Born Again

I watched an interesting documentary the other night called "Jesus Camp". It's deservedly garnered a number of awards and focuses on evangelical Christians in the United States. To qualify as an evangelical Christian, you apparently have to be born again by accepting Jesus as your saviour. Unfortunately, 43% of those who were born again were under 13 years of age when the experience befell them. Equally disturbing was the fact that 75% of home-schooled children in the United States live in evangelical families. Some of these kids are then sent off to summer Jesus camps such as the one depicted in this documentary where they are indoctrinated even further.

The evangelicals see themselves as involved in a battle to reclaim their country for Christ and to make it a Christian stronghold against the dark forces of liberalism and secularism that the devil has unleashed. They view the devil as a very real force at work in the world and are very firm in their belief about heaven and hell. The documentary features Ted Haggard who in 2005 was voted by Time Magazine as one the top 25 most influential evangelicals in America. Unfortunately, in November 2006 (soon after the documentary was produced), poor Ted resigned or was removed from all of his leadership positions in the evangelical movement because of allegations of homosexual sex and drug abuse (which he subsequently confessed to). The evangelicals are far too unshakeable in their beliefs to be troubled for long by embarrassments like Ted. They'll put it down to the work of the devil and have an extra prayer session.

The brainwashing that these children are subjected to is a reminder of what goes in some of the Indonesian pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) where a similarly narrow and distorted view of the world is inculcated. It makes you wish that a secular education was made mandatory for all children and that religion was declared a form of mental illness. George Bush owes his presidency to the support of these evalengicals and in the documentary it was reported that Ted Haggard used to meet with the President every Monday. I wonder if the meetings have been cancelled now that Ted has been disgraced, or maybe he still turns up and the two of them share a little methampetamine and laugh about how gullible the American electorate is.