Jesus Camp is a documentary movie originally produced in the United States of America. Both Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady directed the production of this film in 2006. It features a fascinating and compelling Christian summer camp. In this camp, attendees are taken through a learning process and thought-provoking session of understanding the fact that they have hidden prophetic gifts that can turn around the society. In other words, the latent gifts are capable of “taking back America for Christ.”
The Tribeca Film Festival distributed the film immediately it was ready after production. It has also been nominated as among exclusive documentary films by a number of academy awards. The camp was later closed owing to myriads of controversy surrounding the film. The essay offers a synopsis and summary of the film as well as its primary goal and purpose. The paper wraps up by examining what the filmmakers intended to achieve in the movie.
To begin with, it is crucial to mention that this charismatic Christian Summer camp was organized and presented by the school of a ministry known as Kids on Fire. Three children who took part in the camp have been featured in the film. Through the roles played by Tory, Rachael and Levi, the audience is in a position to understand events in the camp, the learning process and purported gifts that children can use to draw America back into serving God.
The participants featured in the film are devout Christians. For instance, Levi has been preaching in his backyard home church several times. According to his mother, homeschooling is the best approach to raise a child in a Godly manner. It is parental responsibility to raise a child closely instead of abandoning the responsibility to other people. During the congress at the camp, Levi preaches about the ability of his generation to revamp Christ in society.
Earlier in the movie, Rachael is also featured as a prayerful person when she prays at the bowling ball. She also shares tracts containing Christian messages to strangers as a way of evangelizing to them. In regards to non-charismatic churches, Rachael does not regard them highly. In fact, she refers to them as “dead churches.” The Christ Triumphant Church hosts a children’s praise and dance of which Tory is part and parcel of the team. She likes dancing to Christian music but assures his audience that she can never allow herself to “dancing for the flesh.”
On the overall, the film documents the lives of Pentecostal-charismatic young people who attend summer church camps located in Missouri and North Dakota. The producer of the film is seeking to address Christian aspects such as speaking in tongues, prayer, emotions, embodied worship, politics, and morality and how the American society has withdrawn the true worship of God.
In the article by Swatos, “religion began in earnest a scant century ago” (par. 1). However, this has gradually changed. The zeal towards serious pursuit for religious matters is no longer witnessed in contemporary American society. This is the same concern being addressed in the Jesus Camp film. The movie propagates the notion that a new generation should be raised to restore the American experience of Jesus Christ. However, the article about piano Recital at Auer Concert Hall that took place on April 22, eight Clock and performed by Cecilia Ratna does not seem to be directly related to the film. Even though there is no direct relationship between the two literary works, the role of young people in driving change in society is still evident in both pieces. Cecilia Ratna was born in 1989 and is equally a young person driving change in society.
Works Cited
Swatos, William. Encyclopedia of Religion and Society. Walnut Creek, CA: Sage Publications, 1998. Print.