Bible Basher = Bible Thumper

The title of the BBC documentary "Baby Bible Bashers" is confusing for Americans. Over here, to "bash" the Bible would be to criticize it. I myself am a bit of a Bible Basher (though a bit hirsute for a baby). I'm pretty sure the American English equivalent title would be "Baby Bible Thumpers."

The film is about child evangelists, two of whom live deep in the heart of Dumbfuckistan, the American South. Aren't you proud, America? 2 out of 3 brainwashed zealots under 12 ain't bad!

The entire film is on YouTube, and I highly recommending it, if you have room in your calendar for a decade-long bout with clinical depression. Just as you'd expect, in each of the three cases, we're presented with a demanding stage-parent (altar-parent?) instructing their child to blather a lot of nonsense and generally humiliate themselves in front of strangers.

The delusions voiced by these "adults" and abuses visited on these kids are far too numerous to mention. The father of a 9-year-old Fort Lauderdale preacher Terry Durham could not be any more transparent about his crass desire to profit from his son's "preaching" (really just singing mixed with some of that ludicrous "laying on of hands" pretending to cure people stuff...I didn't hear him say a single coherent sentence about God, Jesus or anything else). It's actually kind of a shame the Dad is so hung up on making a living off of his child's preaching, when he could at least try to profit off of his child's singing. Or, you know, he could get a job that didn't depend on exploiting his 9-year-old.

But I'd take 20 greedy Todd Durham's over one Kendall Boutwell. This nutjob (a former "sinner" himself) is one of these guys who puts on signboards listing off all the various groups of people that are going to Hell and then walks around major cities getting into pointless, violent arguments with passersby. This guy takes his 7-year-old son on the streets of New York and demands that he begins preaching fire and brimstone to strangers.

The kid is clearly not particularly keen on the idea, but fears his father (who beats him regular, to keep him from "rebelling," naturally), so he forces himself to do it anyway. I'm embedding Part 1 to get you started below (the whole documentary can be seen here at Thought Theater), but in Part 5 you actually see this kid, Samuel Boutwell, snap on the streets of Manhattan. This is ugly stuff, a vivid portrayal of a pathetic character so insecure, he must rant at strangers and torment his young son in order to feel powerful.

Oh, and the Brazilian girl sleeps with her father and describes him as "her whole world." This movie makes Jesus Camp look like Wet Hot American Summer.