"At five I got saved... because I just wanted more of life."

[Ed. note: This post brought to you by a borderline agnostic leaning more toward athiest and is not intended to poke fun at those who sanely, mindfully, rationally practice Christianity. Ah, screw the disclaimers - I think I'd be hard pressed to find a dear reader, religious or not, who wasn't appalled by the content of this documentary.]

So... I got around to watching Jesus Camp tonight, featuring a preacher boy of 12 who uttered the line in the subject, as well as some pro-life speaking-in-tongues repenting-for-their-sins 5-year-olds, Jesus Camp Lady praying to keep Satan from interfering with her powerpoint presentation, and Mike Papantonio, the [no pun intended] godsend who offered the only rational point of view in the whole documentary. I knew the documentary would bother me, which is partly why I rented it (gotta keep my edge up!) but I caught Joan Rivers interviewing the directors at the Oscars and they made it sound fair and balanced.

If, by "fair and balanced," you mean the liberal version of Fox New's "fair and balanced," then yes, it was "fair and balanced." For about 30 minutes I really, really, REALLY thought I was watching a non-animated episode of South Park. It was so horrifying and disturbing - but mesmerizing and hilarious - all at the same time.

But then. Then they showed a scene of the girls in their "bunks" at Jesus Camp - wooden bunk beds in a small lodge dorm room - and I had a scary flashback. {{diddleliddlelit diddleliddlelit diddleliddlelit }} APPROXIMATELY 18 YEARS AGO, I ACTUALLY WENT TO A CAMP LIKE THIS. Not as psychotic, mind you, but I went. It was a weekend youth retreat where my friend (age 15) and myself (age 13) shared a room with four strange girls (age 17) who - gasp! wore makeup! and hairspray! and talked about boys nonstop! As the awkward just-turned-teen, I was completely out of place. All I remember is the guy with really bad acne who played guitar, and this teambuilding thing where we had to pass oranges to each other while standing boy-girl-boy-girl and holding the oranges between our chins and sternum. In retrospect that activity seems "going to hell"-worthy to me... but I haven't read the Bible lately so what do I know. {{return to present day}}

And then Jesus Camp Lady proclaimed that Harry Potter was satanic, and then Anti Abortion Man passed around plastic replicas of embryos at 7 weeks and 12 weeks old and asked the kids to pray for the confirmation of Alito to the Supreme Court, and then Crazy Preacher Man Friend of Bush proudly said "If the evangelicals vote, they determine the election."

And then I turned it off, threw up, watched a Jon Stewart rerun, lit some sage, pulled out my Shrub voodoo doll and tossed it into the pentagram I chalked into the carpet. And all was right with the world again.