I saw this on Andrew Sullivan’s blog and decided to add it to my own. I have a new favorite congressman!
September 24, 2006
Pandora’s Eucharist
I kind of hate that I like this article by Nick Coleman in the Strib. But I do.
It’s about “Jesus Camp,” a new documentary by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, two of the only documentary filmmakers on the planet that I know anything about (I saw their “The Boys of Baraka” at the Walker not too long ago). Anyway, “Jesus Camp” is a terrifying look inside the Evangelical movement, etc., etc., etc., that Coleman very well sums up:
We get kids in combat fatigues, their faces painted in camouflage colors, who sob, speak in tongues and pray for Jesus to re-make America in his image. Or, more accurately, to re-make it according to the plan of the adults who are turning these children into good little Evangelical mujahaddin.
Needless to say, I’m going to go see it. While I usually like my civilization-ending disaster flicks to be more about volcanoes, rogue comets and cataclysmic climate change, this seems a very good candidate to Scare the Living Shit out of me.
I have been following “Jesus Camp” for a week or so now, ever since a piece done about it on ABCNews was uploaded to YouTube and started lighting up the political blogs I frequent. Over dinner a few nights ago with my friend KayCee, we were talking about it…
About how the Evangelicals are indoctrinating (I can’t find another suitable word for the black-and-white dogmatic education) kids…
About how they’ve pretty sucessfully demonized, dehumanized and de-Americanized liberals, gay people, urbanites, people who believe that when you raise government spending, you should raise government revenue…
About how the equasion of Christianity with Republicanism…
and about how all of these sorts of things, historically speaking, have never ended well.
As KayCee said, “They’re opening up a Pandora’s Box that will take a lot of blood to close.”
And I think she’s right. At least, the precedent would dictate that, sure, they may be harmless now — or at least they’re on some sort of leash. But I cannot imagine a world in which that leash remains short for much longer.
Yes, I’m scared to death of it all. And, no, I don’t think I’m being dramatic. Never underestimate the power absolutism wields when politics and religion are mixed. Never underestimate a population that (as we’re quickly learning in this torture debate) that is willing to sink to barbarism to win — that the glory is in the winning, not in what you’re fighting for. Never underestimate the damage cynical rich people can do when they think they can manipulate a popular movement for their own gains.
And then Natascha and I talked about it… Now I know it’s trite to compare the rise of the Christianist Right in the United States to the rise of Nazism (I’m usually the first to roll my eyes and say, “Stop being so stupid,” but that’s only because I hate it when such strong analogies are made… then, when it comes time to aptly use the analogies, they’ve just become tired rhetorical tricks), but…
What if the only thing that it takes to change a civilization for the worse is the lack of vigilance of its people? What if a civilization was so unaware of its own purpose and history that no one noticed when it changed?
That may be what’s happening.
We better start reading some books.