Date Watched: June 3, 2010
Source: Netflix Instant Play
This was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. When I talked about The Fourth Kind, and I listed the few movies that have terrified me… this one leaves them all in the dust. This one makes them look like Barney the purple (magenta) freaking dinosaur. Why? Why do you ask? How could something called Jesus Camp with a cute little girl on the front possibly be scarier than aliens and ghosts and zombies?
Because this, my friends, is real. This is a real-life documentary. This is about Evangelical Christians. And these people are the reason why when I say I’m a Christian, I will undoubtedly get at least one look like I have thirteen heads. These are the people that make other people hate organized religion. These are the ones who make people not believe in God. I’ll give you a little list of things that happened in this film. Keep in mind, this is all about children. They are preaching to just children, the oldest of which I think was 10 or 11.
- An obese “Evangelical youth preacher” screams about people not willing to fast and “give up their evening meals”. Obviously she hadn’t fasted anytime in the last decade.
- The same woman (henceforth referred to as EYP) made posters for her campers, in letters dripping in blood, that said “The punishment for sin is death”. Good morning, kids! Enjoy your Cheerios! But remember, if you sin, you DIE.
- EYP stood up in front of her campers and said that Harry Potter would have been put to death in the Old Testament because he was a warlock and an enemy of God.
- EYP also said to these young children, “you all go to church and then you’re a different way when you go to school. You are phonies and hypocrites. The army of God has no room for phonies and hypocrites!” Then she proceeded to “wash” them of their sins by pouring freaking Deer Park bottled water on their hands, while they all sobbed like babies.
- A homeschooling mother told her son (with a four-inch wide, 2-foot long rat-tail haircut, mind you) that people who believe in anything but Creationism are stupid.
- A nine year old girl said that God isn’t in every church; some churches are called “dead churches”. These are churches where people say, [zombie like, monotone voice] weworshipyougodweworshipyougod” and they sing three songs and that’s it. God doesn’t go to those churches. Apparently, God only likes churches where people stand up and scream like banshees that they love the Lord, and then they start babbling gibberish because that’s the Lord speaking through them, and they fall on the floor and go into convulsions and cry and scream and shriek… something that a room full of children demonstrated. Do you have any idea how scary it is to see a tiny little girl screaming gibberish and writhing on the floor “in the name of the Lord”?
- An 11 year old girl states that she loves to dance, but she has a real problem making sure she’s always dancing for the Lord and not for the flesh.
- A man preached to this room full of children that abortion is wrong and they should all pray to the Lord to rid the world of it. Then EYP sternly told them that they made a promise to pray to God to rid the world of abortions and if they didn’t do that, they would be promise breakers. “DON’T BE PROMISE BREAKERS!!” After that, they put giant pieces of red tape over their mouths with the word “LIFE” boldly written on it, and stood them in front of the capital in Washington DC in protest. When should a 9 year old have to worry about abortion? Um, NEVER.
- One of Dubya Bush’s advisors (I wish I could remember the name) stood up in front of a huge stadium of kids, and said something like, “I believe in the 10-year rule in marriage. If you marry someone 30 years older than you, I hope they die so you can take all their money” and then he and all the kids laughed heartily. He then said, in a candid to the camera, that an Evangelical church pops up in this country every 2 minutes, and then they all vote, and control the elections, and then control the country. And, I quote: “Isn’t life GREAT?!” This was obviously the most terrifying part about the whole thing.
This is only a small amount. This doesn’t even begin to sum up the absolute brainwashing going on in this country’s youth. I am a Christian. I believe in God. I do not believe in Creationsim. And I do believe that these people are not Christians. God says that we are all His children. They say that only THEY are God’s children, and anyone who thinks differently from them is a sinner and will be punished with death. I am 100% dead serious when I say that I very nearly had a panic attack while watching this movie. I used to go to an Evangelical Free church and it was nothing even remotely like this. It was a lot like my Reformed church, where we praised and worshipped in joy, not in fear and persecution. I’ll be interested to speak with my old friend that I attended that church with to get his take on it. (Scott, if you’re reading, that means you… expect an email)
I didn’t even know how I was supposed to rate this on Netflix. It was an excellently made documentary (by not-crazy people), so I wanted to give it four or five stars. But I didn’t want my FB friends, who get news updates when I rate something on Netflix, thinking I loved it because I am a psycho Evangelical and I believe that garbage. So I chose not to rate it. And I could probably keep writing, but if you want the truth, I’m at work and I’m starting to get fired up and a little panicky just thinking about a world where these people control the country I live in. So I’m going to stop now.
If you can stomach it though, I highly recommend this film. As I type, it’s available for Instant Play on Netflix. It’s the most ridiculously disturbing thing I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime… and if I can say that after watching The Human Centipede, that’s saying a LOT.
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