Jesus Camp

If there's one thing guaranteed to cheer me up it's religion . I don't mean I'm going to be spiritually touched by the hand of God , I mean I'm going to feel morally and intellectually superior to some Muppet talking about eternal afterlives and other nonsense . A documentary about evangelical Christians might just be the sort of thing to lift me out of festive gloom ( Christmas humbug) and if this had confined itself to deluded adults spouting metaphysical mendacity it probably would have . However a factual feature consisting of child abuse isn't going to cheer me up and neither does I suspect to any other rational , decent human being

The film opens with Mike Papantonio hosting his radio show decrying the religious right with Christian callers phoning in saying they can't understand this new militant type of evangelical Christianity . Of course right away you might think this is merely selective and biased and the callers might be criticising rival Christian sects . God might love us all but he really hates heretics does he not ? Cut to a stage version of APOCALYPSE NOW with children is cameo face paint dancing to a heavy metal soundtrack . Instantly you're reminded of the line in the movie where Chef states "This is pagan idolatry man" . You said it mate . This event is the brainchild of Becky Fischer who lives up to every outsider view of Americans . Loud , ugly and clinically obese by many pounds she wastes no time in making this audience member concerned with the junk coming out of her mouth rather than the copious amounts of junk food she stuffs in to it "We have too many Christians who are fat and lazy" If you don't believe Americans suffer from an irony deficiency then this documentary will make a believer out of you , believe me . I'm doing my utmost best to be diplomatic and guard my back by saying not all Christians are like this , not even in the American bible belt . She continues and there's a rather disturbing use of the word "training children" . Let's think about that for a second . "Training children" . You train a dog , not children . Maybe she meant "condition children" since as human beings we're all products of social conditioning to a degree , but that would be concede Karl Marx is fairly correct in that a belief in God is simply down to cultural environment and the degree of belief and what God you believe in is down to culture . Worse Fischer then starts saying that children should be trained in faith in much the same way as terrorists are in the Muslim world . Hmmm train the kids to blow themselves and some infidels up you mean Becky ? Please tell me you didn't literally mean that ?

The documentary then focuses on three children , Levi , Rachael and Tory and while Christian theocratic nutjobs like Becky Fischer need put in to a straitjacket and forcefed anti-psychotic medication the children here are poor wretched victims of deluded and bad parents . Tory shows us her dance moves and states "When I dance I really have to make sure it's really God because people will notice I'm dancing for the flesh and people sometimes notice that" Tory is a ten year old child FFS ! These children are victims of child abuse . It's not the sexual abuse associated with the Vatican based Christian cult but it's still child abuse and comes from superstitious nonsense . Maybe Chris Hansen and Richard Dawkins should join forces and do a show called TO CATCH A Christian CHILD ABUSER . If nothing else it's more evidence than God was , and is the worst man made invention