Worth seeing with some friends...

So I just watched "Jesus Camp" with some friends and we talked about it afterward. The movie was thought provoking and is good to process, which is why you should watch it with people (this is coming from a verbal processor).

It seems that the movie is an attempt to expose a right-wing political agenda...and this agenda is frowned upon. Now, in many ways, I agree with this. I don't think the focus of the church in the US is to see that the US should be a "Christian Nation." But I found myself saying, "Yea...but..." a lot during this movie.

The "evangelical church"* was criticized as having an agenda and raising their kids (indoctrinating their kids) to embrace certain beliefs. Now, in some cases (many cases?) I didn't embrace those beliefs either... but don't they have the right to do that?

Here is my thing: everyone has an agenda (the Right, the Left, Christians, Muslims, Atheist, and pro-wrestling fans). Let's just put that on the table. To say that the "evangelical church"* has a political agenda and so BEWARE (insert stupid arguments of separation of church and state) or that it has a societal agenda (insert stupid arguments of indoctrination) is.. in my humble opinion... well... stupid.

This is from a review I read on the link above:

"This film made my hair stand on end and I came away from it thinking that the adults in it ought to be indicted for child abuse. These children are being intellectually immobilized in the name of goodness and purity. Do they really think they are superior to other young religious zealots who study nothing but their holy book but who are not Christians? It seems that children ought to be exposed to all the wonders of the world instead of being told that their job is to point out the errors of others. Children are highly impressionable and mostly believe what adults tell them. We can only hope that some of these children get some exposure to reality later which will help them live productive and caring lives as people who can accept the world's diversity. The prospects are not good."

Okay... am I the only one who thinks this is bad logic? I know that is politically incorrect to point that out... but I feel it is. "Children are highly impressionable and mostly believe what adults tell them [like, for example, this author]. We can only hope that some of these children get some exposure to reality [as defined by this author] later which will help them live productive and caring lives [as defined by this author] as people who can accept the world's diversity [this author's agenda]."

So there is the agenda... accepting diversity. And if this author had his or her way, children would be "indoctrinated" to accept diversity. Now, this is not a bad thing. I'm pretty sure we don't want kids to think that white supremacy is a good thing, etc... but let's just call it what it is... an agenda.

And I'm not sure I buy the idea that kids (or any people) "make up their minds for themselves." We all "make up our minds" based on the input we get. (Now, I'm hoping that God plays a role in some of this)... but I'm not sure the role of parents is to keep their kid's minds as blank of a slate as possible so that someone else can write their agenda on it, because everyone has an agenda.

I don't agree with a lot of what these kids were taught. I don't agree with some of the way they were taught it. But I can't criticize parents for trying to raise their kids to embrace the values they, themselves hold.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Opinions expressed on this post are not necessarily the final opinions of this author. This is a verbal (keyboard) process...therefore I reserve the right to change my mind.


* What the producers of this show labeled the "evangelical church" I would label the "charismatic/fundamental church." Evangelicals embrace a much wider view than this movie (although they may be seen as a subset.)