After witnessing those 90 minutes of sheer insanity, I felt compelled to write this blog post. I should preface with the fact that I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school my entire life and was pledged to the school girl's uniform until I graduated and came here, to RWU.
I also went to 'Jesus Camp,' when I was 15. At least that's what we called it. It was actually a 4 day conference in the cornfields of Michigan where we spent our days talking social justice and global awareness and our nights sneaking around and evading curfew.
Anyway, this contributes to my overall feeling of repulsion after viewing this piece. This wasn't the Jesus Camp that me and my friends made fun of in high-school. I don't even know if I would associate the word 'camp' with what they were doing. It was nothing more than a training forum to take advantage of the most vulnerable members of society, children, and build and army.
I was disgusted when I watched parent's raise their children's hands, coaxing them into believing something they know nothing about. I heard parent's say that their children are 'on loan,' and they must 'train them.' How can you have already decided a child's fate like that?
The entire time, I saw the brainwashing and I couldn't help but picture Levi in 15 years, Tori in 10, and I saw them, totally radicalized, doing the same things to their kids. Their seclusion, curtsey of home-schooling coupled with jesus camp, is a complete injustice. These kids are robbed of their adolescence. Their freedom of thought. Though they are children, and innocent in nature, there is a point where children become adults and their habits become too ingrained in their being to ever break free from.
The entire mantra of the Evangelical religion portrayed in the film was, 'We are right, other religions are wrong.' If 15 years of Catholic school taught me anything, it is that no religion is greater than another. Everyone essentially believes in something, even the people who believe in nothing. Having a narrow mind when it comes to religion breeds nothing but hate, and that goes against everything that Catholicism, and I think religion in general, stands for. Spirituality is about love and acceptance. Not control and manipulation.
Then, you turn to the news and you hear about abortion clinics being shot up, and doctor's lives being threatened. We wonder where this hate comes from. We wonder who would do this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior? Who would strap a bomb on themselves in the name of Allah? We wonder how so much bloodshed comes from something that preaches the complete opposite. I sometimes think religion causes as many problems as it solves, if not more.
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