensure the function of a PowerPoint presentation -- it's just that it later became apparent that He had other things to do that day). It's starkly evident how much their lives revolve around their faith, like when little Rachael asks the Lord to guide her plastic bowling ball toward the pins for a strike. Again, not something I haven't done, but it wasn't with this kind of earnestness.

The main trouble I had with Jesus Camp's execution, though, was how plenty of its shots howl their metaphorical subtext, like when Becky Fischer drives through an automatic car wash. Bubbling over the windshield and obscuring her view are waves of red soap solution, or BLOOD! The sequence has no reason for being except that it provides another context for the radio reports that develop the political background for the doc. Other shots are so intently framed that they come off as amateurish, making sure to get that photo of Bush next to the mother's face as she speaks or the kid's determined silhouette next to that steeple out the window. Jesus Camp has plenty of telling "subtleties", but at times it tries too hard to capture these "well, yeah" visual relationships that are only poignant when displayed in the extreme. The scene where the children are led to fervently exalt and pray toward a cardboard cutout of President Bush as their political savior, I'd say, does a much better job of adding to the discussion.

Still, the sign of a strong documentary is the inability for the audience to know what its creators' true intentions are on such a polarizing subject. Clearly, I see Ewing and Grady sneaking in a notable amount of secularist subtext, but that may say more about me than the film, itself.