Faith Plus One

The new documentary Jesus Camp profiles a bizarre evangelical indoctrination seminar hosted by a criminally insane woman named Pastor Becky Fisher. This ABC News segment is one of the most frightening things I have seen in months.

Speaking in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and worshipping a picture of President Bush — these are some of the activities at Pastor Becky Fischer's Bible camp in North Dakota, "Kids on Fire," subject of the provocative new documentary, "Jesus Camp."

You've got to actually go to the ABC website and watch the segment. A little boy cries hysterically, presumably on Jesus' behalf, although I must have missed the part of the Bible where he commands cute little kids to get hysterical over him. And, yes, these kids are actually praying to a cardboard cut-out of George W. Bush. I personally can't think of anything more pathetic than to send your kids to a camp where they will learn to kneel and grovel before a cardboard cut-out of anybody (and doesn't that violate one o' them there Commandments the Christians are always going on and on about...) But George W. Bush? Was Wal-Mart all out of cool Darth Vader and Han Solo standees?

I should note, it's still better than praying at the feet of the real George Bush because of the significantly decreased chance he will break wind in your face and then have a good chuckle.

"I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are in Palestine, Pakistan and all those different places," Fisher said. "Because, excuse me, we have the truth."

She wants to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel. Is that the right word? Wants? Is Fisher training these young children to martyr themselves? Yes, actually. She is.

"A lot of people die for God," one camper said, "and they're not afraid."

"We're kinda being trained to be warriors," said another, "only in a funner way."

Yowza.

As shocking as this stuff is, I can understand it from Pastor Fisher's perspective. You see, folks, she's completely insane. She doesn't know any better. Blaming her for this "camp" and its so-called "activities" is like blaming the local schizophrenic for wandering up and down the block shouting about microphones hidden in department store mannequins that transmit secret encoded signals indicating the whereabouts of the Loch Ness Monster into a microchip lodged safely in his cerebral cortex. That shit's not his fault. Batshit insane is how he came into this world.

Same with Fisher. She's crazy! Anyone who tells you that they have The Truth about the universe and the meaning of life is crazy. Write that down on a scrap of paper and keep it in your pocket and refer to it often.

The film has caused a split among evangelicals. Some say it's designed to demonize. Others have embraced it, including Fischer, who's helping promote the film.

"I never felt at any point that I was exploited," Fischer said.

Of course she's helping to promote it. As far as she's concerned, it's accurate and widespread marketing of her product. She's far too loopy to realize how most people will react to footage of children weeping openly about legal abortion, dressing in camoflauge fatigues and declaring themselves soldiers of God in preparation for the Rapture.

No, this shit isn't her fault. It's the parents of these kids, who either dumped their children off on Bible camp not realizing how psychotic Pastor Fischer's program really is (in which case the film is a public service) or they've made a conscious decision to have their little ones forcibly brainwashed.

That's not legally considered child abuse, but it probably should be. These kids will have very little chance of leading normal, well-adjusted adult lives. They are going to lack several important, nay crucial, skills for getting along in the world.

Mainly, the ability to apply reason and logic in decision-making

As author Lauren Sandler astutely points out in the ABC segment, a hardcore fundamentalist mindset doesn't allow for nuance or compromise.

"It's an absolute, straight-up us-against-them," Sandler said. "It's, you're either with us or you're against us. … Not only are you a sinner, but you are working for the enemy — the enemy being Satan."

That's why religion is such a wonderful system of control for governments and authoritarian rulers. Convince people that your path represents The Good and that all other paths represent The Bad and they will have no choice but to follow. We're seeing this right now in Bush's framing of the torture issue, surely among the most humiliating and barbaric "debates" in the history of our Congress.

He begins from a premise that's entirely fraudulent. You're either on the terrorist's side or America's. Therefore, you either oppose torture, and thus favor surrendering to the terrorists, or you support Bush's right to kidnap people and slowly and excruciatingly torture them over the course of several years regardless of their guilt or innocence of any crime.

The only way an argument like that will fly with anyone is if you get them to abandon rationality, to genuinely believe that you equal goodness and all other ways lie damnation.

And these parents are sending their children off to a place that will inundate their impressionable, sponge-like young minds with this kind of thought-obliterating, slave-mentality garbage. Depriving one's own children of the opportunity to think for themselves and discover their own way through life is nothing short of monstrous.

Of course, there's bound to be thousands of disadvantages to raising children as "Christian soldiers" and Future Bush Sycophants (FBS's, or Fobs, as I like to call them). What must it do to their fragile young psyches? I mean, to teach a 5 year old about the impending Apocalypse? "Finish your supper, Timmy. You don't want to face God's Divine Judgement on an empty stomach!"

This kind of fervent religiousity is just too much for a pre-teen to accept. You see, actual religion is all about faith, and a kid can't understand what faith really means. Because a kid will believe anything. Kids believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny, okay? They don't know from doubt. They're a bunch of suckers.

Your faith as a child is anything your parents tell you. It's fine to introduce a kid to your religion as a youngster (if you must...), but indoctrination is just not appropriate. What I'm saying is, please don't start brainwashing the next generation of your stupid church until they turn at least 13 or 14 and can recognize your stupid religion for the stupid collection of ancient lies that it is, okay? Thanks.

This whole Jesus Camp thing reminds me of another documentary I saw at the Egyptian Theater a few years back, called Hell House. That was about a youth ministry that put on a "haunted house" every Halloween, except instead of the usual witch and ghost-themed Halloween attractions, their haunted house depicted sinners being punished in Hell.

And not your typical greedy or slothful sinners. No, more like girls who get abortions and gay guys and young people of both genders who experiment with drugs and alcohol. Two things were the most disturbing to me out of that entire documentary:

(1) The youth pastors and assorted counselors who repeatedly insisted that their charges not speak or think freely. One teacher started his class by stating that he disagreed with the old motto, "there are no stupid questions." There, indeed, are stupid questions, he insisted, and you should avoid asking them. That basically sums up the mindset of all the authority figures in this youth program. Don't rock the boat, and if you are thinking about something that conflicts with the proaganda you are receiving, bury it deep down inside and never speak it aloud to anyone.

(2) The entire program's obsession with drugs, alcohol, anarchy, Satanism and gay sex. I have known some goth people in my time, and some drug addicts, and some alcoholics and some gay people, and I have never known anyone as fixated on these topics as the counselors and students in Hell House. It's clear that these people have personal issues to work through - largely issues of abandonment, loneliness or alienation - and they unhealthily focus their aggression and frustration outward at perceived sinners rather than at themselves and the facets of their own lives that need attention.

Now I'm not perfect and I'm not one to harangue people on their personal choices. But the sort of projection on display in Hell House - anger directed at outsiders that actually stems from a deep inner pain - strikes me as the key to understanding the current mood in America. It's clear, I think, to most Americans by now that something is deeply, deeply wrong in our country. Many seem to think that the answer is to continue fighting aggressively, against Muslims in the Middle East and the "traitors" among us here at home, just as these fundamentalist Christians see their own salvation as resting on the complete and total defeat of their perceived "enemies" in the abortion clinics, universities and coffee houses.