The acclaimed documentary called “Jesus Camp” that was released in 2006 and filmed in 2005 divided the United States and its audience into the people that perceive “Jesus Camp” as a revealing creation that debunks Evangelical Christian summer camp and its main preacher Becky Fisher, and the people that view this film as a twisted point of view that was designed to put the viewers off the church and faith on purpose.
One of the main characters of “Jesus Camp” is Becky Fisher, who tries to put into practice and upstream method of promoting Evangelical Christianity though addressing young children. The documentary follows several of Becky Fisher’s speeches and comments. Besides, the film contains interviews with her explaining the behaviors of the children attending her performances. Most of the time, during Becky’s, preaches the camera captures her from behind or from the side.
This is done in order to present the reaction of the audience to the words of the preacher and her claims that from time to time tend to be rather aggressive, for example, when Becky several times uses intonation of disgust telling the children that the world around them is sick and needs to be fixed, or when she aggressively attacks popular culture stating that many of the books and film children love today, such as “Harry Potter” are anti-Christian, and their characters should burn in hell.
The viewers get to learn about Becky Fisher’s personal life when the filming crew visits her home showing her watching her own performances and admiring her own work. According to the interview with Fisher, she is an extremely confident person; she even states that she can lead any children at any place to Jesus.
Basically, Fisher’s own words serve as the best example of her own goals and desires, she openly states that children are “usable” in Christianity; she views them as a tool to deliver faith to the society of the future.
Another scene that show’s Becky Fisher’s incredible devotion to her faith and what she is doing is when she prepares the conference hall for the upcoming gathering of the children and organizes her crew to pray on the seats, and on the microphones and on the computers.
This scene shows that Becky perceives her religion as a good luck charm, thinking that a prayer said over the conference hall and all of its corners and every object in it will grant that the gathering will go well.
The creators of “Jesus Camp” documentary did not add any commentary, special effects of music to the film; they presented the actual scenes and interviews from the Kids on Fire Christian summer camp, footage from the homes of Evangelical Christian families and the conversations of several children, the members of the Evangelical Christian community.
The film reveals the techniques Fisher employs to affect the mind of the children, this includes the distorted music on the background of her preach, the exciting jumping and dancing routine, in the beginning, the use of toys during the speech, washing children’s hands to make them pure and not phony.
Finally, Fisher constantly employs army analogy to make children believe that they are Christian soldiers that are destined to fight with evil; even the dance at the beginning of the film performed by the children of the camp features them in military outfits.