Jesus
Camp' creates controversy
By Gina Piccalo
Los Angeles Times
September 27, 2006
"Jesus Camp," a documentary film
that follows evangelical Christian children at a religious summer
camp, won prizes and critical praise on the summer festival circuit,
but it wasn't until its quiet opening in the Midwest two weeks ago
that a news clip about the film hit YouTube.com, inciting a
whirlwind of controversy.
Already, the movie has split the
Christian community and horrified those who fear the ascendance of
the religious right on the national stage. "Jesus Camp" will open in
20 more cities nationally Oct. 6.
Bloggers of all stripes have been
so disgusted by the bits of the film they have seen on the Web that
the film's central subject, camp founder Pastor Becky Fischer, has
become a public figure, bombarded with hateful e-mails and bracing
for her media appearances next week, including a scheduled
appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America."
The A&E Indiefilms/Magnolia
Pictures film follows Rachael, now 10, Levi, now 13, and Tory, now
11, engaging and articulate children from Midwestern towns who
attend Fischer's "Kids on Fire" Bible camp in Devils Lake, N.D., in
2005. The filmmakers, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, take a
straightforward look at their subjects.
The children cheer when asked if
they would be willing to give up their lives for Jesus, pray over a
cardboard cutout of President Bush and sob as they plead for an end
to abortion. One is home-schooled by a mother who teaches that
"science doesn't prove anything."
At one point, Fischer shouts to the
children, "This is war! Are you part of it or not?" She proudly
compares her work to the indoctrination of young boys by extremist
Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere. The film intersperses footage of
Fischer and the children with clips of radio talk-show host Mike
Papantonio, a liberal Methodist, excoriating conservative Christians
like Fischer.
Fischer is disappointed by the way
she appears in the film.
"I do understand they're out to
tell a story, and they felt they found it with some of the political
things," she said. "And they're out to show the most dramatic,
exotic, extreme things they found in my ministry, and I'm not
ashamed of those things, but without context, it's really difficult
to defend what you're seeing on the screen."
More controversy over the film
erupted last week when the Rev. Ted Haggard -- whose constituency at
the National Association of Evangelicals is 30 million strong --
took a public stance against it, claiming the film makes
evangelicals look "scary."
When Fischer arrived home last week
after a few days touring with the filmmakers, her e-mail inbox was
loaded with hate mail. She spent the next two days writing lengthy
explanations to the most common accusations -- "How dare you
brainwash those kids!" and "Are you raising up Christian terrorists
or another Hitler Youth movement?" -- then posted them on her Web
site.
The New York-based Ewing and Grady
said they want the film to make a broad statement about how politics
and faith have become inexorably intertwined in America.
Ultimately, though, Fischer said,
"no one was more shocked when they told me that was the turn the
film was making."
Despite her reservations about the
film, Fischer said she's helping to promote it and considers Ewing
and Grady friends. She's also grateful for the national attention
the movie has granted her. "I couldn't have paid for this kind of
advertising," she said.
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