Evangelicals Run Away From Jesus Camp

By all accounts, the new movie Jesus Camp is a fair, an evenhanded look at a specific group of completely wacko Evangelical Christians. As with any movie that doesn't roll over and lavish the religious right with praise, controversy is expected. However it seems that the reaction the movie is getting from Evangelical's has surprised even the film's distributor, Magnolia Pictures.

Simply stated, Evangelical Christians are turning on their own.

Apparently the reaction so far hasn't been to try and discredit the movie (probably because it can't be discredited) but rather mainstream Evangelical Christians are now frantically trying to distance themselves the ones portrayed in the film.

In a statement released today, Magnolia Pictures president Eammon Bowles had this to say: "We’re frankly surprised and a little disheartened by the efforts of prominent members of the evangelical community to clamp down on Jesus Camp. Whether or not the children and camp depicted in the film represents the ‘mainstream’ of the Evangelical movement is beside the point: they exist, the film documents them, and the subjects feel they’ve been treated fairly. Why a community that’s so quick to attack discrimination from secular Americans would then turn and do the same to other Evangelicals is unexpected, to say the least."

A quick survey of Christian websites backs up his statement. He's right. That's exactly what's happening. Christian websites are filled with cries about how they have nothing to do with these people, and are throwing out accusations of stereotyping. Except Jesus Camp never claims to be a movie about ALL Evangelical Christians, it claims only to be a movie about a specific group in Mississippi, a group representative of a type of Christian extremist that most agree seems to be growing. That doesn't mean it represents all Christians, or even most of them, just as terrorist aren't necessarily representative of all Muslims.

It's interesting really. We complain that mainstream Muslims have failed to do anything to curb the extremist elements in their own ranks, because they'd rather spend their time distancing themselves from them. As a result, extremism is a powerful and growing element in the Islamic world. Now it looks like Evangelicals are taking exactly the same path. Rather than address the problem, they're running away from it.

Josh Tyler