Out of Frame: Jesus Camp
DCist first told you about Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's documentary film Jesus Camp back in June, when it walked away with the Grand Jury Award from the SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Film Festival. Now paired up with Magnolia Pictures, Jesus Camp is currently at Landmark's E Street Theater and has been making a big splash at box offices all over the country.
The film follows a group of evangelical Christian kids from Missouri as they make their way to a North Dakota Bible camp called Kids on Fire. Run by Pastor Becky Fischer, a charismatic, Pentecostal childrens' preacher, the camp leads kids through lessons and prayers that prepare them for a literal holy war against anyone who would stand in the way of their interpretation of the Bible. In one scene, kids are dressed in combat fatigues, their faces painted with dark camouflage colors and red crosses, acting out their military victory over evil. In another, the children use hammers to smash coffee mugs that say things like "government," all the while sobbing, speaking in tongues and praying for Jesus to re-make America in his image. "They're so usable in Christianity," Fischer says of the children, without a hint of irony, and it's clear what she means is towards a political end: the Kids on Fire camp even goes so far as to bring in a cardboard cutout of President Bush for them to pray for.
One of the most immediately surprising things about the film is how much access the directors were granted to their subjects. "These people don’t feel they have anything to feel ashamed about," co-director Heidi Ewing explained when she took a few minutes to chat with DCist about her film. "They feel like they have the answers, that they are right, and when you live a life with that kind of conviction, it’s hard to shake that ... [but] there was one father who wouldn’t let us in. He would let us film his daughter at camp but he wouldn’t allow us to come in to their home to focus on his daughter. She came from a family with a lot of kids so I think that was part of it. And it kind of killed me, because they were from a place called Peculiar, MO. Can you imagine? I mean setting it up with a shot of the sign that said, 'Welcome to Peculiar.' "
For anyone unfamiliar with the world of evangelical Christians, probably every single person in Jesus Camp seems pretty peculiar. But one thing to keep in mind is that by no means all, or even most, evangelicals subscribe to the particular brand of highly emotional Christianity portrayed in the film. "The people in our film are all Pentecostals and ecstatics, who make up 30% of the 100 million evangelicals in this country," Ewing said. "But yes, there are plenty of evangelicals who think it’s weird to speak in tongues, they’re uncomfortable with it or they just want to sweep it under the rug. But on the important things like politics, moral beliefs, interpretation of the Bible … they have more in common than differences with the greater evangelical movement."
As political as the film makes its subjects out to be, Jesus Camp has a clear political agenda of its own. Spliced into the story of the camp is the apparent "voice of reason," left-leaning Christian Air America radio host Mike Papantonio. "Forty percent of all votes for George Bush [in 2004] were from evangelicals," said Ewing. In this sense, despite the fact that Ewing assures us that all of the characters in the film are completely comfortable with how they were portrayed, it is without a doubt a documentary that appeals more to an inherently secular, and likely liberal, audience.
Jesus Camp is playing at Landmark's E Street Theater. Check their site for showtimes and tickets.