My "review" or rather...my view of Jesus Camp. The documentary about a female children's pastor from Missouri who hosts a camp each summer in Devil's Lake, South Dakota.
This woman has such passion and desire to train young people and keep them from sin or wrong things. She loves the kids, spends time with them and truly wants to invest into their lives. But that's where my feelings of great stop. The film documents services, interviews with children and the pastor. You start to see forcibly causing a child to believe something, not allowing the option of another answer for a question. I can't but compare it to Muslims; forcibly learning children in the "Evangelical" culture to believe as leaders see fit. I've worked in ministry, at a camp and have seen children learn and grow...but this causes me to ask many questions. In this situation are they just mirroring what they have seen? Truly believe what they are taught? Or being indoctrinated to believe, act and think certain things? How different is this "Evangelical" way of thinking any different than teaching a child to wear a bomb belt, shoot an AK47 and kill at will? This is all for the sake of Allah, their god, correct?
indoctrinate
in·doc·tri·nate
1. to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc., esp. to imbue with a specific partisan or biased belief or point of view.
2. to teach or inculcate.
3. to imbue with learning.
—Synonyms 1. brainwash, propagandize.
Strangely - the synonyms to indoctrinate cause it to seem even worse. How could someone who loves God want to forcibly make a child believe the same? Couldn't you learn the child of the Lord and allow them to choose what they believe themselves? How could Evangelical, Charismatic, Protestant, Christian, etc, churches manipulate their beliefs upon a young and pliable mind? Why wouldn't they just teach and allow God to do the changing?
Am I ashamed to have myself labeled as a "Christian" among those who are teaching their beliefs about religion, evangelism, government and politics to the next generation? With people who say they can sway the vote of America by their pulpit? Why is America a democracy if they are not allowing freedom of choice, separation of church and state and the right to vote? Has anyone seen the film/documentary? Do you have any view or insight in it?
Proverbs 22:6
6 "Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it."
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Is it preaching or indoctrinating?
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1 comment:
not sure how I feel about this post...it warms my heart to see 11 year old preaching the gospel, but I can see where you are coming from...and I do hate religion, but I love people who have "passion" for what they believe and why they believe it...I believe you are correct with what you say though with those kids that were homeschooled...I see a lot of my early childhood in that video and that does make me uncomfortable...but I believe God is able to work through parents "sometimes" mistakes of shoving religion down kids, that sometimes it drives them from it and that they truely seek a relationship with God, and not religion...I know what it's like to be "indoctrinated" as a kid...and the harms are great...but I believe God can even use that in the end for His glory...I believe it causes kids to see the reality that people can try to do great things, but in the hands of humanity we can wreck it...it also causes them to hate religion and truely desire the geniune and honesty of who God is period...but I have to say I think after watching that movie, I'm going to grow out a mullet again! lol...
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