Question from a Muslim friend on the American Church: "Jesus Camp" Movie
A good friend here in Dubai, who happens to be Muslim, sent me a link to the video below and asked me to comment. I couldn't resist. Here are my extended thoughts below.
First the video...
First, the method of teaching these children seems to be theologically deficient at best. The first thing I disagree with is the emotionalism that is employed in teaching them. The leaders seem to focus on emotional expression to a fault. I'm concerned that they're teaching them merely religious practice and a particular brand of religious expression. The Bible teaches that the true effect of regeneration in a person will be Godliness or God-like-ness. The scriptures teach this in many places but one is Galations 5:22-23...
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
The scriptures don't teach that the fruit of the Spirit is necessarily training in conjuring up tears during worship services, shaking on the ground, or zealous and loud proclamations of allegiance to God.
Secondly, I'm concerned that the kids in the video are prone to being emotionally manipulated by the teachers at this church. Children generally seek the approval of their elders and if they sense that their elders desire a particular type of behavior then the kids will produce it to gain acceptance. I'm concerned that the leaders are merely teaching a particular type of religious practice and the kids are ready to comply. I'm not saying kids shouldn't be taught spiritual truths and expected to obey adults. But when they are told that you should act like "this" or "that" to demonstrate a genuine religious experience in a meeting then I think they are going too far. This all arises from deficient theology.
Some of what you are seeing is the product and practice of a famous "revivalist" Charles Finney. Google him if you like. He promoted a bad form of emotional manipulation in Christian services adopted to bring people to a point of emotional decision to pledge their lives to Christ. His theology was terrible and his practice was just as bad. And the modern day evangelical church is much influenced by him as are these people in the video.
Thirdly, you of course heard lots about military and war in the video. Some of this is because the Bible has stories of military exploits and has military images and allegories too. As you know, the Old Testament has stories of armies and battles. And the New Testament uses military images to describe aspects of Christian life at times as in Ephesians 6:10-18.
10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
Churches, like the one in the video, often appropriately teach about Biblical history including the battles and fighting. But some (and I fear this one in this case) teach only moral lessons from the Old Testament. In the end they do not teach about the Gospel and Jesus Christ the Messiah in light of the Old Testament. And this is exactly what Jesus himself felt was important. He says in John 5:39-40.
39You diligently study[a] the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
And in Luke 24:27.
27And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
I believe that Old Testament Israel was a "type" which would be mirrored and fulfilled in the New Testament by all the followers of Jesus Christ: the Church. So the Gospel should be proclaimed in light of these passages in the Old Testament. Churches should not merely teach moral lessons about courage, dedication, and holiness from Old Testament stories of military battles. This is a big mistake I think.
Fourthly, the filmmakers emphasize the encouragement of political involvement for Christians. The modern day Evangelical church misses the point and gets their theology wrong often on this too. I believe the Bible teaches that their are two Kingdoms; a Kingdom of God and a Kingdom of the world. Christians live in both. But the Kingdom of God is the only one that we are taught will last. So, the Church is the physical expression of the Kingdom of God in the Kingdom of the world. The Church is called to be an influence in the world through the proclamation of the Gospel and living a life obedient to Christ. Today, many evangelicals are tempted to influence the world primarily through politics. This is a temptation from Satan. Christians should vote their conscience at the polls and even be involved in politics. But the Church proclaiming the Gospel and living for Christ is how the world will know God; not through political power. Christians in public office or laws that uphold Christian moral values can restrain evil. But they do not proclaim the Gospel. I would agree with this statement included in a recently released "Evangelical Manifesto" which speaks about this Kingdom confusion among evangelicals. It says,
Christians from both sides of the political spectrum, left as well as right, have made the mistake of politicizing faith; and it would be no improvement to respond to a weakening of the religious right with a rejuvenation of the religious left. Whichever side it comes from, a politicized faith is faithless, foolish, and disastrous for the church – and disastrous first and foremost for Christian reasons rather than constitutional reasons.
Called to an allegiance higher than party, ideology, and nationality, we Evangelicals see it our duty to engage with politics, but our equal duty never to be completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, or nationality. In our scales, spiritual, moral, and social power are as important as political power, what is right outweighs what is popular, just as principle outweighs party, truth matters more than team-playing, and conscience more than power and survival.
