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| News Papers |
Onward little Christian soldiers
Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
Published: Friday, October 13, 2006
If there were prizes for most inspirational camp counselor in
America, then surely Becky Fischer, a children's pastor in North
Dakota, deserves the blue ribbon. Believe her when she says
she can go "into a playground of kids who know nothing about
Christianity and lead them to the Word in no time."
Fischer is the central figure in Jesus Camp, a charismatic
woman with a milk-and-cookies voice and a
milk-of-human-kindness spirit who is a capital-C Charismatic
Christian. At the Kids on Fire summer camp, Fischer is the
human match, the phosphorescence that lights up the campers,
recruiting them for the army of Jesus that plans to take back
America from the godless, the pro-choicers, the global warming
alarmists.
No matter your religious or political affiliation (or lack thereof),
this supremely even-handed documentary from Heidi Ewing and
Rachel Grady is cinematic dynamite.
It might be lobbed at liberals for tolerant attitudes responsible
for a decline in moral values. And it might be lobbed at religious
fundamentalists as evidence of how beliefs are used to
advance a conservative social agenda.
As with their last nonfiction film, The Boys of Baraka (about
Baltimore middle-school dropouts whose lives are turned
around after a year of school in Kenya), Ewing and Grady are
interested in how education forms - and potentially deforms -
students.
It wasn't the fresh-faced campers engaging in religious war
games that unnerved me, although this struck me as a
Christian jihad, if that isn't a contradiction in terms. Nor was it
the sequences of young campers speaking in tongues, eyes
brimming with ecstatic tears.
What inspired me to yell back at the screen was the sequence
in which Fischer, whose radiance and belief in her own belief
are indisputable, distributes thumb-size, smiling baby dolls to
11- and 12-year-olds, telling them that this is what an
eight-week-old fetus resembles. Get thee to a sonogram, Becky!
Ewing and Grady do not challenge the subjects of Jesus Camp,
including the articulate camper Levi, who resembles teen
popster Aaron Carter in his smiling allure. The secular
viewpoint is expressed by Air America disc jockey Mike
Papantonio, a practicing Christian appalled by "the
entanglement of politics with religion."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
Published: Friday, October 13, 2006
If there were prizes for most inspirational camp counselor in
America, then surely Becky Fischer, a children's pastor in North
Dakota, deserves the blue ribbon. Believe her when she says
she can go "into a playground of kids who know nothing about
Christianity and lead them to the Word in no time."
Fischer is the central figure in Jesus Camp, a charismatic
woman with a milk-and-cookies voice and a
milk-of-human-kindness spirit who is a capital-C Charismatic
Christian. At the Kids on Fire summer camp, Fischer is the
human match, the phosphorescence that lights up the campers,
recruiting them for the army of Jesus that plans to take back
America from the godless, the pro-choicers, the global warming
alarmists.
No matter your religious or political affiliation (or lack thereof),
this supremely even-handed documentary from Heidi Ewing and
Rachel Grady is cinematic dynamite.
It might be lobbed at liberals for tolerant attitudes responsible
for a decline in moral values. And it might be lobbed at religious
fundamentalists as evidence of how beliefs are used to
advance a conservative social agenda.
As with their last nonfiction film, The Boys of Baraka (about
Baltimore middle-school dropouts whose lives are turned
around after a year of school in Kenya), Ewing and Grady are
interested in how education forms - and potentially deforms -
students.
It wasn't the fresh-faced campers engaging in religious war
games that unnerved me, although this struck me as a
Christian jihad, if that isn't a contradiction in terms. Nor was it
the sequences of young campers speaking in tongues, eyes
brimming with ecstatic tears.
What inspired me to yell back at the screen was the sequence
in which Fischer, whose radiance and belief in her own belief
are indisputable, distributes thumb-size, smiling baby dolls to
11- and 12-year-olds, telling them that this is what an
eight-week-old fetus resembles. Get thee to a sonogram, Becky!
Ewing and Grady do not challenge the subjects of Jesus Camp,
including the articulate camper Levi, who resembles teen
popster Aaron Carter in his smiling allure. The secular
viewpoint is expressed by Air America disc jockey Mike
Papantonio, a practicing Christian appalled by "the
entanglement of politics with religion."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| There are several 100 news papers and Internet news stories so it is imposable to have the all here on Jesus Camp. |
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| Kids in Ministry. Becky's Web Site |