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Answers, Questions, and the Meaning of Christmas
This gem is from the disturbing documentary Jesus Camp, a film that shows indoctrination of youth within the militant Pentecostal/Evangelical movement in America. The movie shows some families in Missouri – including Lee’s Summit – that have placed their children into this subculture. This section includes a mother home “schooling” her children by making fun of global warming with oversimplifications and falsities. It goes on to show clips from the actual Jesus camp in North Dakota. Included here was the sage quote, “If Harry Potter was in the Old Testament, he would have been killed for being a Warlock!” The movie also includes clips from Ted Haggard’s former church before the gay-drug-infested-prostitution scandal.
Needless to say, this is an easy movie to make fun of and dismiss. The film makes no commentary, except in the form of an Air America radio host, and does not have a narrator or interrogator. The real life characters are shown as they are. But the Pentecostals and the liberal radio host all tried to make this particular movement sound much larger than it really is. Yes, there are tens of millions of Evangelicals in this country who are not only shaping the next generation of Americans, but who vote en masse. Yes, a majority of them vote almost exclusively for Republicans.
We already knew that.
So what is it that we can take from this documentary? Just the pure terror of seeing this behavior – especially forced on children – on film?
I think there is a larger point. The fundamental problem with these people is they think they have all the answers to life. This is not a problem confined to this narrow movement. Granted, the main woman indoctrinating the kids said she felt she needed to do this because Muslims indoctrinate their kids in Lebanon, so she needs to do it in the name of Christianity since she has the correct answers to life.
But the rejection of agnostic outlooks on life is a dangerous trend in America. This tendency placed the phrase “flip flopper” into our collective pejorative lexicon. The value of not doubting yourself has given us the Iraq War and Sarah Palin. (Side note – Sarah Palin’s former church, before she realized it would be a liability to her political career, was a Pentecostal church that included speaking in tongues and discussing witchcraft with a straight face).
Contrast an hour and a half of the Pentecostal children’s army with an hour and a half of Reverend Billy and his Church of Life After Shopping. I gotta say I’m glad I watched this movie second: (even a little speaking in tongues here too)
Reverend Billy has dedicated his life not to answers, but to questions. What Would Jesus Buy? Is not just the name of this documentary, but a question he asks his fellow Americans every Christmas time. His mission is to return community and family back to American culture, and more specifically, Christmas. But he does not claim to have all the answers because he realizes that he himself, and his followers, must to find their own paths to less consumption.
Does the number of presents we receive equal the amount of love we feel? Does teaching your children about the cycle of debt through example make them happier? What kind of country is a country where people get trampled to death for a piece of electronics? Why are the only healthy main streets in America on Disney property?
The movie definitely has a lot of funny parts as a camera crew follows the reverend and his choir on a road trip from New York City to Los Angeles on Christmas Day. The movie shows a serious accident with their bus and an 18-wheeler, as well as plenty of exhaustion and self-doubt. The documentary ends with Reverend Billy getting arrested at Disneyland on Christmas. It is a great look at the amount of dedication, passion and courage it takes to raise serious issues in creative ways.
The only thing I know for sure after watching these two movies, is that all I want for Christmas this year is for people to treat each other with respect and to give more through less money.
Hallelujah!
