What did you do at Jesus Camp?

H and I finally saw Jesus Camp the other night. I normally avoid these kind of documentaries. I'm a religious studies major so you would think I'd be interested. And I am interested, it's more that I find something in them that reminds me too much of religious studies as a whole. It seems often that in our attempt at academic empathy or understand, we too often excuse or even embrace extreme religious behavior. I know that it's a reaction to colonization. I know that all too often it's been about the West imposing it's own liberal values onto other cultures and religion, etc, etc. But after I watch something like Jesus Camp, I often think (and I know this is sort of blasphemous in liberal/postcolonial circles) "But maybe not all Western liberal values are bad, and we should encourage people to accept them." That's my secret confession to you all. And flame me at will. I probably need it. But let me explain...

For those who have not heard of the film, the director follows a group of three kids to a Jesus Camp in South Dakota lead by Pentecostal "Pastor Becky." The kids are all homeschooled (one mom tells her son "Isn't it amazing how science proves nothing?"). The kids walk around giving tracts to adults (at one point this annoyingly self-righteous child walks up to a group of older African-American men and asks them "If you were to die right now where would you go?" They answer "Heaven." She pushes "Are you sure?" "Yes," they answer obviously annoyed. She leaves them and says to her friend "I think they're Muslim."), they speak in tongues, lay "slain in the spirit," dance in war makeup (not kidding). It's all pretty horrifying (minus the wonderful scene at the end where they meet Ted Haggard who preaches against homosexuality). The children are called "promise breakers," "hypocrites," and "sinners." At the end of these sermons, they stand at the front sobbing. Some confess to disbelief and that they know they'll go to hell for such a lack of faith. They are preached to about politics. At one point the adults bring out a cut out of George Bush. It is set up against the background of a huge American flag. And then the kids lay hands on the cutout and pray for Bush. They have a speaker come to them to preach against abortion. He puts red tape over several kids' mouths, I suppose to represent the fetuses? The kids parrot words that are frighteningly echo those of the adults in the movie. The adults express admiration for how extremist Muslims indoctrinated their children so young. And Pastor Becky tells a radio show host that more churches should practice indoctrination.

Now I'll be honest that my gut level reaction is repulsion and fear that these scary people are out there. And I know they're a minority but it's an 80 million person minority. I feel sick for these kids who not really being taught but indoctrinated. And I know it's not just religious extremists who indoctrinated. I have a few friends who do this with atheism and their kids. I guess it's that H and I try so hard to impose our own biases etc onto the kids. We're always clear that beliefs are ours not the whole worlds, etc. And I am not so naive as to think that our kids do think many of the same things we do but we do encourage them to not just accept what we say. It's annoying to have their constant questioning but I think in the end important towards developing free thought.

And I grew up in a Pentecostal church. I went to a Jesus Camp when I was young. And I know that first, this stuff does scare the hell out of you. I still wake up late and worry that I'm wrong and I'll burn in hell. I don't know if you ever escape that fear. Second, I also know that you get caught up in the atmosphere of these places, and you tend parrot what's going around you. You likely will go home, and be "on fire for the Lord" for a few days, maybe even weeks, but then it settles down and life returns to normal. Third, we did a lot more at Jesus Camp than just get indoctrinated. We coupled up, and snuck around night to hold hands and kiss. Fourth, people are not for the most empty vessels waiting to be filled. Imagines from the media, all too often fall upon the trope of brainwashing to explain extremest religions, and really people are often capable of thinking other thoughts. They often are not able to maintain such total extremist beliefs for long periods of time. This has all been academically documented (see David Chidester's Suicide and Salvation about Jonestown).

But still...these kids are dressing up in war makeup and calling themselves warriors for God. And that's my fifth point about Jesus Camp. As kids we reveled in that feeling of chosenness. We felt special, close to God, chosen to lead his people to heaven. There is something heady about feeling you are chosen by God. It's a powerful feeling that separates you from others. If you further this by keeping your kids out of school, going to church five days a week, and constantly repeating it, then you get kids who are going to end up believing this...wanting to believe it. They think they're persecuted, that the world is turning against them, and they are definitely apocalyptic. I read this again and again in the memoirs I just read about Mormon Fundamentalist cults. These women fall back again and again on this idea they were special, and they never fully let go of that idea.

David Byrne (of Talking Heads) has a great blog. His latest entry is about modern liberal belief coming into conflict with traditional closed of beliefs. He quotes scholar, Jonathan Haidt concerning this. It's an interesting conversation, and this man basically contends that those who live in large metropolitan areas are forced into a more individual concept of morality while those living in closed communities preserve a more traditional attitude towards purity. I have a lot of issues about this and I do need to Haidt more to make a fuller critique (which I will) but for now I think it is true that Westerners do tend to push their liberal agenda. And there are many scholars who point to this ethnocentrism (Said, Mahmood ). I get this. And I see how it's problematic. Iraq is a prime example of the messiness of this stance. But and this is a big But can this be an excuse for ignorance about others? For abuses on human bodies? For oppression both physically and emotionally? And let me be clear that it's not just Non Western (whatever the hell that might be) that perpetuates these kind of conservative abuses. There are many many groups both religious and nonreligious in the US that engage in abusive behaviors. And my major dilemma as a scholar, and as someone who is interested in religious violence is how does one approach this topic. Can we approach with an understanding that does not necessarily endorse such behavior? Is there room in religious studies as a discipline for a critique of religious practices? Is my own liberal bias preventing me from understanding other forms of agency (something Mahmood argues eloquently)?