Jesus Camp

The 2006 documentary Jesus Camp follows the lives of three children who attend a Christian gathering known as the “Kids on Fire School of Ministry” in Devils Lake, North Dakota – Kids on Fire at Devils Lake sounds more like the title of a horror flick.  The film is directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, and is intended to provide “an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community.”  It premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, and was later nominated for “Best Documentary Feature” at the 79th Academy Awards – the Earthwarming nominee An Inconvenient Truth took home the Oscar.  As with most anything that focuses on religion, the film was labeled as being controversial, and viewed quite differently among people with opposing viewpoints.  One film critic called it “a frightening, infuriating, yet profoundly compassionate documentary about the indoctrination of children by the Evangelical right.”  While another saw it as “an absurdly hypocritical critique of the far right’s role in the escalating culture war.”  You can probably figure out which of those two opinions I agree with, but regardless of what your personal beliefs happen to be, Jesus Camp gives you an in-depth look into the lives of a specific demographic within our population.  Plus, it kind of goes along with the idea in the previous post about children being our future.