If you're not afraid of the political influence of the Christian right wing, then you probably will be after watching this fly-on-the-wall account of the annual “Kids on Fire” summer camp hosted by Pentecostal minister Becky Fischer in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota.
Twelve-year-old Levi is a bright and charismatic born-leader whose home-school lessons teach that evolution and global warming are myths. Shy nine-year-old Rachael wants to be a Christian manicurist. At camp, they salute cardboard cut-outs of President Bush and receive instruction on the evils of profanity, abortion and witchcraft. “Harry Potter is an enemy of God”, preaches Fischer. Despite the content, Jesus Camp is not a freak show, nor does it exploit its child subjects. One of the scariest moments is the sermonising of disgraced pastor Ted Haggard, whose drug-fuelled sexual trysts with another man have since hit the headlines. Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Boys of Baraka) avoid editorialising to show us what Evangelical America believes, preaches and teaches its children.
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87%105 reviews
The doc these kids would make with flea market camcorders couldn't possibly be as ugly as this absurdly hypocritical critique of the far right's role in escalating the culture war. The classier indoctrination to which Gap-shopping urban Democrats subject their kids might look damn spooky, too, but it probably wouldn't sell...
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Jesus Camp doesn't pretend to be a comprehensive survey of the charismatic-evangelical phenomenon. It offers no history or sociology and only scattered statistics about its growth. It analyzes the political agenda only glancingly, centering on abortion but not on homosexuality or other items...
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At heart, all documentaries aim to be important films. Few actually pull it off. Minor flaws and all, Jesus Camp is among the year's most important films, if only because it forces us to learn about an America we seldom see and seldom want to see...
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Doesn't function particularly well as a documentary; it lacks a strong editorial point of view and doesn't really comment on the evangelical movement so much as it just portrays a selection of people and their views...
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I found the movie to be frequently hilarious and often downright frightening. The blind ignorance was close to hypnotic in places. But then, the subjects of the film probably feel they are well served by a seamless depiction of them attempting to spread their message...
Full reviewJesus Camp is available to stream in Australia now on Stan and Google Play and Apple TV.
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