Keeping the Christian camp fires burning

By Daniel Nelson If you are an American evangelical Christian you’ll presumably think Jesus Camp chronicles an excellent development – teaching young children to be foot soldiers in God’s army. Everyone else will be disturbed. “Children are so usable in Christianity”, explains one of the film’s “stars”, children’s pastor Becky Fischer. The film shows children as young as six at the “Kids on Fire” summer camp learning how to “take back America for Christ”, to speak in tongues, to – literally – smash cups marked “corrupt government”, to pledge to fight abortion. It’s not Sunday School as we know it: the children are swept along by their “teachers” in intense, emotion-charged group sessions often designed to create hysteria. Inquiry, complexity, doubt, uncertainty are alien concepts here. “We have the truth”, asserts Fischer. What makes it doubly alarming is the way that belief has become linked with nationalism: “America is supposed to be God’s nation”, says 13-year-old Levi, whose ambition is to preach in front of thousands. And there’s no doubt about whose idea of God the nation is supposed to represent: “Our firm belief is that there are two kinds of people in the world – those who love Jesus and those who don’t.” At one point in the proceedings a life-size cut-out figure of George Bush is introduced to the stage. Some of the children press forward to touch it, as though it was sacred. A voting block of tens of millions is being formed. “If the evangelicals vote, they determine the election. It’s a fabulous life”, says a self-satisfied evangelical leader, Ted Haggard, towards the end of the film. Film-makers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady have described the camp as “a riveting example of a world many Americans either do not understand or dismiss as ‘fringe’ and irrelevant to their own lives. But we felt perhaps they should take a closer look.” They are right. It is important to take a closer look at the phenomenon of the “religious right” in the US. Luckily, it’s a fascinating film in its own right. * Jesus Camp opens at the ICA, London, on 23 November

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