Blog o’ Gnosis

I finally got around to watching Jesus Camp last night, and while I was horrified at how these kids were being brainwashed I also recognized some disturbing similarities between different brands of “spiritual” childraising. Watching Pastor Becky Fischer in action, I couldn’t decide whether she ought to go to prison or a mental health facility for how she bullied those kids into crying and being ashamed for their “sins,” then turned around and filled them full of crap about being the “chosen generation” to lead Christians through the “end times.” It’s a bi-polar emotional feast, and it left me wondering just what skeletons in her closet have caused her to be such a militant.

It was hard not to wonder at these ministers’ private lives, what with Ted Haggard on the screen prancing and preening like some sick john whose public persona is about to give way, revealing just how twisted and hypocritical his evangelical preaching is. I’m so glad I saw the film after his infamous downfall, because otherwise I would have been shaking in my boots thinking that they might actually succeed in their mission to create a “Christian” nation here. Instead, I could breathe a little sigh of relief knowing that their influence on this nation may have already peaked, and they are all on their way back down to wingnut minority status.

Yes, the comparisons to Islamic fundamentalism and the recruiting of children as martyrs were obvious—even more so because they were made explicit by Pastor Fischer herself. Whipping kids into a frenzy on emotionally-charged half-truths, getting them to dedicate their lives to causes they don’t understand, keeping them isolated from other kids and viewpoints, to me that crosses the line. I mean, we all teach our children our beliefs, try to get them involved with causes we are passionate about, encourage them to think of themselves as powerful, special, loved. But we don’t all tell our kids that their generation was put on the earth to usher in a holy war of terror against all unbelievers. That is sick.

Apparently I missed the Blog Against Theocracy weekend extravaganza, but there’s never a bad time to write about what a horrible idea theocracy is. I’m against it. And while I would like to dismiss the evangelical army of pre-teens in the movie as next year’s disillusioned teen runaways, we can’t afford to be so smug. Jason over at the WildHunt blog has a great summary of all the things we need to stay vigilant about, for instance how this will play out in the next presidential election and why there are so damn many kids at these churches in the first place. For me, this phenomenon underscores the need to not compromise with the Right on issues such as the restoration of habeas corpus, separation of church and state, sex education and contraception in high schools, and access to safe abortion for all women, among other hot topics. But it also leaves me unsettled over how we are raising our own kids.

There is a sort of New Age parallel to the evangelical message that today’s children are Christ’s army: the whole “Indigo child” movement. According to these true believers, the creative, insightful, difficult to control kids of today are here to clean up the earth, wake up humanity, restore integrity to all social institutions, and so on. Except as an army to combat the Jesus Campers, these kids would fail miserably. Why? They’ve been raised to be total narcissists, believe the world revolves around them, have never been taught basic social etiquette, and have no respect for any authority but their own. In short, they’re as much a worry as the Bible-thumpers coming out of the Christian evangelical movement.

There is also a disquieting similarity between the inflamed anti-abortion rhetoric of the evangelical kids and the passionate diatribes I’ve seen environmental activist kids get swept up in. Now, I happen to agree with most environmentalists about what is wrong and what needs to be fixed. My kids are not strangers to demonstrations and political activity. But it makes me nervous when political action is generated by overpowering emotions combined with a fundamentalist certainty that someone has the one right and true way. And I think when children are taught that they are on a holy mission to restore the planet’s ecosystems, little good will come of it.

Our children need to understand what it means to be participants in a democracy. That involves having passionate beliefs, and accepting that others will have passionate beliefs that are counter to theirs. They need some sense of connection to the Sacred, whatever we call it, and they must understand that belief in God is something that in this country is completely separate from the way the country is run. Most importantly, they need to see adults take responsibility for restoring our democracy and our environment. This is not something that should be put on the shoulders of our children, no matter how mystical or righteous we make it sound. It is our war, our generation that sits in the seats of power. If we can’t fix it now, by the time our children grow up it will be too late.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Family, General, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.