From the outset I know that this review of Heidi Ewing's and Rachel Grady's much hyped and celebrated Jesus Camp may founder because of the amount of specific points I want to address and my personal difficulty to focus and structure an organized critique (which directly relates to my difficulty in articulating my personal perspective). But for what it is worth, I thought I'd at least get some of my thoughts down:
Theoretical Preamble
Certain documentaries seem to suffer from anachronism. That is, more often than not the documentarian feigns an objective position that isn't inhabitable. Anachronistic in the sense that virtually no serious thinker is willing to defend the view from nowhere anymore (apart from the documentarian or perhaps the news journalist). Often this position is assumed under the pretense of a neutral 'critical' position. This type of thinking is of course easily identified in the position of the Enlightenment Fundamentalist. Within the Enlightenment Fundamentalist position is the affirmative belief in the tangibility of a neutral position along with the negative disbelief of what Charles Taylor calls strong evaluations that are articulated via thick descriptions. This negative position is also held by those theorists of extreme contingency (e.g. poststructuralists), without the additional bagage of an Enlightenment view from nowhere.
I start with suggesting that the notion of a strong evaluative horizon, from which we all make strong evaluative claims (moral judgments), is in fact held by both the Enlightenment Fundamentalist and the 'extreme contingency' position of the poststructuralist. This is a position defended by Taylor, Gadamer, and Ricoeur (and argued at greater length in Smith's excellent Strong Hermeneutics) which I won't elaborate upon here at great length. In brief, The place of the neutral (or the critical) is always charged with evaluative claims which sacrifice its neutrality or pure negativity, endowing it with an ought. Gadamer's example: the critique against prejudices or the assumption of the unprejudiced position is in fact the affirmation of the prejudice against prejudices. [Another (feebler) example is my own: The critique of a commitment to having children on the account of it being a lifelong commitment can be construed as a purely negative position, negating a position. But in reality, this simple act of negation is also the affirmation of just as strong a commitment: the lifelong commitment to an existence without children.]
This neutral 'critical' position, in Jesus Camp turns out to be a fake-neutral cavilling attack which (to borrow Eagleton's essay title) lunges, flails and mispunches.
Jesus Camp
The film opens with a talk-show radio DJ, the sole person in the film who does not fit into the 'Born-again Pentecostal Evangelical Protestant' camp. His character's description is that of the Voice of Reason. He will embody many characteristics which the film assumes are in the proper realms of genuine Objective Truth, like the Liberal Democratic value of separation of Church and State, Secular Theoretical Reason, and the ahistorical infallibility of Science as against the Santa-Claus world of 'Faith.'
On the other hand we have a group of Pentecostal children (and sometimes their parents) who come to assume the characteristics of anti-intellectualism and zealotry.
Unfairly, the easy-to-ridicule, outlandish position of the American Pentecostal is set up to stand in for Evangelicals as a whole, and it is suggested that they may even stand in for the average Protestant or, even broader, the average Christian. For example, statistics of how many Evangelical children are homeschooled are shown on the screen, which are meant to compliment the images of a very specific style of Pentecostal homeschool, as if it were a direct correspondence (even though the Pentecostals are bashing the other Protestant churches as being "dead churches", distinguishing themselves from even the Evangelical movement).
Pentecostals (or even all Christians), are shown to be the chief enemies of the division between Church and State. For an excellent account of how Liberalism, with its individualistic expressivism and atomism, came to be the primary influence on the rise of a plethora of individual religious sects with a sole focus on "Personal Relationship" (be it the 'tongues' of the Pentecostals or the New-Age Movement in general) check out Charles Taylor's short book, The Varieties of Religion Today. Whether they acknowledge it or not, the division of Church and State is essential to the Pentecostal movement's stress on authenticity and 'first-hand spirituality,' to use James' term. Also, these types of diverse religious 'expressivities,' some more extreme than others, are natural consequences of Liberalism. This reality is not hinted at in the least bit in the film. (And, as a political side note, let us not forget that the ethics driving Liberalism's division of church and state, formulated by Locke, Rawls, et. al, are founded upon the conception of the problematic neutral unencumbered self I addressed in my preamble).
Education
The chief shock the film tries to give its audience is the capturing of so-called indoctrination of their children. We are led to acknowledge the teaching style of the average Pentecostal parent to be overly authoritarian.
