I finally mustered up the courage to watch Jesus Camp. I knew it would take a large dose of emotional and physical self-control to watch, so I gathered up the courage and hit play. I expected to be angry, furious even, but instead I was overwhelmed with a sense of sadness and sorrow.

Jesus Camp is a documentary about a fundamentalist Christian children’s camp in the US. I was saddened because these kids, 8-12 years old or so, were being emotionally manipulated and given an overwhelming sense of responsibility beyond their years. Some of the “low-lights” were seeing the kids “bless” a cardboard cutout of President Bush in a way that seemed like worship, seeing the kids being told that the future of the US and it’s “immoral state” are on their shoulders, seeing these kids being treated like soldiers (even martyrs) and seeing one of the kids from the camp have a bizarre interaction with Ted Haggard. It was sad…I think kids have the potential to do amazing things in this world and should be given every opportunity to do so, however, to manipulate them, like what was seen in the film, seems immoral.

In fact, I would have issues with what I saw in the film if it happened with adults, let alone kids…what are they thinking? I remember running Jr. High church retreats and we always tried to be sensitive to the fact that kids that age are very susceptible to any sort of manipulation. That didn’t mean we wouldn’t share the gospel message but we thought about the implication of how and when we did it.

The film, for the most part, seemed fair to both sides but in the end, I was just deeply saddened by what I saw and find those emotions resurfacing even as I write.