This idea of Two Kingdoms was first advanced by Augustine if I'm not mistaken, but is continues to be discussed today. I would encourage you or anyone to listen to this 30 minute discussion by some good Christian theologians about the Two Kingdoms idea and the temptation of political power for the Church. The show is called "White Horse Inn". And here is the episode to listen to. It's really worth it and will help you understand this issue immensely. You can also get more resources on this topic at the show's website here. Scroll down to the January episode for more.
Lastly, I want to comment on the video as it was uploaded to Youtube. The uploader took the promo video for the movie and added at least one clip of George Bush talking about the "War on Terrorism". You can go to the Jesus Camp movie website and see the original. I would have posted it here but it automatically plays when you navigate to my blog... and that's annoying :(
The Jesus Camp clip doesn't include the Bush clip. It seems like the uploader wanted to convey the idea that these conservative Christians were teaching about how to literally make war and participate in the "War on Terror". This is misleading. And for all the theological confusion represented in the teaching at this church I'm 99% sure they would not be teaching anything about literally making war, like how to shoot a gun, how to throw grenades, and how to sign up for the American military.
The uploader has also interspersed clips from news show interviews with the female teacher talking about Muslim jihadists and how Christians need to teach their kids to just as dedicated. (you can search the ABCNews website and find some of them there) The short clips seem to be intended to show that Christians are training their kids to be "Christian Jihadists" of a sort. This just isn't happening. I think it is legitimate to ask the question whether we as followers of Jesus are willing to die in the service of the Gospel in comparison to Muslim jihadist's dedication to Islam. But no one is teaching their children that "dying for Jesus" involves taking up arms against Muslims. They DO talk about being willing to die taking the Gospel into a hostile world. You might recall the female teacher yelling, "this means war!". This clip is set alongside the Bush clip to imply that she was teaching that the church is literally joining up in the War on Terror and sending their children to fight. We don't know from the clip what she said but I would bet that she was teaching about making war on sin in our lives. That's generally what these types of children's programs teach. Believe me, I've seen lots of them.
So in conclusion, I think there is lots of theological error and unbiblical types of teaching revealed in the clips but also a dishonest (or at least horribly misguided) attempt by the uploader to imply that the literal training of children for war is going on in American churches. That's just not true.
9 comments:
Thank you Brian for your comments. I am so thankful you took the time out to share your thoughts. I too had heard about this movie before, but haven't seen it.
At AUS, a Muslim asked me about this movie and said that Christians also have "fundamentalists" and are forcing their kids to become "jihadis." I had asked him several questions in general (like why generalize ALL Christians based on this video when you yourself ask me to not generalize ALL Muslims based on some Jihadi's beheading video online)and he never got back to me because he realize his attempt to prove me wrong fell flat.
For one Jesus Camp video, I can pull out 10 Muhammad Camp videos online, but I won't do that, because I know that is not what modern, progressive, liberal Muslims want to associate themselves with (not to mention having seen first hand of what goes on in Madrassahs here in Pakistan!)
M
....and the very fact the uploader took the promo of the movie and interspersed the Bush footage goes to show the mindset and intent of the uploader. Why resort to such tactics?
M
M, for the most part, Muslim generalisations of Christians is a knee jerk reaction. Muslims have for too long been colonised by Christendom, and it is continuing today, that they will justify their generalisations.
Brian, "But no one is teaching their children that "dying for Jesus" involves taking up arms against Muslims. They do talk about being willing to die taking the Gospel into a hostile world."
I am not sure whether you've watched the whole movie, but that is implied from the very first scene to the last. The lady's lessons to the kids frequently imply a bigger war against the Muslim world and that is why Christian children should be prepared.
I believe you have tried hard to water down Christianfascism, but it is a very real phenomena and should be recognised by Christians.
Let us not forget that if the Bible, Old and New testaments, are to play any role in modern day Christian theology and identity, then it should be known there are brutal episodes in the scriptures.
I'd like to draw your attention to the Cromwellian invasion of the Irish isle. The extermination of Catholics was justified on the basis of Joshua's battle of Jenricho.
