Christian fundamentalism as child abuse. A question, not explicitly raised in the movie, is how Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, the directors, gained access to the scenes at the camp and megachurches and home schools that are the heart of this documentary. It seems they must have misrepresented themselves and their project. On the other hand, the film's subjects are manifestly pleased with themselves, so maybe not. A harsh critic of Jesus Camp, Ron Reno of Focus on the Family, is subconsciously stumped by the puzzle:
The directors' claim that they were simply trying to create an "objective" film about children and faith ring hollow. I don't question the motives of the Christians shown in the film. Indeed, the earnestness and zeal with which the young people pictured attempt to live out their faith are admirable. Unfortunately, however, it appears that they were unknowingly being manipulated by the directors in their effort to cast evangelical Christianity in an unflattering light.
If what the film shows is "admirable," how can it be that the directors "manipulated" the subjects so that they appear "in an unflattering light"? Admirable or unflattering--which is it? The straightforward solution to this problem is that what the film shows is not admirable and that even the spokesman for Focus on the Family understands in his bones that there is something repulsive about children being robbed of . . . their childhood, the chance to be children. Turns out that watching very young kids preach and proselytize and speak in tongues and endure what look like epileptic fits of religious ecstasy is a lot like watching them compete in beauty pageants: grotesque, creepy, sickening.
