Jesus Camp (2006)
A&E IndieFilms

Description

This follows 3 kids to pastor Becky Fischer's Kids on Fire summer camp where kids as young as 6 years old are taught to become dedicated Christian soldiers in God's army.

Tags

Oscar nomination, Fundamentalism

Collected reviews and ratings

9.3 DVD Verdict | Brett Cullum

It's scary how far they push the children, and hard to see them broken and crying as Pastor Becky tells them they are dirty, evil sinners.
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9.2 Entertainment Weekly | Scott Brown

As a documentary, Jesus Camp could lose its haunted-house score and contrapuntal Air America refrains and still deliver its message: that, here and elsewhere, fundamentalism is no longer content with a separate peace.
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8.8 TV Guide | Ken Fox

Grady and Ewing's depiction of this modern-day children's crusade is remarkably unbiased, so the fact that Pastor Fischer would probably consider the film an accurate portrayal of her mission may be the most terrifying thing of all.
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8.0 Empire | Owen Williams

Funny, sad and horrifying. Anti-fundamentalist rather than anti-Christian, this deserves to preach to more than just the converted.
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8.0 DVD Talk | Francis Rizzo III

The filmmakers have done an excellent job of objectively portraying a polarizing subject, when it would have been very easy to come at it with an agenda, and as a result, it's a film that people on both sides of the divide can hold up as supportive of their views.
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8.0 Amazon user reviews

Jesus camp is a rare document. It is one of the few honest portrayals of the right wing evangelist's movement.
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7.5 The Onion A.V. Club | Keith Phipps

The film's never more interesting than when it digs into the details, as in an early scene capturing some home-schooling in which a boy watches educational videos hosted by a dinosaur puppet who mocks both evolution and the Big Bang Theory.
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7.0 New York Times | Stephen Holden

Ms. Fischer makes no bones about her expectation that the growing evangelical movement in the United States will one day end the constitutional ban separating church and state. And as the movie explores her highly effective methods of mobilizing God’s army, that expectation seems reasonable.
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7.0 Boxoffice Magazine | Mark Keizer

In the audience, a mother lifts her young children's hands into the air. It's a telling moment in Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's fascinating and uncomfortable “Jesus Camp” because it betrays what really drives impressionable kids to believe in born-again Christian dogma: the influence and, ultimately, approval of their parents.
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6.0 Washington Post | Ann Hornaday

"Jesus Camp" is composed of images of kids being radicalized spiritually and politically that will be heartening or chilling depending on the viewer. There are moments sure to set secular humanists' teeth on edge.
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5.0 Salon.com | Andrew O'Hehir

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady were bound to piss people off with their explosive documentary "Jesus Camp." It was just a question of who, when and how much.
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5.0 Variety | Ronnie Scheib

... may shock many viewers, especially political liberals, when it shows children speaking in tongues, their faces glowing with ecstasy and tears running down their cheeks.
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