A Better Place Here on Earth: Jonestown and Jesus Camp

I recently saw two religious themed documentaries, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple and Jesus Camp. The irony is that I could relate more to the people in the Jonestown documentary than the people in Jesus Camp. Jonestown was a cult, in that Jim Jones needed to control his followers, but they were happy to let him do it. They thought they had a found a better life on earth. One that didn’t discriminate, one in which people supported each other financially and spiritually, but Jones grew on the power and kept people busy in order to better manipulate them, had sex with several of the followers, staged healings and increasingly felt the need to control every aspect of his followers lives. This culminated in building a compound outside of America in Guyana in South America in the middle of the jungle. Then it eventually resulted in the death of over 900 people who followed Jones bidding and allowed themselves to be poisoned. The surviving members of the People Temple interviewed didn’t seem like fanatics, but rather naïve idealists. It was about building a better life here on earth and they actually did things to make life better for the followers. It is a very American story and a very tragic one at that.

Jesus Camp is a look at an evangelical summer camp for children. I found all the people to be simple minded and uneducated-it seemed as all of their opinions were being fed to them by the likes of Ted Haggard (pre-crystal meth homosexual sex revelations). The kids were being home schooled by parents with a high school education to question global warming and extol the wisdom of creationism. The kids seemed to be mimicking the adults and giving them the religious speak that they wanted to hear. One rat-tailed boy who is one of the main subjects in the film says he was born again at 5! Just didn’t think there was anything left in life-pretty cynical 5 year old. One girl was at the bowling alley and on the street trying “to save” people. There is preaching against Harry Potter at the camp and a special visit to the camp by an anti abortion propagandist. There seems to be some speaking in tongues, and a whole lot of crying and breast beating-as if children have dark secrets to expose about their dark sins like talking back to their parents, etc…The film culminates in the convergence of nationalism with religion as a cardboard cut out of bush is brought out and the influence of a Christian in the Whitehouse is a common topic of preaching and conversation. Who are these people? Is this what America has become? What happened to religions helping people by building orphanages and giving to the poor? Now they are more interested in saving the lives of unborn children and ignore them once they are born to struggle in ghettoes with absent fathers, poverty, crime, and drugs closing in. I don't necessarily see these people creating a better life in this society-they are too worried about the possibility of an afterlife to consider that.

Comments

[mike]

Check out this on the BBC site "Creationist museum challenges evolution"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6549595.stm

Gave me both a chuckle and shrudder that there are people out there that believe this...

[MC]

Yeah, I read that somewhere there are these nut jobs who think dinosaurs and people lived at the same time like "The Flintstones."

[Edward]

I haven't seen it yet, but there's an apparently interesting documentary by an Aussie called Andrew Denton called 'God On My Side', which profiles (in a reasonably non-judgemental way from what I've read of the reviews) the fundamentalist religious right of America. Andrew Denton is a well known TV personality here, and is an excellent interviewer who lets his guests do the talking without trying to steal the limelight, and approaches his subjects without any obvious agenda. I think that this documentary would make informative viewing if you ever come across it.