First of all, let us acknowledge the fact that the kids shown in Jesus Camp are themselves bright kids. While we can imagine their peers still playing with Tonka trucks in the sandbox, these kids are busy discussing the metaphysical concepts that are not perceivable to our senses (and, from my experience, kids learn best through their senses). So, let us (even the most strident secularist) give these kids the credit of actually benefitting in at least some way from their teaching.
In keeping with the Liberal perspective we are encouraged to view the kids as tabula rasas. The film derives its power of unflinching documentation from the implicit expectation that we will be disturbed by the authoritarianism of the parent's teaching style and, instead, support a relatively unencumbered teaching style. To counter this expected reaction, let me suggest that the decison against teaching your kid the faith of your ancestors, to deprive a child of familial tradition, is actually an affirmative step towards letting another perspective (that of his peers, that of your alternative secular, laissez-faire tradition, etc.) inform their ideas. The decision NOT TO interfere with the 'molding of a child's mind' is the decision TO let another influence it (even if this other position is less articulate than your own). There is always a type of encumbrance, there is no blank slate, no romantic floating self.
Zizek, in the documentary Zizek!, gives a pertinent example of how a parent teaches his child. He starts with giving the example of the 'Totalitarian Father' who tells his son that he is going to visit his Grandmother today. There is no choice. The son will visit his Grandmother, he may not like it, but this is what he will do. Maybe he'll appreciate the value of the visit later on in his life. The 'Postmodern Father' knows that he can't 'indoctrinate' his child, thus he can't tell him to do anything that might contradict the child's own choice to choose his own destiny. So, instead of telling the child to come to his Grandmother's, the PoMo Dad goes on about how much his Grandmother loves him and how much she would like to see him... but all without telling him what to do. Zizek claims that this latter model of influence is just as influential on the child. In fact, now he doesn't just have to go, but he has to like it as well. The classic illusion of free choice framed in a nicely-packaged guilt-trip. Zizek favours the Totalitarian way: it's more direct.
This, in my opinion, is one of the strongest and most admirable aspects of Islam. This has been noted (in a pejorative way) by some neocons as the most dangerous weapon of Islam. It is a so-called 'weapon' because it is one area that the Liberal West has no ammunition, with their declining childbirthrate and their lack of Top-Down teaching. So, the preferable option, in my opinion, is not the laissez-faire model currently en vogue. But, this is not to say that I completely endorse the teaching method captured in Jesus Camp. It is, rather, to say that the critique is misdirected. Instead, Jesus Camp should have targeted these Pentecostals' dogmatic, knee-jerk rejection of any form of constructive dialogue in these suburbanite homes. That is to say that the top-down parent-child teaching model isn't especially problematic, but, rather, the style it takes. Also problematic with these Penetcostal parents (and the camp leaders) is their vicious anti-intellectualism. It is with this anti-intellectual approach that these teachers in the film not only approach science but also religion and theology! To quote Eagleton, "What, one wonders, are [these Pentecostal Teachers'] views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Ha[ve they] read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Ha[ve they] even heard of them?" Okay, they're teaching children. Fine. But, there are one-on-one conversations between adults on the camera and they endorse nothing but a feel-good, effervescent, new-agey pseudo-theology that shows signs of bantam rhetoric in the teachers. The adults show no sign of maturing, theologically. Martin Luther, 'anti-intellectual' as he may have been, audaciously called for all Greek Pagan Philosophy to be burned, but he at least read them first!
Truth of their Education
DJ Voice of Reason occasionally insinuates the fact that what these Pentecostals believe is just plain wrong and he cannot get his head around their apparent irrationality. The problem here might be, as Zizek says, that "the truth of Marxism or Christianity is only discernible to the believer. There is not a neutral truth anyone could reject or accept. Truth is a political perspective: the "truth of an engaged subject."" This is something, say, Dawkins fails to grasp when, preaching to the choir, he attempts to analyze religion from a scientific point of view without even contemplating the opposite, of a science analyzed by religion. An incredible review of The God Delusion (which I've quoted from twice above) from the non-Christian (as far as I know), Terry Eagleton can be read here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html . If there is one valuable thing in this review it is the link to this incisive article.