If Christians refuse to accept episodes of violence in the Old Testament, then they should, as a whole, come to a consensus on the invalidity of the old Testament and proclaim replacement theology as central to modern Christianity.
I would also like to draw your attention to other forms of Christianfascism. The home to evangelical prostentanism, the souther state of America, were pioneers in racial related violence and held pride in their lynchings of blacks and violence against other non Christians. This was equally religious inspired hate as it was racial. And let us not forget the racist verses stemming from Enoch.
Also let me draw your attention to a couple of terrorist groups who function largely on Christian doctrine. The Lords Resistance Army, The Lambs of Christ and the Army of God - all use Christian teachings to justify their activities. Current US President draws inspiration from the Bible to justify post modern colonisation of the middle east - and there are footages of this on YouTube. Blair also reported that Jesus told him the invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do.
The Serbian Orthodox Church gave its blessings to the Amry of Scorpions in their crusade against Bosnian Muslims which resulted in 8000 deaths of Muslim men and the rape of hundreds of women.
Christian history has for the most part been overwhelmingly violent, and modern and post modern imperialists happen to be none other than Christian majority nations.
To conclude, violence has always been part of the Christian discourse, and continues to be so. And to mention Muslim violence while concealings those of Christians, i believe, is hypocratical to say the least.
Dear Idu,
You ask me if I watched the video... I'm wondering if you watched it or read what I wrote. You say...
"I am not sure whether you've watched the whole movie, but that is implied from the very first scene to the last. The lady's lessons to the kids frequently imply a bigger war against the Muslim world and that is why Christian children should be prepared."
"The movie", as you call it, is a spliced together collage of scenes of her teaching them along with very short clips of her interviewed by the journalists in completely different settings. She is not teaching them about war against the muslim world. You are simply believing what the video editor wants you to believe.
Idu, almost all your arguments and examples seem extremely weak and do not address the issue of what the church on the Jesus Camp video was teaching or how the youtube uploader is being dishonest in his/her portrayal. This is what's called an irrelevant conclusion.
No one has said the OT doesn't have violence in it. But Covenant Theology (the more appropriate term rather than Replacement Theology) doesn't declare the OT invalid as you've stated. It's much more complex than that.
Let's just run down your wide ranging list of examples of "Christianfascism"...
Cromwell's exploits in Ireland - You're reaching back to the 1600's for an example? Well, no argument on the idea that the Protestant/Catholic wars/battles were bloody. Do they represent Biblical Christian teaching well? No, of course not. These battles were as much political as religious. By the way, his exploits were preceded by Catholic massacres of Protestants.
Southern US violence against African Americans - You say this is religious since it was racial. How does the fact that it was racial make it religious? And by the way, most of the black people were Christians at least in "name". This was not religious violence. They did try to justify their hate with a few obscure, poorly interpreted Bible passages. Any history book worth is weight will not back you up on this extremely weak argument.
Then you move on to the Lord's Resistance Army? A Ugandan, cult-like rebel army? Come on...
And two extremely small, anti-abortion groups in the US? These groups are not endorsed by any significant number of churches. I'm not even sure anyone of them has killed anyone.
And just because Bush claims to be a Christian doesn't mean 1) he necessarily is or 2) that the war in Iraq/Afghanistan was a religiously motivated war. It was not.
Come on Idu... Christian fascists? We follow Jesus as Lord who said "I lay my life down for my sheep"... his followers. He taught us to pray for our enemies and love them. I'm convinced the Christian fascists you speak of are a convenient foil to distract you from bigger problems that need to be dealt with in the world.
Lastly, most of this doesn't have anything to do with the video. It's still a misleading construction meant to convince Muslims that there are orthodox Christians actually teaching their children to wage war. They just don't exist. I'm been to churches to like this one... have you?
Don't believe everything you see on youtube.
Very interesting blog and well-articulated post! I love blogs that make me think!
Regarding politicization of faith: As a former U.S. Congressional Staffer, I was pleasantly surprised to see on capital hill in DC, that believers from the left and the right, for the most part got along very well, shared meals together and worshipped together often. It was refreshing to see, and that was only 5 years ago (despite the animosity that depicted often by the media).
