I just watched "Jesus Camp"

[Clintonista2]

It made me physically ill. Has anybody else seen it?

[murielm99]

1. I have seen it.

I think lots of DUers have seen it.

My kids always went to church camp. I was even the camp cook one summer.

They had some of their most spiritual experiences there. But their camp emphasized peace and fellowship. They had lots of swimming, hiking, and singing around the campfire. Nobody chewed them out for telling ghost stories after lights out.

They were made aware of all the service opportunities the church offered. I am pretty sure they took part in an offering for the Heifer Project every summer.

My kids have made lasting friendships from their camp experiences. I kept thinking of the contrasts between our camp and the experiences of the children in the movie, in and out of camp.

Of course we are allowed to raise our children according to our own beliefs. But I do not have any brainwashed sheltered kids. And one of my children has rejected Christianity for Wicca. That is her choice.

I felt so sorry for these kids. I wanted to think of a way to put that Becky woman and some of her cohorts through a disagreeable brainwashing experience, or some sort of boot camp that would wake them up to what they are doing. I hope they are getting lots of negative feedback since the release of the movie.

[Apollo11]

9. The land of the free

"And one of my children has rejected Christianity for Wicca. That is her choice."

Is she by any chance a fan of Buffy The Vampire Slayer?

That show was one big Wicca commercial from the Pilot to the Season 7 Finale !! :)

[Dover]

2. I saw it. I'm still so deeply upset by it that just the thought of discussing it

makes me feel ill. And I don't have enough emotional distance from it to even find the words...

But I've experienced this first hand with a father and son who came to my door. It's for real.

[undergroundpanther]

4. You bet your ass it's real

And really scary. I am still scarred from my contact with Assemblies of god. they are a cult. a militant fascist..group of control freaks and con men,with cell group"churches" of loyal terrorists.See my post below I lived it. Because I did. I cannot watch Jesus camp because I know it would trigger me bad. But from experience I can tell you these fuckers are DANGEROUS and corrosive and should not be permitted to exist.

[Initech]

17. I used to go to a "Church Of Christ"...

Man, those people are worse than the Assembly of God people. They believed some absolutely crazy shit (all while trying to convince me that televangelists like Falwell and Robertson weren't on their side), and they were easily brainwashed by whatever the pastor told them. To top it off, it was a "born again" church and nearly every single person in that church that I had met had serious self-loathing issues before turning to religion for help. They made the people in Jesus Camp seem normal. :yoiks:

[undergroundpanther]

3. I lived through it

Got mixed up with Assemblies of god a few years ago.They are dangerous. I cannot stress this enough.
It's fucking scary what a manipulative group can do when you are vulnerable.
And yes they are hooked up with the CIA, an agent came to our prayer group. Why I dunno.I thought the guy running the group was pulling my leg.He wasn't.It was fucking scary Jay Sekulo the asshole from American center for law and justice or some other deceptive title. He was on the board of this offshoot group of AoG. It was called "Christ in Action."The leader is a 400 pound asshole who is a con man and is just sickening.He has 11 kids a docile mindless wife and a HUGE house.and a cute black cat, a harley to die for..a big huge pool outside..He said he made only 40,000 a year, I found out that was Bullshit he makes over a MILLION.

After that incident with the agent at the prayer meeting It broke the trance and I couldn't deal with Christianity anymore,I lost the"belief".I secretly went to sites like EX christian,trying to recover as my ex spouse kept believing.Than I had to tell him.I told him one night sobbing in a parking lot that I couldn't take AoG anymore..We left the church and we were abandoned by everyone in a strange town alone.I became very suicidal.These mega evangelical churches are EVIL.
The Aog run alcohol/drug rehab houses, counseling services,they are tied in with realtors, they run some charities and disguise who runs it, They do emergency help..they got their fingers in a lot of pies where vulnerable people are.I HATE Aog.HATE them. To expose Denny I contacted another Christian who did investigations on bad christians named Vic I gave her names and places from Dennys book Names denny dropped and from the Crist in Action Newsletters.She looked into Christ in Action..And their"connections.See what she found it's scary.
http://www.seekgod.ca/toast2.htm
The Christ in action web page See the swine for yourself.
https://www.christinaction.com/index.cfm

How close is this swine tied to Bush ?..
In the three months following Katrina, the Southern Baptist Convention reported preparing nearly 14 million free meals. Volunteer labor from the Baptists during that period was 155,502 volunteer days. When George Bush showed up in Biloxi, he made his speech from Camp Hope, constructed by Denny Nissley (who we worked side by side with at Ground Zero in Manhattan after 911) of “Christ in Action.” which was feeding 5,000 daily. Our ministry out of Calvary Chapel in Montville, Connecticut has mobilized over 600 volunteers and worked on 87 separate projects, making some homes ready to be inhabited and building others from the ground up.

