# Jesus Camp: Evangelical Christians "taking back" America **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 10, 2006, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118 "2006-09-10T01:32:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2006, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/161 "2006-09-29T01:31:52Z")
One of the news channels had an interview with Pastor Becky, I think her name is, about this, just tonight. The interviewer - who was openly skeptical - asked why this wasn’t as bad as jihadists training kids in the Middle East. She said it was different, because, well, it was different. She did not, in fact, disavow violence or draw a distinction between her kids and jihadis that she didn’t want her kids killing in God’s name. Huh. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/162 "2006-09-30T04:01:11Z")
I just found out that this movie was filmed in my wife’s hometown (ironically called Devils Lake). The church shown in the trailer is very close to my inlaws’ place and I’ve been driving past it for years without knowing anything about it. I asked my wife about it and showed her the trailer on YouTube (she recognized the church and the Bible camp immediately) and I asked what what she knew about them. She said “Oh, those people are whackos. Everybody knows that.” Bear in mind that rural North Dakota is about as conservative and as Christian as it gets. I doubt you could find 20 Democrats in Devils lake and my wife tells me that this group is regarded as a bunch of nutters even in that town. “They’re the crazy church,” she says. That makes me feel a little better. Apparently even the Bush loving, gun toting, rural, right wing Christians of the town where this camp is located think these people are off their rockers. ---
**Author:** ![FelixKat930](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/258eb7/32.png) [@FelixKat930](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FelixKat930)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/163 "2006-09-30T04:10:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Apparently even the Bush loving, gun toting, rural, right wing Christians of the town where this camp is located think these people are off their rockers. LOL…I gotta admit…it IS surreal hearing about conservative christians who think that other hypercons are insane. There’s a messageboard for a very conservative christian college out there, that I sometimes lurk at. This place is SO conservative that they think that Bob Jones and Liberty University (aka Jerry’s Place) are too libral. Occsionally they will start ragging on these nutters from a college that is so conservative, men and women aren’t even allowed to hold hands! (Hyles-Anderson College) It really is strange reading their rants. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/164 "2006-09-30T19:10:20Z")
[QUOTE=bluethree] Whoa. Usually a summer camp doesn’t advertise with prominent pictures of the little ones _crying_. [/QUOTE] And check out the miserable youth on the right in this picture, from New Horizons Youth Ministries: [http://www.nhym.org/nhym\_employment.shtml](http://www.nhym.org/nhym_employment.shtml) According to some who have been through these reform school/boot camps, it has not been a very pleasant experience, to say the least: [http://www.spiritualgate.com/articles/articles/220/1/The-Truth-about-New-Horizons-Youth-Ministries](http://www.spiritualgate.com/articles/articles/220/1/The-Truth-about-New-Horizons-Youth-Ministries) Has anyone here read Julia Scheeres’s book **Jesus Land**? I’m just waiting for someone to make a film out of it. Very sad. ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2006, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/165 "2006-10-16T21:17:44Z")
Sorry to revive a kinda dead thread, but I just discovered a recent report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life which sheds some more light on the Pentecostal Christian faith the film’s subjects represent: [http://pewforum.org/surveys/pentecostal/](http://pewforum.org/surveys/pentecostal/) > [@Linked Article](#): > > By all accounts, pentecostalism and related charismatic movements represent one of the fastest-growing segments of global Christianity. According to the World Christian Database, at least a quarter of the world’s 2 billion Christians are thought to be members of these lively, highly personal faiths, which emphasize such spiritually renewing “gifts of the Holy Spirit” as speaking in tongues, divine healing and prophesying. Even more than other Christians, pentecostals and other renewalists believe that God, acting through the Holy Spirit, continues to play a direct, active role in everyday life. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2006, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/166 "2006-10-19T12:53:00Z")
[QUOTE=nano8track] Yes you are wrong. I don’t want institutionalized prayer any more than I want “Heather Has Two Mommies”. Don’t get me wrong. I think teaching children to pray is a virtuous thing. But as I’ve said before, “the ends do not justify the means”. Teaching children to pray should be a thing done at home or a religious institution. It should not be forced upon young children in a public school. Forced goodness is not really goodness. Likewise tolerance is a virtue. Tolerance is a type of human right. Where does our desire for human rights come from? Clearly desire for human rights comes from a love for freedom. Therefore since the desire for tolerance comes from a love for freedom, freedom is the greater virtue. It is purely illogical to want to force tolerance upon someone. “If they won’t listen to reason, then I’ll make their kids be tolerant.” That idea is purely illogical, and furthermore since freedom is virtuous, it is an evil thought. A person who wants to force virtue upon young children does not want to solve the problem. They want to be the problem. It is clear they want to solve their problems simply by being more powerful, and forcing their ways upon those who don’t agree with them. Specifically wanting “Heather Has Two Mommies” in a school curriculum is not a virtuous desire. It is just as bad as wanting institutionalized prayer. In regards to the other posters I apologize for not having time to reply to your posts. However I think we have debated the topic enough that each of us has had plenty of opportunity to present his or her case. 