jesus camp

this week i finally saw jesus camp, which is a film that takes a look at middle-american, conservative protestant evangelicalism with a bit of charismatic pentecostalism thrown in. it mainly focuses on a few children and their experiences at a particular prayer meeting, and summer camp which they all attended.

it was difficult to watch, because in the film, it seems that the children attending these events are being motivated by fear and guilt. they are indoctrinated into thinking in terms of a "religious war" in america between christians and non-christians, and are told that if they can just repent enough, and live righteously enough, they will be able to win back america for Jesus, whatever that means.

i would rather see children being taught how to debate religious issues rather than how to fight a "religious war" against people who do not believe the way they do.

i really like how the movie critiqued christianity however. as a christian i want to be open to critiqe by those who do not share my perspective of belief. it is also interesting to realize that christianity is not one single monolithic entity, but is instead comprised of many different sub-cultures. it wouldn't hurt all of us to be able to critique one another with the goal of getting rid of some of the cheeze (a technical term!) that seems to find its way into our church practices.

28 kicks in the head later

not long ago i went to see 28 weeks later, a crazy zombie movie, and the sequel to 28 days later. i didn't see the first film, but apparently in it, everyone in london is killed by this crazy, raging, zombie-creating disease. now, it is "28 weeks later," all the infected are dead, and for some reason it seems like a good idea to re-open a section of london for people to repopulate. that was the first mistake. you can probably guess what happens next... the strain is still present, and people begin to turn into zombies once again. but these are not slow, stupid night of the living dead zombies. they are angry, fierce, and they sprint at top speed in order to catch you and have you for a snack. their speed was what was most disturbing to me. you had about 2 seconds to escape, or it was all over.

watching this film felt like getting kicked in the head over and over for 2 hours. we were physically exhausted when we came out, but it was fun.