Archive for September 17th, 2006
Religious extremism exists throughout the world. We are not immune here in the United States. A fast growing example would be evangelical youth camps. These camps are designed to indoctrinate impressionable young minds while laying the groundwork for future results. Children are being taught that they are “God’s warriors.” The effects of this type of activity are already influencing the politics and social well being of our country.
On the surface, Levi and Rachael are pretty typical young teenagers; they enjoy hanging out with their friends, listening to music, spending time in the mall, and going away to summer camp. Yet, unlike most American teenagers, they also consider themselves to be young soldiers in the “Army of God.”
From SILVERDOCS 2005 award-winning filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (THE BOYS OF BARAKA) comes this extraordinary film about the newest generation of Christian evangelicals, and the parents, teachers, preachers, and counselors who are committed to inculcating them from the start with radical fundamentalist beliefs. The film exposes a startlingly sizeable generation of young kids growing up in a somewhat alternate-universe from mainstream culture. They are largely home-schooled and raised on a creationist curriculum, with extracurricular activities chiefly dedicated to converting non-believers.
Summers are spent at Becky Fischer’s “Kids on Fire” camp in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, where they make new like-minded friends, pray together, and gain inspiration from Fischer’s hyperbolic sermons.
Often disregarded as extremist and marginal, this probing documentary reveals just how pervasive and potent this presumably “fringe” culture is, and the impact it may have-and has already had-on American politics.
