I love this "culture war" stuff, so it really would have piqued my interest regardless, but it is really entertaining, more than anything else. It's a fascinating portrait of a sect of evangelicals doing, well, insane things.

But that's really all it is. A sect. I don't think the film actually provides enough information for us not to simply consider this sort of evangelical behavior anomalous. After all, these are Pentecostals, and the film fails to narrow in on that. I'm not saying that this sort of preaching and proselytizing doesn't occur in, say, Baptist churches, but the film's focus seems to be that this is happening now and THESE kids WILL be taking over the world SOON. It's all a bit silly.

And I think those who have praised the film as even-handed are fooling themselves a bit. The ominous music, the guy from Air America, the scene with the mom teaching her kid Republican party lines? The film is a blatant attempt at enraging and worrying liberals, and I won't lie, enrage and worry me it did. I won't criticize the film itself, though, for not being even-handed. I never said it had to be.

Despite that, though, again, it's a fascinating watch. Just not totally... convincing? That's the only word I can think of at the moment.

B+

Sums up a lot of my thoughts as well.

I always find moral absolutism as displayed here to be a fascinating subject to encounter. It is in essence delusion of one's mind to the degree that nothing can shake your belief and its something which provides incredible drive and zeal to what this section of humanity is trying to achieve. Their just as committed to their cause as die hard Liberals or Religious extremists from other religions are to theirs. The ambiguous nature of religious belief along with the lack of evidence required to follow that path makes these evangelicals the perfect example of this mindset.

The two main children they follow around are both engagingly committed but in different ways. The little girl who's name escapes me comes across as rather harmless she represents the area of evangelical faith which even if you don't agree with it you could imagine the opposing side living with, the boy Levi however is a ominously focused creation, he's the evangelical for which there will be no such thing as compromise, its the God way or the highway with that lad a worrying vision of some prototype future leader. The appearance of Paul Haggard the Evangelical head man does make the outlook seem less scary however. If ever somebody smelled like a salesman just chancing his arm it was this guy, he's urbanE witty and disarmingly friendly but you really get the sense that this man knows the game can't be won and influence is the best Evangelicals can hope for. His words don't suggest this but everything else does from the body language to a smile that would cut thru sheet metal points towards the compromise victory.

People can judge this as brainwashing and in a way it is but then brainwashing occurs everyday its just you never call it that when you believe in it, instead you see an unshakable truth, something drove home in the final radio interview between the Air America host and the Jesus Camp leader. His exasperation at the end speaks volumes. Seems you can't shake a belief.

B+

Very interesting, but yea, it's a bit much. A very good watch, though.

B+

B

Makes wanna take all the kids home with me, and bash the parents/leaders/etc. brains in with Harry Potter books, NOT paperback either.

Tough to grade, most documentary type films usually are, for me.

Well if you think about it, bashing their brains in with the paperback copies of the Harry Potter books would actually hurt more.

hehe just noticed this review and have to admit its a perfect example of how this film could be taken as anti-religion by some and pro-religion by others based simple on ones set viewpoint beforehand.

Not an attack on you Corpse or anything just a little snapshot into all of us.

Meh. It's all a bit much. The film makers give 80 minutes of footage of children and say "Does this make you scared?" when religion has been doing this stuff for centuries. So, no, it doesn't scare me. It's disappointing as hell, to be sure.

Did people actually say this movie is even-handed? Seriously?

I thought I reviewed this a while back. I remember it being an interesting film, definitely skewed toward pointing the camp in a bad light...but, I mean, what did they expect?

I'll have to find my review I actually posted it on the main site but it is gone now...hmm...