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“This Means War!”
Haha. In all the rush to point out the “dangers” of primitivism, we’ve forgotten who the true enemies are: Christians! Behold, the trailer for the new documentary, Jesus Camp…
PS. I said that totally tongue-in-cheek about Christians being the enemy, of course, but this trailer’s pretty freaky. Also, whenever you hear that type of xylophone-y sounding music in a movie trailer, you know you’re in for a “serious independent film” - am I right? What a cliche way of introducing this otherwise very explosive bit of footage!
I bet primitivism is sounding pretty sweet after looking at this, huh? But seriously, think about what this documentary is designed to do. Who paid for it? Why? What do they hope to get from it? Are the filmmakers sympathetic to the subject matter and does that matter at all to the people being portrayed?
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
From what I’ve read, the camp’s authorities were pleased with how the film came out and cooperated with the filmakers. I think at least one of them was present at the initial screening.
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:24 pm
I’ve been wondering this too. It’s so hard to tell, because the same sort of footage that might make a non-Christians laugh, or gasp in horror, might be something Christians such as those in the film consider a great selling point and are quite proud of. One person’s evil is another person’s good. One person’s idea of ‘bat-shit insane’ is another person’s idea of ‘common sense.’ Oh this great tragic comedy that is our world. In any case, I can’t wait to see this film.
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:29 pm
it`s a cult. jim jones is grinning from the grave. any marketing executive wants thier clients crying about thier product. it doesn`t matter whether it`s purina or bell or chrysler or mcdonald`s, when you are emotional you have stopped critical thinking and can be made to do anything.
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:17 pm
Wish me luck, y’all. This film heralds from that Christian town of Devils Lake, NoDak–I kid you not, that’s how a lot of the Uff-Das there see it. I’m headed there tomorrow to see my old-growing parents. (Me, their gay son who’s “in the broom closet” about my pagan ways with them). I’m going to cloud up my “Talking Self” (as per Thorn Coyle’s wonderful book Evolutionary Witchcraft and just hope none of them khnts make it into the Old Main while we’re there.
May Hekate, Ceridwen, the Blue God and Odin bless me. As well as all the other deities who come visit and my animal guides.
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:00 pm
I got that sneaking suspicion from watching it - that the very outrage it inspires in me is both a selling point for the movie, as well as a “media virus” to get people to talk about it, nevemind it reliably replicates the message and intent of the people it ostensibly ridicules… Full-spectrum market domination
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:08 pm
HOLY MOTHER FUCKING SHIT!
okay…. i guess my church is pretty liberal in their thinkin about this kind of stuff….(i am on this website) but I spent a week at a beech retreat with the youth group last summer and we never got anywere near that fanatic. I mean, when the blonde lady was yelling “THIS MEANS WAR” and the little girl was crying? Baby Jesus was crying too, dammit! Pretty much everything in that video freaked the living fuck outa me. We just sat around and talked about god like normal thinking rational people. We joked about being at “curch camp,” we did some not so jesusy things, but we came out feeling like we wanted to do good in the world, not GO TO WAR! (we’re episcapal, btw) If I had brought up that I was into stuff like this website and gnostic stuff, everbody would have been okay with it. Pledging alligance to the “christian flag?” Jesus has no flag! Being part of generation Y, the same as these kids, I’m scared. We need a hero, someone to speak for us, a Dylan, a Lennon, a Cobain. We get Panic! at the disco……
If Jesus comes during our generation (which is what every generation in the C.E. has said) then he’ll be like “wtf, guys? What’s wrong with you”
25%!!! that’s ridiculous. I don’t know any kids like that at all my age, but maybe it’s because they’re homeschooled or I just don’t consort with those crowds.
i could totally see our generation turning into a V for Vendetta religious-fascist America though. Maybe I need to buy a mask
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:09 pm
And what’s with Palestine being “the enemy?” WTF!?!?!
September 22nd, 2006 at 4:40 pm
Pretty funny
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:48 pm
snack food for Yaldabaoth, brainless crispy fried fundamenalist fetii
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:49 pm
“The God of old is dispossessed of His terrestrial empire, and every thinking being on this globe disdains Him or knows Him not. But what matter that men should be no longer submissive to Yaldabaoth if the spirit of Yaldabaoth is still in them; if they, like Him, are jealous, violent, quarrelsome, and greedy, and the foes of the arts and of beauty? What matter that they have rejected the ferocious demiurge? It is in ourselves and in ourselves alone that we must attack and destroy Yaldabaoth.” - Anatole France, The Revolt of the Angels, pub. A.D. 1984
September 22nd, 2006 at 6:12 pm
This one time, at jesus camp…
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Holy crap. This is kinda terrifying. And majorly creepy.