What stands out about Dawkins is his anger, his arrogance, and his alarming lack of humour. One does not find these traits among the equally staunch Scientistic Fundamentalist Ernest Gellner, who (as much as I loathe his philosophical position) I find quite funny. Take this quote, for example:
I do not recommend any legislative action against hermeneutics. I am a liberal person opposed to all unnecessary state limitation of individual liberties. Hermeneutics between consenting adults should not, in my view, be the object of any statutory restrictions. I know, only too well, what it would entail. Hermeneutic speakeasies would spring up all over the place, smuggled Thick Descriptions would be brought in by the lorry-load from Canada by the Mafia, blood and thick meaning would clot in the gutter as rival gangs of semiotic bootleggers slugged it out in a series of bloody shoot-outs and ambushes. Addicts would be subject to blackmail. Consumption of deep meanings and its attendant psychic consequences would in no way diminsh, but the criminal world would benefit, and the whole fabric of civil society would be put under severe strain. Never! (Anthropology and Politics, 1995)
The DJ, in Jesus Camp shares Dawkins's arrogance, anger and lack of sense of humour, especially when concerning Science. He is in utter disbelief when he learns that the children reject the golden calf of 'evolution.' We, as the audience, are given an option in this scene. We can jump on the scientism bandwagon or we can join the Pentecostals with their irrational gregarianism and hatred of all scholarship. This is a false dichotomy. We can distance ourselves from dogmatism and the 6 Literal Day theory of the Pentecostals without taking the DJ's postion of evolution as unquestionable. There are critiques of scientism, the inherent belief of progress in the concept of evolution, and evolution as unquestionable dogma. There are many. For a couple of good ones (that does NOT come from a dogmatic or religious standpoint), see Mary Midgely's Evoloution as Religion and Science and Poetry.
Conclusion
In Jesus Camp there are many false dichotomies held up, with one side intended to be clearly good and the other clearly evil. But the spurious position of the neutral observer is feigned throughout. On the one hand, the film lacks a critique of the very cherished principles of Liberal Fundamentalism, Evolution Fundamentalism, the concept of tabula rasa and the unencumbered self. On the other hand we are given a self-evident critique of Evangelical jingoistic dogmatism, but there is not an accompanying critique wagered against their very lack of theological prowess and consistency. That is to say that there is no internal critique of either position, and, instead, we're encouraged to agree with Mr. "Voice of Reason" DJ over any other viable options.
Theoretical Preamble
Certain documentaries seem to suffer from anachronism. That is, more often than not the documentarian feigns an objective position that isn't inhabitable. Anachronistic in the sense that virtually no serious thinker is willing to defend the view from nowhere anymore (apart from the documentarian or perhaps the news journalist). Often this position is assumed under the pretense of a neutral 'critical' position. This type of thinking is of course easily identified in the position of the Enlightenment Fundamentalist. Within the Enlightenment Fundamentalist position is the affirmative belief in the tangibility of a neutral position along with the negative disbelief of what Charles Taylor calls strong evaluations that are articulated via thick descriptions. This negative position is also held by those theorists of extreme contingency (e.g. poststructuralists), without the additional bagage of an Enlightenment view from nowhere.
I start with suggesting that the notion of a strong evaluative horizon, from which we all make strong evaluative claims (moral judgments), is in fact held by both the Enlightenment Fundamentalist and the 'extreme contingency' position of the poststructuralist. This is a position defended by Taylor, Gadamer, and Ricoeur (and argued at greater length in Smith's excellent Strong Hermeneutics) which I won't elaborate upon here at great length. In brief, The place of the neutral (or the critical) is always charged with evaluative claims which sacrifice its neutrality or pure negativity, endowing it with an ought. Gadamer's example: the critique against prejudices or the assumption of the unprejudiced position is in fact the affirmation of the prejudice against prejudices. [Another (feebler) example is my own: The critique of a commitment to having children on the account of it being a lifelong commitment can be construed as a purely negative position, negating a position. But in reality, this simple act of negation is also the affirmation of just as strong a commitment: the lifelong commitment to an existence without children.]
This neutral 'critical' position, in Jesus Camp turns out to be a fake-neutral cavilling attack which (to borrow Eagleton's essay title) lunges, flails and mispunches.
