I, too, anticipated watching this film with fear and trembling, based on what others had said (including my daughter, a family and child therapist AND a UU). Though I found it disturbing, I came away from it thinking “Wow, those guys are doing a lot better job of giving their kids something to believe in than we are.” I remember the boy who was so clear about his ministry, and the girl who was so clear about what her gifts are. I disagree that what they listed are the most important gifts, but the point I’m trying to make is that many of these kids had a lot of self-confidence, they were very articulate about their beliefs, and they were strongly committed to something. I wish we could reach those goals with more of our children–WHAT they are committed to would be vastly different, of course, but I am not seeing that kind of passion in our UU kids, and I’m sorry about that.

I want to show this film to our Religious Education Committee and/or to a parents group at our church and have some conversation with them about what we can learn from it that would be useful in OUR children’s religious education.

Anyway, just random thoughts but thanks for chiming in. Let me cautiously say that when someone is so wounded by their past that they can’t even listen to someone suggest certain ideas without getting sick with anger and disgust and lashing out, I don’t think a blog is the right place to expect them to work that stuff through. This blog is a community salon — it is not a congregation or a therapy group. I am not the pastor of this cyber-community; I am a religion writer who writes often from my perspective as a minister. Subtle difference, but very important one. I think that this is really not the place to continue conversations that require space, time and privacy. so sometimes people do need to go away. I respect that.

But the reality is that more than loving God, I feared Him. Far more. I can’t even describe the intensity of the fear I lived with, every hour, every day. I would sooner put my kids in an orphanage than put them through that experience, that is how unhealthy it is.

That kind of devotion might seem adorable or even admirable to some folks, but the grass may only seem greener when one fails to take into account that this is ALL these kids know. They don’t know that there are people out there who believe in a different kind of God; - or if they do, they think those people are all going to Hell. They don’t have a choice, but more than that, they don’t have any perspective. The reason their belief is so intense is because it occupies every corner of their heart; there is no room for anything else.

I really, really wish that my parents and religious community hadn’t tied up love and fear so tightly together, so that it seemed normal to call fear of an authority figure a “love,” or to say without a trace of irony that it was loving act for a child to fear its parents.

For everyone who is curious about what I saw happening for those kids that was positive:
I think that might open up a whole ‘nuther can of worms so I think I’ll decline to address that now. I think we’d have to wrassle over how we define things like love and nurturance and care, and even God. I think my overall sense was to compare their intense sense of God’s presence in their lives to my own upbringing, where I had no God at all. Was that passion in their eyes just fundamentalist mania? I don’t know. But they were bright little things, and I hold out hope that their own powers of discernment, their encounter with people of different backgrounds (it’s bound to happen sooner or later!) and their natural maturation process will help them to be happy, well-adjusted adults who can take the good from their upbringing while they reject the abusive.
There was that one little blonde boy who seemed a natural skeptic — I think HE’S going to be a free-thinker for sure!

You might want to check out this interview with Becky Fisher:

Jesus Camp Camp
http://www.jewsonfirst.org/07a/becky_fisher.html

The interviewer is Jack E. Jett, the co-host of The Queer Edge television show with Sandra Bernhard. Even with the differences in world views, the interview sounds like a polite chat.

I assume that children growing up in a God centered home would find God because they saw him in action… they don’t need to be coerced into finding God.

It made me feel that perhaps her own convictions were shaky because it was through fear that she needed to share this faith. Fear isn’t freedom and in my mind it isn’t God.

While I would agree that the Hitler comparisons are a little silly, I am not sure but that it is Pastor Becky’s own rhetoric that invites the comparisons. Doesn’t she compare her work to with young Christian to the indoctrination that the young muslims undergo to become suicide bombers? Am I really demonstrating an inability to appreciate context if I did not see any good things happening in these children’s lives?