Jesus Camp Reflection
In this film, titled “jesus camp”, we see religious fundamentalist indoctrination in action. In this film, it is shown how the organisers of the camp “Kids on Fire” plan on indoctrinating children in the camp with the “right message”.. They (especially Becky Fischer, a Pentecostal minister) want to create a parallel to muslim training camps in Palestine (which in reality don’t exist anymore than in any other place) but with the right message of evangelical Christians.
In this film we see quite clearly how in this age, fundamentalism is occurring in the modern world, and this is evident both in the Christian and the Islamic world (only the former is explored in the film). We see indoctrination occurring from the domestic level itself. The mother of Levi (a child who enrolls in Kids on Fire) is actually given anti creationism lessons. Not only that, global warming is made merely a political issue rather than a global problem.
We see almost an ideological hegemony of religion being imposed on the children. Their brains are hegemonised to the level that they cannot even think against their practices. One child (Levi) argues that there is no problem with me, its with the other children who do not fulfill their purpose i.e. to serve God, and that they should. A girl named Tory considers only Christian music to be good, and Britney Spears etc. not to be artists at all. This shows how deep the hegemony spreads, for even music and other arenas are fundametalised. We see in the movie how such children generally have parents who are highly inclined towards their religion. This shows that fundamentalism is a contagious problem. The radio commenter in the movie actually argues that why are only children the army of God? His conclusion is that it is because they do not posess the powers of rational thought, and once that is stripped from them they for the perfect people, in the words of Becky “we will take America back”. We see this problem extending not only to the level
In this film we see quite clearly how in this age, fundamentalism is occurring in the modern world, and this is evident both in the Christian and the Islamic world (only the former is explored in the film). We see indoctrination occurring from the domestic level itself. The mother of Levi (a child who enrolls in Kids on Fire) is actually given anti creationism lessons. Not only that, global warming is made merely a political issue rather than a global problem.
We see almost an ideological hegemony of religion being imposed on the children. Their brains are hegemonised to the level that they cannot even think against their practices. One child (Levi) argues that there is no problem with me, its with the other children who do not fulfill their purpose i.e. to serve God, and that they should. A girl named Tory considers only Christian music to be good, and Britney Spears etc. not to be artists at all. This shows how deep the hegemony spreads, for even music and other arenas are fundametalised. We see in the movie how such children generally have parents who are highly inclined towards their religion. This shows that fundamentalism is a contagious problem. The radio commenter in the movie actually argues that why are only children the army of God? His conclusion is that it is because they do not posess the powers of rational thought, and once that is stripped from them they for the perfect people, in the words of Becky “we will take America back”. We see this problem extending not only to the level