c. 2006 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) The summer camp featured in the documentary “Jesus Camp” will shut down for at least several years because of negative reaction sparked by the film, according to the camp’s director.
“Right now we’re just not a safe ministry,” Becky Fischer, the fiery Pentecostal pastor featured in “Jesus Camp,” said Tuesday (Nov. 6).
The documentary, which hit select U.S. theaters during the summer, portrays Fischer, 55, as drill instructor to a bevy of young evangelical children steeling themselves for spiritual and political warfare.
Led by Fischer, the children pray in tongues, as is common in charismatic strains of Pentecostalism; tearfully beg God to end abortion; and bless President George W. Bush at a weeklong camp in Devils Lake, N.D.
But Fischer has drawn fire from some corners for “brainwashing” the children. After vandals damaged the campground last month and critics besieged Fischer with negative e-mails, phone calls and letters, the pastor said she’s shutting down the camp for at least several years.
“I don’t think we’ll be doing it for a while,” she said.
Fischer lives in Bismarck, N.D., and is chief pastor at The Fire Center, a church devoted to children’s ministry there. She has run the weeklong “Kids on Fire” summer camp, which is featured in the film, since 2002, with 75 to 100 children attending each year.
For the last three years, Fischer has rented a campground in Devils Lake from the Assemblies of God, one of the largest national churches in the Pentecostal movement. But Fischer said she was asked not to return after vandals broke windows and caused $1,500 worth of damage at the campground in October.
The destruction at Devils Lake is just part of a wave of coarse and sometimes abusive criticism lobbed at Fischer since “Jesus Camp” came out, she said. The negative feedback sparked online in the early summer before flaring up this fall, according to Fischer.
“All of a sudden hell broke loose because of people’s perception of what they were seeing,” she said.
Fischer said she has asked the distributors of “Jesus Camp” not to release the film in Bismarck because she fears for the safety of the 70 children who attend The Fire Center.
Rachel Grady, a co-director of “Jesus Camp,” said the negative reaction to the film “has weighed a little heavy on our hearts.”
“Not that we had anything to do with it, but (the campground) wasn’t getting vandalized before the film and it was after it, and we need to acknowledge that,” Grady said.
Fischer said reaction to the film hasn’t been all bad. She has received speaking engagement offers and inspirational letters from hundreds of Christians.
“It’s really opened doors for me in the Christian community because the Christians _ at least the charismatic ones _ are getting it,” Fischer said.
KRE/PH END BURKE
Editors: To obtain file photos of Becky Fischer and scenes from `Jesus Camp,’ go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.