I think Aog Is a massive terrorist group masquerading as a church,evangelical and caring.. Aog churches have cell churches for the people that are indoctinated enough..They are discribed as "meetings" to pray sing and in these meetings you pray and sing but also you discuss"strategy" to basically force this country to be a theocracy..in private homes all over the place , ready to mobilize when called, I kid you NOT.I was in a cell church. We met twice a week for a few HOURS. Twice a week we got an email or were given a letter at the central church,telling us where to meet that night. And every time it was at a different house. It's fucking EVIL! These churches are DANGEROUS.

[Dover]

14. Wow, Undergroundpanther. It was hard enough to watch others going through it.

I can't begin to fathom what it was like to experience it first hand, from the inside.

[sam sarrha]

5. did they show them forcing children to "Pray Thru", that was so much fun growing up

[Sparkly]

7. What's "pray thru?"

Did you grow up in a similar situation? One of the things I kept wondering while watching this film was: Will these children be able to grow past this experience that was forced on them at such an impressionable age??

[sam sarrha]

15. to 'Pray thru you sins to the salvation of Christ'.. and no, we are scared for life, PTSD

the church elder doing the guidance decides how much crying, begging gOD's mercy, forgiveness and wailing and praying is necessary..

you dont ever F*ck up again, you walk the straight and narrow.. it is serious mind/emotional control.

but everyone has to do it.. one girl finally got defiant and was was yelling F*ck YOU, F*ck YOu i hate you and your F'N god.. she was about 16 and they kicked her out of the house.. she moved i with her boyfriends family.. i remember thinking she was so brave, i was so proud of her and felt so small cause i was so gutless, i was about 10.

I haven't seen 'Jesus Camp'.. but i have been there

[Sparkly]

6. Yes, just recently, and it was VERY disturbing...

How is this not child abuse?!?

[NashVegas]

8. I Saw It and Was Floored

And I wish more liberals would take note of its subjects' rejection of junk culture (and their failure to replace it with something truly meaningful), but we're too owned by the entertainment industry to denounce whomever signed Britney.

[meldroc]

10. I saw it a few weeks ago.

It was really disturbing. That place was an American madrassa. Those kids are growing up into the Christian Taliban. They were literally telling the kids they were going to be Christian Warriors fighting for Jesus...

When I grew up and went to church, I remember being taught such things as "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." and "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." That sort of thing I consider to be the core of Jesus' teachings. It's amazing how many "Christians" screw that up!

[bugbones]

11. I saw it and it made me unhappy

My kids go to a Lutheran school...mainly at my wife's insistence (path of least "relationshippal" resistance and better-than-public-school test scores were deciders for me).

The movie made me feel like I'm allowing my kids to be dogmatized by freaks like the leader of that camp. Granted, I monitor them closely (including what they say and do in everyday situations, what they think and how their friends and teachers talk about current events, and I check out their textbooks to make sure the pedagogy is sound) for signs of religious zealotry or even questionable ideas about reality and belief. But still, I feel like I have to push harder to get them out of these christian madrassas because I know how the parents and some of the teachers talk and act in private.

Bottom line, everything you see in that movie is 100% in line with reality. Reality for people who sign onto that mindset is really that far askew.

[kaiden]

12. The little blonde girl in Missouri who liked to dance.

She says, "I have to make sure I dance in the Lord and not in the ways of flesh." And then her family all pledged allegiance to the "Christian Flag" and then repeated the pledge with their hands on the Bible -- all before they could eat lunch.

Scary nutty.

[Clintonista2]

13. You could tell the children were unhappy...

One part gave me hope though. At one point the children were sitting at a table eatting lunch, talking about how they aren't allowed to watch harry potter, and one of the kids says "my mom says I can't watch Harry Potter, so I watch it at my dads." THAT is an individual.

[Initech]

16. My jaw was on the floor the entire time.

What the hell was up with that animated creation "science" video they showed in the beginning? Do the fundies actually believe that crap?

[Hippo_Tron]

18. Well, someone already ruined the ending for me

Apparently Ted Haggard has sex with male prostitutes and does meth. Oh wait, maybe that was in the bonus features.