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Camp Jesus.

Posted by John on October 9th, 2006 at 12:58 pm · 11 Comments

Cathleen Falsani, religion reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times (who lost the close vote to Sam Harris in our book group choice), blogs her reaction to seeing the movie Jesus Camp. If you check it out (which you should), keep in mind that Falsani is an Evangelical Christian.

I’m seriously considering seeing this movie in LA or OC this weekend (and not just because Halloween is around the corner), which is currently showing in select theaters around the country. Leave a comment or email me (mindonfire.com, preceded with a john at) if you’re interested as well.

Tags: Christianity · Movie Reviews

11 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Jonathan // Oct 9, 2006 at 3:19 pm

    Looks pretty disturbing, and I’m an evangelical Christian attending a Penecostal church right now. :) . That fact alone is pretty amazing if you know me… Anyway, I guess I’ll have to see it to really get a better idea, but it looks like I’ll probably hate it. I’m beginning to learn that one church in the same Protestant denomination or movement is often the polar opposite of the next church in the same movement.

  • 2 Matt Thurston // Oct 9, 2006 at 4:04 pm

    I saw Jesus Camp last weekend in O.C. at the Edwards South Coast Village. I left my impression of the film in several comments over at Bloggernacle Times on a Blog Post about the subject. See: http://www.bloggernacle.org/?p=437 in particular, comment #36, but also comments #25, 30, 31, 32, 59, 61, and a few more in the 60s. (A bunch of comments, I know… but I found the film and this subject fascinating.)

    John, defininately check it out. If I hadn’t already seen it, I’d see it with you.

  • 3 Matt Thurston // Oct 9, 2006 at 4:11 pm

    I just read the Falsani blog piece. Very well-written. “Indoctrination” vs. “Teaching” was one of the things we seemed to be disagreeing about over at Bloggernacle Times, especially as it relates to Mormonism. Wish I had the Falsani piece at that time. Thanks for pointing this article out.

  • 4 Johnny // Oct 9, 2006 at 9:34 pm

    I have been thinking about this issue since the movie came out. Not that I usually advertise I read Falsini’s blog and decided to post on it.

  • 5 Watt Mahoun // Oct 9, 2006 at 10:36 pm

    I’m looking forward to seeing this.

    A couple of months ago I posted at Purim about David Byrne’s reaction after seeing an early screening. I thought the following comment by the former Talking Head was right-on:

    There were some perfect sound bites — at one point Pastor Fischer instructs the little ones that they should be willing to die for Christ, and the little ones obediently agree. She may even use the word martyr, which has a shocking echo in the Middle East. I can see future suicide bombers for Jesus — the next step will be learning to fly planes into buildings. Of course, the grownups would say, “Oh no, we’re not like them” — but they admit that the principal difference is simply that “We’re right.”

  • 6 Watt Mahoun // Oct 9, 2006 at 10:45 pm

    As an aside related to the reading group, here’s David Byrne’s take on Sam Harris.

  • 7 Miko // Oct 10, 2006 at 6:49 am

    I’m def. interested, but busy the next few wknds. I added it to my netflix “saved” list a while ago. For lighter fare, I truly enjoyed Saved which came out a few years ago.

  • 8 John // Oct 10, 2006 at 11:12 am

    Jonathan, please keep us informed–I want to be aware of such nuances, and it’s something I try to point out here on occasion (like those Evangelical environmentalists).

    Matt, thanks for the link to the BCC discussion. I’m glad that you reminded the readers/commenters of Mormonism’s own strangeness when viewed by outsiders. I especially appreciate your call for greater freedom being given to our children to work out their own spiritual identities. The blurry line between the indoctrination and teaching of our children might make a good subject of a Sunstone post (wink wink nudge nudge).

    Darn you, Watt, darn you to all heck! Now I’ve got yet another blog to follow! :P

    On the bright side, now I have another reason to love Byrne.

    I listened to the latest Sam Harris interview at Point for Inquiry and plan to post about it later today.

  • 9 Elise // Oct 10, 2006 at 1:16 pm

    John, I already saw it also. Ryan and I both were glad we saw it and recommend it highly – I’ve been meaning to blog a response to it but I’ve ended thinking and pondering and stewing and not yet writing. :-)

  • 10 Jonathan // Oct 11, 2006 at 5:32 am

    John -
    Yea, this Pentecostal church I’m attending now is really wild. I went on a retreat and they talked for over 2 hours about how much they hated religion. They hated legalism, unquestionable authority, indoctrination, and the rest of the junk. They didn’t just think it was a little bad, they hated it. The ministry team told us that in order to live a thriving spiritual life with God, you have to throw out religion. I was speechless.

  • 11 John McDonagh // Oct 16, 2006 at 2:31 pm

    Muslims already believe in the prophethood of Jesus, so this actually presents more suicide bombers for Jesus.

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