Jesus Camp - the documentary

I can't remember where I first heard about the film, Jesus Camp, but I was recently listening to the Youthfront podcast (listen to the episode) where Mike King interviewed one of the directors of this documentary, and I got really curious. Then last Friday I was having coffee with my friend Dave and he mentioned it, and I remembered that I wanted to see it.

So, every Wednesday I get together with a group of guys who are in their early twenties. We had already planned to drive up to East Lansing this week and grab some pitas at Pita Pit (pretty amazing stuff if you haven't experienced it). Long story short, one of them had just gotten a new car that has a DVD player built in. We all piled in and watched 1/2 on the way there and 1/2 on the way back.

We didn't have much time to process it all together. It definitely made me think quite a bit. I found myself constantly fighting mixed feelings about what I was seeing. Some good, some very negative. The kids seemed so mature in their perspective. The emotions depicted in the film seem very deep and genuine. I was nearly in tears at one point as I watched a young girl weeping and praying at the alter. I work at a Christian school and at a church and I don't often see kids who have the kind of dedication, faith, and brokenness that some of those kids seemed to display. But, I was frustrated by something that I can't yet put my finger on.

Maybe I was frustrated by the political side, the cardboard cutout of George W. Bush, the railing against abortion, the power-point slides with "sin leads to death" in red dripping-blood font? Or was it the way Ted Haggard spoke with Levi, one of the key kids in the documentary? Maybe it was the fact that I've had some experiences that looked a lot like what I was seeing? Maybe it was because I know of camps that don't use the negative methods and i was worried all "Jesus Camps" were being labeled as right wing political brainwashing compounds? I don't know, but i am unsettled after seeing it.