the best horror film I've seen all year is a documentary...
Emeritus Karina Longworth, reviewer on cinematical
i caught the film i thought no one wanted to catch with me. you can imagine my excitement when brian asked if i was free to catch Jesus Camp (2006) with him and steph.
my initial thought was that there was only going to be three of us in the theatre. after all, during class that day, i cringed when my partner introduced me as active in church.
though it was a transformer kind of packed in the cinema, there were a decent few rows taken up. and i couldn't help but wonder if they were evangelists who secretly sneaked out of their cell groups to catch the highly rated documentary.
Jesus Camp (2006) was a rather raw and painful peek at the evangelistic church of US-of-A (yes, everything involves them, doesn't it?). the ministry in question is the 'kids of fire school of ministry' and their annual "jesus camp" which is the catholic churches' equivalent of Youth in the spirit/YISS.
what scares me, or scared me was the fact that the people of the ministry are 5 - 13 years old. young kids that... well pray in tongues, taught to think global warming is no big deal and that they should 'take back America for God". Oh they are apparently God's army too. oh well.
what frightens me is that these kids are brainwashed by their own parents (probably also brainwashed by their own) and are homeschooled to be as pure minded as possible. They think global warming is only going to affect the few who are not repenting and will not affect them.
these kids have skewed views on religion such as muslims, citing them as people who want to go to hell. there was a scene where they go up to strangers to 'evangelise' and ask the stranger if they were going to die now, where they thought they would go. As a joke, i would say it too actually, they stranger said hell. the kid walked away saying "i think he's muslim."
i chuckled to myself at that moment, pushing away the greater factor that this is real. and USA claims to have equal race rights. not when your president belongs to the very religion that claims to be above all, including catholicism (whom they referred to as a dead church) and Islam.
a dead church is a church where 'God doesn't like to go' because we just stand there, sing three songs and have a sermon. sound familiar?
i hope they grow out of it. i see them snotting drugs some alley because they missed the bruised knees and scratched elbows. this is my opinion, everyone has a bad phase. you start out good, u end up fucked. u start out fucked, you end up good. it's basic cycle of things.
oh well, i never liked evangelists simply because i believe in self-cleansing before going out to cleanse others. i think i'm not worthy of bring people to church because i'm not an example. also i believe in free will, free choice, you know the one God gave to us. i always quote this to the 'people's army' when they come to me with their weapons, and somehow, i get away with being 'unsaved' and 'a catholic'.
i love my God. and i think everyone deserves to love their God in their own way. be it quietly or at a metal concert.
Oh, and on another not so religious note: ted haggard, the forefront of the evangelistic church of USA is under going some serious charges of homosexuality, drugs and prostitution. hey, we at the catholic church have our fair share of sex charges and fraud too, maybe someone should look into a documentary of this.
so, what happens from here?