Jesus Camp
The film opens with a talk-show radio DJ, the sole person in the film who does not fit into the 'Born-again Pentecostal Evangelical Protestant' camp. His character's description is that of the Voice of Reason. He will embody many characteristics which the film assumes are in the proper realms of genuine Objective Truth, like the Liberal Democratic value of separation of Church and State, Secular Theoretical Reason, and the ahistorical infallibility of Science as against the Santa-Claus world of 'Faith.'
On the other hand we have a group of Pentecostal children (and sometimes their parents) who come to assume the characteristics of anti-intellectualism and zealotry.
Unfairly, the easy-to-ridicule, outlandish position of the American Pentecostal is set up to stand in for Evangelicals as a whole, and it is suggested that they may even stand in for the average Protestant or, even broader, the average Christian. For example, statistics of how many Evangelical children are homeschooled are shown on the screen, which are meant to compliment the images of a very specific style of Pentecostal homeschool, as if it were a direct correspondence (even though the Pentecostals are bashing the other Protestant churches as being "dead churches", distinguishing themselves from even the Evangelical movement).
Pentecostals (or even all Christians), are shown to be the chief enemies of the division between Church and State. For an excellent account of how Liberalism, with its individualistic expressivism and atomism, came to be the primary influence on the rise of a plethora of individual religious sects with a sole focus on "Personal Relationship" (be it the 'tongues' of the Pentecostals or the New-Age Movement in general) check out Charles Taylor's short book, The Varieties of Religion Today. Whether they acknowledge it or not, the division of Church and State is essential to the Pentecostal movement's stress on authenticity and 'first-hand spirituality,' to use James' term. Also, these types of diverse religious 'expressivities,' some more extreme than others, are natural consequences of Liberalism. This reality is not hinted at in the least bit in the film. (And, as a political side note, let us not forget that the ethics driving Liberalism's division of church and state, formulated by Locke, Rawls, et. al, are founded upon the conception of the problematic neutral unencumbered self I addressed in my preamble).
Education
The chief shock the film tries to give its audience is the capturing of so-called indoctrination of their children. We are led to acknowledge the teaching style of the average Pentecostal parent to be overly authoritarian.
First of all, let us acknowledge the fact that the kids shown in Jesus Camp are themselves bright kids. While we can imagine their peers still playing with Tonka trucks in the sandbox, these kids are busy discussing the metaphysical concepts that are not perceivable to our senses (and, from my experience, kids learn best through their senses). So, let us (even the most strident secularist) give these kids the credit of actually benefitting in at least some way from their teaching.
In keeping with the Liberal perspective we are encouraged to view the kids as tabula rasas. The film derives its power of unflinching documentation from the implicit expectation that we will be disturbed by the authoritarianism of the parent's teaching style and, instead, support a relatively unencumbered teaching style. To counter this expected reaction, let me suggest that the decison against teaching your kid the faith of your ancestors, to deprive a child of familial tradition, is actually an affirmative step towards letting another perspective (that of his peers, that of your alternative secular, laissez-faire tradition, etc.) inform their ideas. The decision NOT TO interfere with the 'molding of a child's mind' is the decision TO let another influence it (even if this other position is less articulate than your own). There is always a type of encumbrance, there is no blank slate, no romantic floating self.
Zizek, in the documentary Zizek!, gives a pertinent example of how a parent teaches his child. He starts with giving the example of the 'Totalitarian Father' who tells his son that he is going to visit his Grandmother today. There is no choice. The son will visit his Grandmother, he may not like it, but this is what he will do. Maybe he'll appreciate the value of the visit later on in his life. The 'Postmodern Father' knows that he can't 'indoctrinate' his child, thus he can't tell him to do anything that might contradict the child's own choice to choose his own destiny. So, instead of telling the child to come to his Grandmother's, the PoMo Dad goes on about how much his Grandmother loves him and how much she would like to see him... but all without telling him what to do. Zizek claims that this latter model of influence is just as influential on the child. In fact, now he doesn't just have to go, but he has to like it as well. The classic illusion of free choice framed in a nicely-packaged guilt-trip. Zizek favours the Totalitarian way: it's more direct.
