Trots

Kids on Fire: The American Madrassas

“Where should we be putting our efforts? I’ll tell you where our enemies are putting theirs. They’re putting it on the kids. They’re going into the schools. You go to Palestine… they’re taking their kids to camps like we take ours to Bible camps and they’re putting grenades into their hands, they’re teaching them to put on bomb belts, teaching them how to use rifles and machine guns… It is no wonder with that kind of intense training and discipling that those young people are ready to kill themselves for the cause of Islam.”

So, given the shocking picture the speaker has presented, where does she think her community should be putting their efforts? Promoting secualar rationalism? Perhaps calling on people of faith to chill out? Not bloody likely. She wants to get in on the act.

“I want to see young people who are committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam. I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the cause of the Gospel as they are in Pakistan, in Israel and Palestine and all those different places.”

That is, as they say, some scary shit!

A new documentary “Jesus Camp” shines a light on the Evangelical Christian version of the Islamic madrassas we keep hearing about. Clearly, fundamentalists of all stripes are preparing for Armageddon.

According to ABC News, the camp teaches children – as young as five – how to be “true Christian soldiers” and to “take back America for Christ”. One has to wonder how long the ‘take back America’ will take to mutate into ‘take back the world’! “God’s Boot Camp?” asks the LA Times.

Here is the trailer:

There’s a lot more shocking coverage made available by the miracle of YouTube. Watch the ABC special report here, and there are more clips from the documentary here, here and here.

See also the film’s official website.

UPDATE:

The Guardian has a detailed piece on this film today.

[HAT TIP: Brian M. and John H.]