I think that it is cast in the most perfect of grey tones - it’d inspire pride in a born-again, and fear in the non. It is kinda them and us, innit?
I just hope that this film doesn’t lead us “non” folks, even the Christian “non”, to see all church camps as radically as we see that one. I worked at a christian camp for a few years, and we were pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum from that - but still had a few people worried we’d brainwash their kids. Now imagine how they might be inclined to see us, if they don’t know better. This could end up with all church camps being tarred with a pretty broad and rather unfair brush.
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:20 pm
Weird. I was just over at a friend’s house watching on the History Channel a program about the Salem witch trials. The reinactments of all those hysterical girls going batshit crazy with “spectral evidence” looked identical to the bizarre frothing-at-the-mouth shown in this little trailer.
The personality cult of Jezus: abomination.
September 23rd, 2006 at 11:49 am
good luck Richard. hope the Gods see you well and safe in bazzaro world.
cliche creepy music or not, this is fuggered! We look down on the middle east for putting guns in the kids hands, but how is this really any different? Kids are…well…new individuals! and these jerks aren’t going to give em a chance to figure life out on their own. That is dangerous regardless of thy religion.
Sometimes I like to entertain the notion that these kinds of people who use tricks to discourage free thought are the minority. Unfotunatly it’s looking more and more like I should not only familiarize myself to their tactics and stay away, but develop an emergency fundie strategy should they become threatning. the idea that Christianity (or any religion) has done nothing but good for everyone (and I have heard people say this) is just a lie as they are people, and people fuck up. You can’t use logic with extremists, because tellng them you simply don’t believe in what they do is like saying the laws of gravity don’t apply to you. Lying about your views dosn’t help because then they want to see you at their church or whatever, and you end up feeling like an asshole anyway. “Why should I be ashamed of myself for being different? Everyone is different in some way!” People like this harass, they lie, and when they don’t get their way, they get violent. “Let’s beat up the fucking fag!”
Really, what can be done about these people? They just grow in numbers and fuck with anybody who’s not of their particular brand of fundie. How would you deal with people like this if they were harassing you without resorting to violence? I ask you all, how? Cause I don’t want to see it get to that, but…
September 23rd, 2006 at 3:29 pm
*But* I think there are some people who do want to see it get to that!
September 23rd, 2006 at 8:37 pm
what do you mean Tim?
September 23rd, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Dude, I know fundies, about half to three-quarters of my best friends are fundies or were raised fundie, and I “experimented” with it in high school. None of that makes that film clip any less nausea-inducing — probably the opposite. I live in semirural Ohio and I’ve seen that shit, man. I’ve been to Jesus camp — hell, I’ve cried and given my soul to Jesus at Jesus camp. Holy shit. I am the only one of all my friends except one — fundie and half-fundie and non-fundie alike — who’s not a political conservative.
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:47 pm
I mean that I think there are those who would like to see this turn ugly!
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:50 pm
Yah, I got that part. Which side? Christian side? Non-Christian side, or a little of both, and to what end?
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:59 pm
Exactly the right questions!
September 24th, 2006 at 12:24 am
You know, after my little rant I was inspired to look up racist and prejiduced websites and forums in the hopes of seeing the other side of the story, and I still can’t understand it. The most interesting and vulger of sites was an anti-semitist site called Jew Watch, and a white pride forum. I wan hoping to get a glimps into a foreign mentality and while many of them pride themselves about being swift witted, their ideas were based on non-existant concepts and their sources were questionable. I can understand being proud of your Irish or German heritage. Why not celebrate those things? But the concept of a universal white culture is as laughable as a universal black culture. Of course i think they mean the conservative capitalist way of life as “white culture” and thats equelly laughable. they went on constantly about how our (white) IQ is proven to be above every other “sub-human” race without siting any sources. Of course any liberal who challanges this idea is a self hating sellout. I also learned a hell of a lot more about the history of anti-semitism and the middle east conflict. At all the sites I visited there was a common theme of having one’s culture violated and taken away. so, I’m begining to concider that extremism of any sort is rooted primarily in a feeling of lacking security in one’s own culture, be it racial, religious. Perhaps a lack of identity, which I believe rests primarily on the individual.
Actually, now that I’ve written that down, it seems like that should be obvious.