Jesus Camp, Mars Hill, and Evangelism: Will I Never Get Out Of The Bible Belt?

"It would have been so easy to make a farce, to ridicule these people, to do a liberal lynching," Ewing says. "We could have done it in our sleep, with the material we had. Instead, we edited this film for 10 months to make sure that we were being fair, so that we could sleep at night. Being fair is all you owe your subject. And the subjects of our film, Ted Haggard aside, believe that it's fair and accurate. We're showing them the way they are in their lives."

--Heidi Ewing on her controversial documentary, Jesus Camp.

Haggard's problem is likely that he's portrayed in the film as "a cynical, showbizzy creep," according to Andrew O'Hehir at Salon.com. Gee, that sounds familiar. I seem to recall another Christian evangelist who, apart from his fundamentalist, misogynist douchebaggery, has further earned my ire for marketing Jesus, Inc. to my generation by dressing it up with the trappings of hipster youth culture.

What a scumbag. Someone tell me why it is that when a church preys on young people who are lost, searching for an answer, and in need of structure, rules, and a sense of family, it gets the pseudo-legitimate name of "evangelism" rather than "cult," which is (psychologically speaking) the more accurate term. I don't think Driscoll is hording guns, but aside from that, I don't see the difference between him and David Koresh. I really don't.

Anyway, I'm going to have to see Jesus Camp. I applaud Ewing and Grady for going to such pains to make a fair documentary. Still, I don't think a "liberal lynching" is even called for: Give fundamentalists enough rope, and they'll hang themselves.