Their three chief weapons are surprise and fear and…no wait…their two chief weapons are surprise, fear … and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope
Bloody hell, I googled “Kids on Fire” - look at the pictures. That’s frightening. Poor wee kids.
:dubious:
He’s dead, jjimm.
Now, now, I’m sure Eve wasn’t serious and would put them out almost immediately.
These are a bunch of American Christian fundamentalists. The only fanatical devotion they might have regarding the Pope would be “death to the Pope and to papists.” If this was the the 1920s they’d probably be members of the KKK.
I do take this issue very seriously by the way. In fact, thanks to the link above, Ive changed the main page of www.mrrealtime.com in an effort to help get the word out.
Thanks so much to the OP for bringing this movie to all of our attention.
Wha? Who is?
(Or are you channeling Star Trek?)
–however, upon closer examination the dust actually turned out to be powdered magnesium, thus accounting for the name of the summer camp.
yes, I forgot to hit quote to the message “I didnt expect the spanish inquisition” earlier…
must…continue…kicking …dead…horse…kick…kick.
A. Not that I’m a conservative, but I missed the part where they were pushing a political agenda. Maybe there’s another clip out there that is all prayer in schools, pro-life, and capital punishment? I didn’t see that one.
B. All kids in this camp are there because they wanted to be there or their parents did. I get far more nervous when a political party tries to push their message in a public elementary school whether it be Republican or Democrat (or Communist or Nazi).
C. It’s obvious to me that they picked some type of charismatic denomination. IMO this is a cheap shot because to anyone not familiar with this type of denomination it can can seem really weird. (I know it seemed really weird to me when I first found out about it.) They could have easily found a Vacation Bible School where the kids were falling asleep in the pews, but I bet that would have made much less entertaining film, lol.
I don’t think this VBS is reperesentative of a typical VBS in the US and may or may not be representative of a charismatic VBS. It like a sensationalist documentary, which is why I said, “it was made to scare liberals”. (I watch a fair amount of documentaries and the theatres seem to be about 70% liberal, 30% moderate, and 0% conservative.)
nevertheless, if someone starts telling kids they need to be willing to “Die for Jesus” , that person needs to be sent a message, loud and clear, from all of us, Dems, Conservatives, Churchgoers and Athiests alike that that kind of message wont be tolerated to any degree in our part of the world, and that they need to encourage kids to love each other, and that their lives are more important than any political, spiritual, or fanatical ideal held by anyone.
Is the purpose of this documentary actually to advocate this sort of religious indoctrination? Or to shame it? Or is it sorta neutral?
One of the reviews in the trailer praised it for being “even handed” or something like that.
If its a good documentary, then its neutral and simply presents the facts in an even handed fashion. The footage I saw seems to be consistent with what I used to see as a kid growing up in evangelical and pentacostal churches, going to camps etc. From what I saw in the trailers at least, I dont think the director is necessarily choosing the most sensational bits, this is really what it is like at most of these camps and kids rallies, at least it was 20-25 years ago when I was that age. I expect its only intensified since then, but I cant say for sure as I havent been in a church (thank og) for as long.
Liberals SHOULD be scared. So should conservatives. The religious right has been getting progressively more and more theocratic, anti-social, hostile, fanatic and anti-American in its rhetoric for years now. It’s easy to say they’re a minority but they’re becoming less and less of a minority all the time and some of their theocratic beliefs are almost mainstream. A majority of Americans would like to teach a creation myth as “science” in public schools, for instance. A majority also believes that homosexuals should be denied equal rights because they believe (wrongly) that their Bible tells them so. The brainwashing that goes on at those Bible camps is frighteningly similar to what happens in Iran and Saudi Arabia. The more light that’s thrown on them, the better.
Who said Bush had anything to do with anything?
Personally, I think Bush is a result of American’s regression into supersition and tribalism, not the cause of it.
Just now the view count for this thread said - “Views: 666”. :eek:
“Ewwww, gross, that’s my Mom!”
What exactly does that mean? Do you think they made this up? Or do you just confront controversial issues that don’t match your preconceived notions by laughing at liberals and then stop thinking about it? If they had made a documentary inside an Islamic terrorist training center, would you have responded “they’re just doing that to scare Americans lol”?
Granted, I’ve only seen the trailer, but there seems to be a political component to the teachings of this particular camp. In the trailer, amongst other things, there is a sequence in which the kids are reciting a reworded, more “Christian” Pledge of Allegiance, and there is a shot of some sort of Christian flag flying alongside the current US flag. Likewise, I don’t see how the line quoted at various points about “taking America back for Christ” can be considered anything but a political statement.
Well, perhaps you should be a bit more nervous. Authoritarian cultures with political agendas are quite fond of indoctrination sessions for impressionable children disguised as youth groups or summer camps. Not to Godwinize, but everyone from the Nazis to the Soviets to today’s far-right Front Nationale have made youth programs of this type an important part of their strategy of popular indoctrination.
And nowhere do I see on the linked web site, or in the trailer, any claim by the filmmakers that this IS representative of vacation bible schools in general, nor do I think anyone here is treating it as a blanket statement about such schools.
I disagree with your assessment, and I object to your veiled insults toward liberals. As far as I can see from the trailer, the doc is composed of factual material about one specific Christian camp that happens to be on the more radical political end of the spectrum. I do not personally believe that this sort of thing is necessarily widespread or of the majority and I am not personally ‘scared’ in any way, but it is a subject worthy of discussion. Do you not see any parallels at all with youth indoctrination schemes by various political groups or religious cults? I can.
Such Christian factions do exist even if they are relatively small, and this by no means the first doument covering this wing of the evangelical movement. The doc raises what I think is an important point, were I a parent: were I to send my child to a camp advertised as providing Christian activities, what precisely would these activities consist of and would I agree with the message they are conveying?