I think in many ways you are absolutely on target and that we should be very careful about politicizing our faith.
On the other hand though, I do believe that many of our brothers and sisters are called to be involved politically (on both sides).
At one time in the past few years, I was the chairman of one our U.S. political parties on the local level. My counterpart on the other side, (the chair of the opposite party), and I both attend the same local church, which is one of our town's largest mainstream evangelical churches.
We're a very close fellowship of believers, and politics are not really discussed within the context of our Christian lives as they pertain to the confines of the church.
I believe there is a place for Christians to be responsibly involved in the U.S. political structure. I think those who are called to do so need to share in that involvement and responsibility while remembering that in the grander scheme of things, we're on the same side.
I am going to read the book/work you discussed though, it sounds fascinating. As strong as my personal political/philosophical views may be, I hope and pray they never usurp my allegiances to Christ and his exhortation to us to love one another, or to the great commission. I work hard to keep that in check and I covet your prayers with that endeavor.
Thanks my brother and be blessed. I'll be back! Please feel free to visit my page too. What a beautiful part of the world you're livin' in man.
Regarding the Jesus Camp video, it is nothing more than whacked propaganda which will serve to incite those we're trying to reach.
Your point is well taken though about whether or not Christians would be willing to lay down there lives so readily. We're awful comfortable in our lives.
Living Raw,
www.ferventservant.blogspot.com
All your reply has done is to refuse to accept the very real ideology of Christianfascism. Whatever spin you want to put on it, Christianity's evolution has always had, and still does have, strong elements of fascism.
Dear Idu,
Unfortunately, this is where most of these discussions descend to... the point where people just assert that they are right and the other person is wrong.
I have sought to reason with you in a civil and friendly tone that the argument you have presented that the Jesus Camp youtube video represents some kind of "Christianfascism" (as you call it) and that these people are teaching their children to literally fight Muslims.
You haven't argued convincingly I think. You cited an example from the 1600's, two small anti-abortion groups which have done nothing that you're claiming the Jesus Camp people did, one Ugandan rebel group, and the president of the US (who has nothing to do with the church).
Here's the definition of fascism from Wikipedia... "Fascism is a government, faction, movement, or political philosophy that raises nationalism, and frequently race, above the individual and is characterized by a centralized autocratic state governed by a dictatorial head, stringent organization of the economy and society, and aggressive repression of opposition.[1] In addition to placing the interests of the individual as subordinate to that of the nation or race, fascism seeks to achieve a national rebirth by promoting cults of unity, energy and purity."
I just don't see how this term could be used like you're using it in combination with Christian.
If you continue reading the wikipedia article you'll see that fascist has become a common slur in current day popular usage. In that form it has only a vague and undefined meaning. I feel you're using it that way here.
Well, this might sound strange, but thanks for the comments.
Dear C.W. Goad,
Thanks for checking in on the blog... I enjoyed reading through yours some as well (particularly your dad's advice on hitchhikers :) And yes, I agree with you that Christians who are called to public service should serve unashamedly. Praying for you in D.C.?
As an ex-Muslim, I can tell you one of the ways Muslim try to defend their faith, and justify the acts of terrorism is by blaming it on the Western world, the Crusades and the Israelis/ Jewish. Basically, anything wrong with the Muslim world is a result of the Christian/ Jewish world's action against the Muslim world. I wish the Muslim world would wake up, open their eyes to the reality and sort themselves out first, because they will never be able to stand up on their two feet if they continue to blame everyone else but themselves for the ills of the Muslim world.
For example, when the Denmark came out with the Muhammad cartoons, the Muslim world resorted to violence and ended up killing each other over it. Then they have the nerve to say Denmark provoked the Muslim to react this way. This is just an example of how easily Muslims lay the blame on outsiders, thereby justifying the violence rather them check themselves internally.
"Too many Muslims have condemned the Sept 11 attacks".....um, how one be so naive and self delusional? From Saudi Arabia, to UAE to Palestine to Syrian to Pakistan, Muslims deep down are happy the attacks happened, and there is no denying that.
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