Jesus Camp - Full Documentary

Jesus Camp is a documentary about the "Kids On Fire School of Ministry," a pentecostal summer camp located just outside Devils Lake, North Dakota and run by Becky Fischer and her ministry, Kids in Ministry International. The film focuses on three children who attended the camp in the summer of 2005--Levi, Rachael, and Tory (Victoria). The film cuts between footage of the camp and a children's prayer conference held just prior to the camp at Christ Triumphant Church in Lee's Summit, Missouri; a suburb of Kansas City (where Fischer is ordained). Jesus Camp debuted at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, and was sold by A&E Indie Films to Magnolia Pictures. Controversy surrounding the film was featured in several television news programs and print media articles in 2006.

The three featured children, despite their youth, are very devout Christians. Levi, who has ambitions of being a pastor, has already preached several sermons at his father's church, Rock of Ages Worship Center in St. Robert, Missouri. He is homeschooled (as are many of the campers), and learns physical science from a textbook that teaches Young Earth Creationism. He is also taught that global warming is a not occuring. At the camp, he preaches a sermon in which he declares that his generation is key to Jesus coming back. Rachael, who also attends Levi's church (her father is assistant pastor), is seen praying over a bowling ball early in the film, and frequently passes Christian tracts (including some by Jack Chick) to people she meets. She doesn't think very highly of non-charismatic churches (or "dead churches," as she calls them), feeling they are not "churches that God likes to go to." Tory is a member of the children's praise dance team at Christ Triumphant Church. She frequently dances to Christian heavy metal music, and feels uncomfortable about "dancing for the flesh." She also does not think very highly of Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.

At the camp, Fischer stresses the need for children to purify themselves in order to be part of the "army of God." She strongly believes that children need to be in the forefront of turning America toward conservative Christian values. She also feels that Christians need to focus on training kids in religious warfare since "the enemy" are focused on training theirs.

In one scene shot at Christ Triumphant Church, Lou Engle, the chief "prophet" (a term not used in the film) for Harvest International Ministries (the "apostolic network" with which both the church and Fischer's ministry are affiliated--an affiliation not advertised in the film) and founder of the Justice House of Prayer, preaches a message urging children to join the fight to end abortion in America. He prays for George W. Bush to have the strength to appoint "righteous judges" who will overturn Roe v. Wade. By the end of the sermon, the children are chanting, "Righteous judges! Righteous judges!" In another, a woman brings a life-sized cutout of Bush to the front of the church, and has the children stretch their hands toward him and pray for him. At least one media report misinterpreted this as "worshiping" the president, especially given the fervor with which they were praying for him. However, the woman clearly says to "pray for" the president and "speak a blessing to him." Stretching hands toward someone is a derivative of laying hands on someone, which is a very common practice in Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

There is also a scene at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Levi and his family go on vacation to hear its renowned pastor, Ted Haggard. (Less than two months after the release of the film, Haggard became embroiled in a high-profile scandal involving, among other things, homosexual prostitution, and methamphetamine possession.) Afterward, Levi, Rachael, Tory, their families and several other kids from the camp take part in a Justice House of Prayer rally held by Engle in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Additionally, there is a debate between Fischer and Mike Papantonio (an attorney and a radio talk-show host for Air America Radio's Ring of Fire). Papantonio offers commentary at several points during the film.

The DVD, released in January 2007, includes several deleted scenes. In one of them, Levi's father and mother suggest that the next president may well have been at Kids on Fire. In another scene, Tory's dad goes off for a tour of duty in Iraq; he sees it as a missionary trip. In another scene, a woman takes Tory and several other kids to a pro-life women's clinic located next door to a Planned Parenthood clinic. The same woman had led them on a prayer walk through downtown Lee's Summit before Tory's dad went to Iraq (in which she declared that everything they walked through was theirs). In an interview, the clinic's director says that she was very pleased to see children so passionate about ending abortion.

The DVD also includes commentary by Grady and Ewing. They reveal that when they arrived in Kansas City, there was a great deal of excitement over the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor from the Supreme Court and the subsequent nomination of Samuel Alito to replace her. According to Grady and Ewing, Fischer and the others do not see their activism for socially conservative causes as political, but as a matter of faith. They also reveal that Fischer did not understand why some of the scenes of them speaking in tongues and praying over objects--both ordinary experiences for Pentecostals and charismatics--got in the film.

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