🙂 [/QUOTE] I agree with you. I have been getting emails from a fundamentalist who rants that the Atheists are taking away her religion, she says" Madalyn O’Hare took the right to pray out of our schools", when I told her it was not Ms. O’Hare, but the ruling by the Supreme Court because they found it against separation of Church and State. She still does not concede that others have a right to practice their belliefs and says this is a Christian country. I said,"Yes, but our form of government is secular, not because of Athiests forcing their beliefs on others but the fact that the early settlers were trying to force their brand of Christianity on other Christians.thus protecting the rights of all people to practice their religion with out harressment! Monavis ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2006, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/167 "2006-11-11T13:55:39Z")
Hope this thread isn’t too old to be deemed a zombie. [Jesus Camp closes](http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1943156,00.html) due to protests sparked by the documentary. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2006, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/168 "2006-11-11T15:52:58Z")
And since it **has** been raised from its sleep, I want to nominate **GLWasteful** for a prophecy award: [QUOTE=GLWasteful] Also, the pastor in Colorado Springs (all apologies, but I don’t recall his name) [that would be Ted Haggard, GL] was weirdly gregarious. “Use any of this and I’ll sue you,” I thought was a good line, but I wasn’t entirely sure that he didn’t mean it. And the look on his face as he claims that as long as evangelicals vote, then they can sway elections, **struck me as akin to a kid who has discovered a new toy. Or self abuse. Either or.** [Bolding and bracketed note added by PC] [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![GLWasteful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f05b48/32.png) [@GLWasteful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GLWasteful)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2006, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/169 "2006-11-11T17:33:27Z")
**jjimm** : While it could very well be the case that the camp was closed due to harassing e-mail and phone calls, the timing of this, not long after Haggard and his indiscretions, makes me wonder if it’s not a ploy designed to drum up interest and allow Becky to distance herself from him in much the same fashion as Dobson has. And **Polycarp** : Damnit! How am I gonna maintain my old school atheist street cred with you claiming that I can prophesy? Besides, it appears that if Ted had indulged in a little **self** abuse, then he might have spent less time with his prostitute/meth dealer boyfriend. Although I must say, in retrospect, that I came pretty close to nailing (pun fully intended) that one. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/170 "2006-11-11T18:35:32Z")
[QUOTE=Hey you!] a recent report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life which sheds some more light on the Pentecostal Christian faith the film’s subjects represent [/QUOTE] However, it should also be noted that Pentecostalism is a general movement of spirituality and not a specific denomination with a strict code. While there are a number of common traits, (otherwise, how could we put a name on it?), such as a _tendency_ toward biblical literalism and an affinity for the apocalyptic literature along with the three central chapters to Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, there is no strict set of rules requiring physical discipline of children, subservience of wives, or a few other traits demonstrated by the nutcases in the film under review. Many Pentecostal churches have some socially liberal traits and few are as twisted as the ones being discussed. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2006, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118/171 "2006-11-11T21:16:03Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] However, it should also be noted that Pentecostalism is a general movement of spirituality and not a specific denomination with a strict code. While there are a number of common traits, (otherwise, how could we put a name on it?), such as a _tendency_ toward biblical literalism and an affinity for the apocalyptic literature along with the three central chapters to Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, there is no strict set of rules requiring physical discipline of children, subservience of wives, or a few other traits demonstrated by the nutcases in the film under review. Many Pentecostal churches have some socially liberal traits and few are as twisted as the ones being discussed. [/QUOTE] In fact, it was the Pentecostal churches which were among the earliest ones in the 1900s to ordain women pastors (the most famous or notorious, YMMV, being Aimee Semple MacPherson). Pentecostal pioneer Charles Fox Parham taught pacifism (which I find repulsive but a lot of people seem to admire), Final Restoration (that except for those souls who had been called by God in this life & utterly defied Him, the vast throngs of humanity would get an ultimate opportunity to come to Christ at the Last Judgement) and the Annihilation of the Wicked (other than Eternal Torment in Hell). Alas, he was also kinda racist & may or may not have had a Bakker-Swaggart-Haggard incident. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jesus-camp-evangelical-christians-taking-back-america/372118.md?page=8)