Robert's Blog

tonight i watched the movie “JESUS camp” for at least the third time. the uwsp “students for freethought” showed it at the dreyfus university center’s theater. i wanted to see how they would respond to the documentary.

if you have never seen “JESUS camp” i would recommend watching it. it is an interesting look at a far right fundamentalist approach to evangelical CHRISTianity and its indoctrination of its children. if you are a follower of JESUS CHRIST and you have watched “JESUS camp” but never watched it with a group of non-evangelicals then i would highly recommend going to tomorrow night’s re-showing of the film.

i enjoyed hearing the “students forfreethought” responses concerning the documentary and most particularly their thoughts concerning some of the language used by the main character of the documentary. the children’s minister who is the main subject of the film uses some pretty extreme military language in describing faith. since i am a part of the evangelical world i understand the metaphorical nature of this language. those outside the evangelical world don’t filter this talk through the same filter that evangelicals do and therefore often find the language a little scary. i can’t always say i disagree with such fears.  i think it is really important for those of us who claim to follow CHRIST to know how our language may be interpreted or misinterpreted by those outside of the church culture. therefore, if you’ve never watched the movie before or have never watched it with people unfamiliar with the evangelical culture i would highly recommend that you go to uwsp’s dreyfus university center theater at 7 p.m. tomorrow and then stay for the discussion afterward. listen to what they say and consider why they may be saying it. do they have reason to be scared? have we communicated things that we never really meant to communicate?

SIDE NOTE – i talked to some members of the “student for freethought” group concerning the possibility of them doing something like this with tapestry. they were all for it. therefore we are going to discuss the possibility of doing a showing together next year with a little more formal debate afterward. i think it will be fun.

first, it snowed this evening in the point area and it is predicted that we may get as much as 1-3” before it is through. i love living in point where spring can change into winter in a matter of minutes.

second, i grabbed the boys after they got back home from school and took them to see “iron man 2.” i loved the original “iron man” mainly because of robert downey jr’.’s narcissistic portrayal of tony stark. downey may not be one of the world’s better people but he is perfect for tony stark.  i was a little concerned that the sequel would not be any good. thankfully it was a great film. i would say it was just as good as the first one and maybe even just a little better. i love a good superhero flick.

third, it was homemade pizza and movie night at the terrell house. we watched “the fantastic mr. fox” and i am now wondering how i have missed the wonderful little movie. it was amazing. pam, noah, and i laughed the whole way through. now i know that beagles love blueberries and that has made my life better.

finally, i really like nbc’s show “community.” i look forward to all the movie and television show references within it. this week’s paintball war was a great homage to apocalyptic films.

i’ll talk about the q conference later. right now i want to talk about the above photo. last night i had the privilege of eating a meal with 3 of the 4 members of the pierce family. the peirces are people that we know from when i was the youth minister at the first baptist church of carthage, missouri. pam and i love them. they are some of my favorite people. so when it worked out that they were going to be in chicago on the same day that i was going to be in town for q we all wanted to grab a meal.

the above stick drawing is something i drew out as a part of the discussion that bart and i where having during supper. some of you know that i love to draw things that illustrate what i am thinking. it’s how my mind works and i believe it helps me to better wrap my mind around things. so naturally when bart and i began talking i pulled out a pen and started drawing things on the paper table clothe that our table was covered with. i drew out a basic stick diagram of a mountain pass that bart, matt (his son), i, and some other friends had walked through during a backpacking trip in 2001. i used the diagram and experience to connect with what we were talking about at the moment.

i would say that i did a pretty good job of visually connecting a very hypothetical discussion except for one thing …

BART IS LEGALLY BLIND!

that’s right, i drew out a diagram for a friend who is legally blind and has been legally blind for quite sometime. it’s not like i didn’t realize that bart is legally blind. nope. i just never stopped to think “why am i drawing something for bart?” matt sat right beside me and just laughed at me. thanks matt.

to quote my boys – EPIC FAIL!

of course, perry has picked up on spiritual issues concerning this.

pam and i watched “precious” saturday night and wow. before watching it i wasn’t real sure about it before because i’m not a huge fan of much of the stuff that oprah winfrey outs out – typically they are way too lifetime t.v. moviesh for me. when i put this in our netflix que i thought this might be just another one of those movies. of course, the great thing about netflix is that if i hate the movie it doesn’t really cost me anything. i have other movies on the que and instant movies too. all i have to do is send the bad movies back and forget about them.

i’m not sure that i would recommend this movie for everyone. it is rough. i mean real rough. through some of the counseling situations i’ve been in i would say that for some people this movie may hit far too close to home and they might not want to watch it. for others it might be a bit of an eye opener. yes, the events and circumstances that precious has to face are on the extreme side but for some people parenting and childhoods like this are their reality. how can we expect a “normal” human to come out of such treatment? most importantly how can we as a society act to help such children?

i’m not sure i will ever want to watch this film again because i’m not sure that i would want to put myself through that again. still … wow!

SIDE NOTE – i completely understand why mo’nique won the academy award for best supporting actress for her role in this film.