Movie Review
‘Jesus Camp’: Not As Impartial
As The Directors Claim  

By Dean Woodley (November 2, 2006)

Ah yes, the politically-charged independent films and documentaries so inherent to the months leading up to the November elections, there’s nothing better.  In all honesty, a movie to help get us all thinking about the world and perhaps our own Democracy and what we can do to make it stronger is no real threat, but Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing’s Jesus Camp takes controversy a bit too far into the realm of rude and redundant behavior in the form of poking fun at religion.

The movie commences as most movies do: by introducing us to the main characters. In this film we meet seemingly lovable kids by the names of Levi, Rachael, and Victoria; three young evangelicals getting ready to attend the Kids on Fire Christian camp in Devils Lake, North Dakota.  A majority of the remainder of the film takes place within the camp and includes some admittedly disturbing scenes in which the camp staff and attendees join in a circle to speak in tongues or to “pray that President Bush has the strength to appoint “righteous” [Supreme Court] judges.”  The rest of the film follows this format, with numerous private conversations with the children and their parents about the world, the camp, and their individual lives. 

Unfortunately, more often than not I found myself gawking at not how outrageous the featured persons were, but rather at the rudeness of the developers of this film, and at their nerve to describe the film “as not coming with any prepackaged point of view,” or describing their efforts in producing the film as “an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community.”

Apart from the fact that describing the “young evangelicals” as a “faction” is disrespectful, I believe it is safe to assume that the film’s producers had a fairly good idea as to who the audience would be; those of us who are already angry with what is occurring in this country and in this world today and those of us who are easy to attract due to our anger.  I believe the producers of the film sensed this and that showing us certain footage was bound to not only stir up controversy against the right near an election, but to attract many of us who, as I stated, are frustrated with our leaders and our present situation and need a movie to make ambiguous jabs at whom we perceive to be our political and social enemy. 

Despite this rather shady method of marketing, it is not rare in a film during these volatile times and therefore I will grant the film some lenience because it does express a valid point: the separation between church and state is slowly dissolving as a rudimental factor in this country’s government, and something needs to be done.  However, Jesus Camp does not properly confront this issue nor does it present any kind of feasible solution; it simply shows us how to subtly poke fun at religious outsiders to make us all happy.  After all, actually presenting a solution may be challenging for the producers and, who knows, it may even require some cognitive exercise on the viewer’s part.