Absolutely hands down scariest movie ever. I agree.

It's been out for a while though. We haven't discussed it recently other than a passing reference here and there.

This was the scariest part for me:

How long? I haven't even heard of this in passing mention before.

This was probably the only film I've ever decided was too disturbing to watch the whole way through.

From my own camp experience, 'detainment' is what I would use. After I uttered the blasphemous contention that perhaps there just wasn't room on the ark for the dinosaurs and laughing, I was ministered to for 12 hours by 5 'counselors'  before finally screaming that they let me use the phone.

We're talking 25 1/2 years ago though.

I have to absolutely disagree.

One of the scariest parts of this film, in my opinion, is the radio broadcasters providing the commentary. They continually spout No True Scotsman fallacies about how the fundamentalists are giving them a bad rep, essentially using hypocrisy to distant the practice in the camp from the practice of 'Good, Wholesome, Jesus-loving Christians' that the film presumably knew would be a large portion of it's audience.

In reality, what goes on in the camp is likely an equivalent to what goes on in the 'True Christian' moderate home; it just goes on behind closed doors, between parents and their children. The theatrics would left out, sure - but the messages would be absolutely parallel.

I find the film frightening not only because of it's content, but because it refuses to connect the dots. 'This type of brainwashing is not okay; the good and wholesome kind you do while demanding your children to say Grace (and do it properly!) before dinner is.'

Wow...

Well, I watched the whole thing through this afternoon, and it brought back so many bad memories.  I mean I didn't grow up in a pentecostal home, nor one that fanatical, but I was force-fed my share of doctrine. 

It was really painful to watch at some points.  Those kids were incredible, but they're being psychologically abused at such a young age and they're going to reap the negative benefits in due time.

Levi broke my heart.  What a great kid. 

I just don't know what else to say. 

I finally found in my memory, who was Becky Fischer resembling all the time. (from historical view)
As it seems, christianic misuse of children is nothing new. During medieval ages, Europe had often problems
with raiders from east, like Tatars, Turks, Saracens, and so on. Dunno how much it's their own fault, but Church always wanted to conquer the holy land - Jeruzalem, holy grave, Golgotha, all these nice places described in Bible, they're kinda out of reach, in hands of christkillers (Jews) and Mohamedans.
Crusaders were not only holy warriors, in these times any barbarian could hang a cross on his neck and go ravage the east.
Not always it was going well, though. Some christianic zealots and mad preachers wanted to break the Saracen's resistence by a power of God, reflected in children's innocence.
"By hands of little crusaders we shall liberate the Holy land!!!"
They gathered young children among villages,  maybe gave them some uniforms, armor or a sword they barely could carry, and took them right to east. Of course, everyone, even some priests, who still had some intelligence and no fear of Church, tried to stop them, but not always succesfully, many people was fooled by this idea. It didn't end well. As you may expect, a lot of these children died on the way, of hunger, diseases or killed, and the rest was enslaved by Saracens. So much for little crusaders. Becky Fischer should learn from the history.

Jesus Camp was played on A&E a few months ago as part of some free preview promotion for the A&E Documentary channel on digital cable. Wow.

I went to a Catholic camp when I was 10 due to the enthusiastic recommendation of my two cousins who promised me I'd have the most fun in my life. It was dreadful! We woke up @ 5:30 for an hour long mass, then we'd have prayer at the breakfast table before we were allowed to eat. We weren't allowed to touch our drinks until we were finished eating, and if they didn't think we ate enough we weren't allowed to drink at all. At 9 PM we had a 1.5 hour long mass, after which we went to bed, but we weren't allowed to sleep! No, we had to say the rosary and one of the counselors would come in every 10 minutes or so to make sure no one had fallen asleep during prayer and swat those who had with a metre stick. The boy sleeping in the bed next to mine had such severe panic attacks that he was sent home after the second night.

Our daily activities weren't all that bad, I must admit, but still...

As an aspiring artists I was drawing constantly, and since at the time I had pet scorpions, I mostly drew scorpions. One of the "poor nuns" had apparently never seen a scorpion (???) and accused me of drawing devils. She didn't hit me, but yelled at me, a mere couple inches from my face. Later I broke into the kitchen where the only available phone was located, called home, and begged my parents to pick me up. They spoke to one of the counselors who convinced them that I should stay the remainder...

To add a bit of humor to this tale, after the phone call both the "poor nun" and myself were taken in to the Head Counselor's office where it was explained to the nun that I was not drawing demons and her actions were unwarranted and that I was drawing pictures of my pets. However I was still remanded as if I'd intentionally scared her. I was told not to draw any more scorpions, instead I was appointed to help paint a mural which, thankfully, exempted me from taking part in an Easter play.

After viewing Jesus Camp I consider myself very lucky to have avoided the mind rape portrayed in that film. Physical bruises heal, mental ones... not so easily.

.

I've seen a part of this movie, where the women brings a cardboard cutt out of President Bush and brown noses him and says something like he's been sent from god. Pretty discusting though.