This, in my opinion, is one of the strongest and most admirable aspects of Islam. This has been noted (in a pejorative way) by some neocons as the most dangerous weapon of Islam. It is a so-called 'weapon' because it is one area that the Liberal West has no ammunition, with their declining childbirthrate and their lack of Top-Down teaching. So, the preferable option, in my opinion, is not the laissez-faire model currently en vogue. But, this is not to say that I completely endorse the teaching method captured in Jesus Camp. It is, rather, to say that the critique is misdirected. Instead, Jesus Camp should have targeted these Pentecostals' dogmatic, knee-jerk rejection of any form of constructive dialogue in these suburbanite homes. That is to say that the top-down parent-child teaching model isn't especially problematic, but, rather, the style it takes. Also problematic with these Penetcostal parents (and the camp leaders) is their vicious anti-intellectualism. It is with this anti-intellectual approach that these teachers in the film not only approach science but also religion and theology! To quote Eagleton, "What, one wonders, are [these Pentecostal Teachers'] views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Ha[ve they] read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Ha[ve they] even heard of them?" Okay, they're teaching children. Fine. But, there are one-on-one conversations between adults on the camera and they endorse nothing but a feel-good, effervescent, new-agey pseudo-theology that shows signs of bantam rhetoric in the teachers. The adults show no sign of maturing, theologically. Martin Luther, 'anti-intellectual' as he may have been, audaciously called for all Greek Pagan Philosophy to be burned, but he at least read them first!
Truth of their Education
DJ Voice of Reason occasionally insinuates the fact that what these Pentecostals believe is just plain wrong and he cannot get his head around their apparent irrationality. The problem here might be, as Zizek says, that "the truth of Marxism or Christianity is only discernible to the believer. There is not a neutral truth anyone could reject or accept. Truth is a political perspective: the "truth of an engaged subject."" This is something, say, Dawkins fails to grasp when, preaching to the choir, he attempts to analyze religion from a scientific point of view without even contemplating the opposite, of a science analyzed by religion. An incredible review of The God Delusion (which I've quoted from twice above) from the non-Christian (as far as I know), Terry Eagleton can be read here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.ht
What stands out about Dawkins is his anger, his arrogance, and his alarming lack of humour. One does not find these traits among the equally staunch Scientistic Fundamentalist Ernest Gellner, who (as much as I loathe his philosophical position) I find quite funny. Take this quote, for example:
I do not recommend any legislative action against hermeneutics. I am a liberal person opposed to all unnecessary state limitation of individual liberties. Hermeneutics between consenting adults should not, in my view, be the object of any statutory restrictions. I know, only too well, what it would entail. Hermeneutic speakeasies would spring up all over the place, smuggled Thick Descriptions would be brought in by the lorry-load from Canada by the Mafia, blood and thick meaning would clot in the gutter as rival gangs of semiotic bootleggers slugged it out in a series of bloody shoot-outs and ambushes. Addicts would be subject to blackmail. Consumption of deep meanings and its attendant psychic consequences would in no way diminsh, but the criminal world would benefit, and the whole fabric of civil society would be put under severe strain. Never! (Anthropology and Politics, 1995)
The DJ, in Jesus Camp shares Dawkins's arrogance, anger and lack of sense of humour, especially when concerning Science. He is in utter disbelief when he learns that the children reject the golden calf of 'evolution.' We, as the audience, are given an option in this scene. We can jump on the scientism bandwagon or we can join the Pentecostals with their irrational gregarianism and hatred of all scholarship. This is a false dichotomy. We can distance ourselves from dogmatism and the 6 Literal Day theory of the Pentecostals without taking the DJ's postion of evolution as unquestionable. There are critiques of scientism, the inherent belief of progress in the concept of evolution, and evolution as unquestionable dogma. There are many. For a couple of good ones (that does NOT come from a dogmatic or religious standpoint), see Mary Midgely's Evoloution as Religion and Science and Poetry.
Conclusion
In Jesus Camp there are many false dichotomies held up, with one side intended to be clearly good and the other clearly evil. But the spurious position of the neutral observer is feigned throughout. On the one hand, the film lacks a critique of the very cherished principles of Liberal Fundamentalism, Evolution Fundamentalism, the concept of tabula rasa and the unencumbered self. On the other hand we are given a self-evident critique of Evangelical jingoistic dogmatism, but there is not an accompanying critique wagered against their very lack of theological prowess and consistency. That is to say that there is no internal critique of either position, and, instead, we're encouraged to agree with Mr. "Voice of Reason" DJ over any other viable options.
