Jesus Camp

A reader emails:

“Dear J&C.  I wanted to get your thoughts on the fascinating documentary Jesus Camp.  You don’t seem as stupid as the people in this movie, but do Christians really want to take over America?  It seemed like everyone was a walking contradiction.  What these people are trying to do is frightening.”

Dear reader,

As the Joker in The Dark Knight says, “Why so serious?”  You are frightened because a bunch of kids got hyperemotional during a glorified pep rally in the boondocks?  You are scared of the kid with the rattail haircut and the kitsch shirt that says “Jesus” in place of the Reese’s Cups logo?  You are quaking about a religious movement led by women, children, and men in Hawaiian shirts?  We know delicate women who have more self-control in the presence of rodents.

This documentary that you think is “fascinating” tells you nothing more than what you can hear in thirty seconds on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.  You have now witnessed an hour of Pentecostal zaniness, but you have mistaken that for what the movie tags as a broader evangelical “culture war.”  FYI, evangelicals are not necessarily Pentecostals.  James Dobson is not a Pentecostal.  Neither was D. James Kennedy.  Some evangelicals are goofier than others, but very few are as emotionally and intellectually goofy as what you see in this documentary.   Remember, most of the people in this movie are children.

And did it seem as stupid to you as it did to us that this movie’s anointed voice of reason for the “liberal” position was an AM talkshow host?  Soundbytes from a talkshow were in dialectic with kids preaching at a Pentecostal service?  Good grief, we have not felt this braindead since our peers in high school made us suffer through Jim Carrey’s schlock.  You could’ve called this movie “Dumb and Dumber,” though we’re not sure if the kids or the liberal Christian talkshow host deserve the dishonor of the latter adjective.

Yes, the obese, Pentecostal preacher lady seemed to contradict herself when she complained about Christians being unwilling to give up food for God.  That’s people.  They are walking contradictions, usually.  The acclaimed scientist and finite being with limited knowledge, Richard Dawkins, regularly asserts his certain knowledge that an infinite, omniscient being does not exist.  You should ask Richard the finite being how he can know this for sure, since, after all, he is neither infinite nor omniscient.  But Dawkins speaks and the crowd goes wild.  Lots of people join his fan club, and NPR longs for him to breathe into its microphones.  This deserves explanation, too, we think.

You asked if Christians want to take over America.  Actually, every church proclaims an idea like that every week, usually in the form of the Apostles’ Creed, where it says that Christ reigns at the right hand of the Father and will come to judge the living and the dead.  This is not news; this creed, you might have heard, is quite old.  But if you think the Christian takeover has progressed in any way lately, you must admit that it’s a weird sort of takeover.  Notice in the movie the massive “Adult Superstore” sign right outside the bowling alley the kids were at?  Even liberal progressives fifty years ago would’ve been raging to get rid of that store.  But today most everybody tolerates it.  Go into any grocery store and look at the magazine rack near the checkout counter for further proof.

As for the love the people in the movie show George W. Bush, you really should pity them.  After some limited influence in the 1980s, evangelicals have been Republican party lackeys ever since.  You realize the Republicans controlled all three branches of government recently but didn’t enact the theocratic revolution you’re quaking in your boots about?  In fact, just the opposite happened. Those in control are far more concerned with the preservation of global capital markets and the perpetuation of democratic revolution throughout the world than with bringing Christian theocracy — whatever that is — to this country.

Even Bush himself has publicly denied the central doctrine of the people in Jesus Camp (if they have doctrines at all).  He has said that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.  Yet evangelicals believe the words of Jesus: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except by Me.”  You must admit that the people in this movie are so terribly ignorant about the pronouncements and actions of the President they love that, really, they have no clue about politics.  As the younger people we know would say, they have no freaking clue about anything to do with politics.  Those are people you are scared of?

We presume that you believe in democracy.  Is it wrong for these evangelicals to have the right to vote?

Answer wisely, because you should be scared of one thing.  Demography tends to be destiny.  In the end, people who have kids, especially lots of kids, beat the people who have no kids.  It’s the biological principle of fitness.  Follows from the theory of natural selection.  And yes, Christians and Muslims and people who probably aren’t like you are having lots and lots of kids.  One day, they will be voters.

So eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow will indeed be scary.

Regards,

J&C

Entertainment: 2

Intelligence: 0

Morality: —