Jesus Camp

Jesus Camp
A Film by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing
Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2006
Review by Carl McColman

Vladimir Lenin said, “Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.” Yes, it’s a scary thought – and that primal intuitive sense that it’s wrong to brainwash or indoctrinate children lies at the bottom of the emotional power driving this non-fiction reality film about children who attend a charismatic/fundamentalist Christian summer camp deep in America’s heartland. When I saw the trailer for this film, I had the same kind of visceral reaction to it that I have to Lenin’s bold declaration. As someone who learned way too much about manipulative religiosity during my own teen-aged tangle with the charismatic renewal, I was primed to view this film with nail-spitting righteous anger directed at the horrible fundamentalists who are warping an entire generation of vulnerable children into right-wing extremists. At times, my experience watching it flirted on the edge of such an emotional maelström. But I never fully dove into the whirlpool. And I think this speaks as much as anything about how surprisingly balanced this film is, even as it fearlessly takes on an explosive and polarizing constellation of topics.