Ten Minutes With … Rachel Grady

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When the Rev. Becky Fischer walks through a toy store, she imagines a Ken and a Barbie doll becoming Adam and Eve, a balloon illustrating God’s breath of life and sticky goo showing what bad thoughts do to the mind. Fischer knows the best way to reach children with […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) When the Rev. Becky Fischer walks through a toy store, she imagines a Ken and a Barbie doll becoming Adam and Eve, a balloon illustrating God’s breath of life and sticky goo showing what bad thoughts do to the mind. Fischer knows the best way to reach children with her hourlong sermons is through visuals.

In “Jesus Camp,” a documentary that opens Sept. 15, co-directors Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing use their own visual to examine youth and the evangelical movement through the lens of Fischer’s Kids on Fire summer camp for charismatic and Pentecostal Christians in Devil’s Lake, N.D.


RNS talked with Grady about her experiences making the film:

Q: Do you think the camp leaders and parents were brainwashing the kids?

A: Well, I think the word quote-unquote “brainwashing” is extremely loaded, obviously. I have to say that it made me think about “brainwashing” or quote-unquote “indoctrination.” It also made me think about the fact that all parents are indoctrinating their children to make them think what they believe. And when you use the words “indoctrination” or “brainwashing,” it usually means that the people have a different point of view.

Q: What was it like to be stuck in the middle of those intense scenes of children sobbing, speaking in tongues and falling on the ground?

A: You know, I had never experienced anything like that before, so it was fascinating. It was exhausting. It could be quite draining, I think for everybody _ I think for the children, for the parents. They went on for hours and hours, and the energy level was high. It was intense. And I had never experienced anything like that in this country.

Q: Did the kids have fun at camp?

A: I think the kids had life-changing experiences, and they talked about it incessantly months and months later, so I know it affected them deeply. And I don’t think they see life maybe as other kids do as an opportunity to quote-unquote “have fun.” I think they see their experiences on Earth as a different reason, a different cause, and having fun isn’t necessarily the priority.

Q: Are they like other children? Do they have arguments, misbehave or run around?

A: They are different than other kids in that they are some of the best-behaved children I’ve ever seen in my entire life, which stood out and which was striking to me. That, I’d say, is the single biggest difference between them and other kids: just how uniformly good they were.

Q: Were you impressed with them?

A: I was incredibly impressed with them. I really was. They’re smart, they’re articulate, they’re warm and caring. I think they’re quite impressive.

Q: Both the kids and adults repeated that the evangelical youth could make a “key” generation in shaping the future of the country. What do you think?


A: I think they’re right. I think that any group of individuals that have a singular-mindedness of the people depicted in my movie can shape and change their community. And I think that the kids are natural leaders, the ones I happened to focus on. And I think they will affect their communities and the nation at large.

Q: Are you religious?

A: I would describe myself as spiritual. But I was raised Jewish.

Q: Did the kids try to save you?

A: Of course. That’s part of the evangelical mandate, is to save people _ not overtly, not constantly, but it came up.

Q: How would you respond?

A: Delicately.

Q: What inspired you to create the movie?

A: We were interested in making a film about children and faith, and were, you know, somewhat open to how that would be interpreted. And when we found Becky Fischer and her ministry, we thought this was an incredibly dynamic way to examine that subject matter.

Q: Throughout the film, a radio announcer expresses his frustration and anger about fundamentalist Christians. Did you agree with him?

A: We put him there not necessarily as our point of view, but as a different point of view. We felt that the film lacked a contour, because of its lack of dissent and conflict, and we needed something in there to serve as a conflict. So we used him as a device to do that.

Q: So what’s your point of view?

A: Heidi and I decided early on in making this movie that our particular points of view on religion, on faith, the way we vote are actually irrelevant. And most important, we want to present the people in this movie and the lifestyles they live in a neutral way so the audience would have to make those decisions on their own and not be handed a point of view on a platter, which sort of lets everyone off the hook in a way.


Q: Pastor Becky Fischer said she imagined liberals would watch the film and be “shaking in their boots” when they saw how devoutly religious the children were. How do you hope viewers who are more cynical about the religious right will react?

A: I hope they realize that this is a movement that is incredibly effective and that affects them, so it should be taken very seriously.

KRE/PH END GLASS

Editors: Today, Religion News Service unveils a new regular feature called “10 Minutes With …” that will provide quick profiles of people behind the headlines. Look for “10 Minutes With …” (slugged RNS-10-MINUTES) each week from Religion News Service.

To obtain a photo of Rachel Grady, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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