Guide Note

Jesus Camp is a 2006 documentary film that follows a group of young children through their experiences at an evangelical Christian summer camp. Nominated for the "Best Documentary" Academy Award at the 2007 Oscars, it lost out to Al Gore's climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Led by Pastor Becky Fischer, the children at "Kids on Fire Summer Camp," some of which are as young as six years old, are taught to hone their "prophetic gifts," to become soldiers in "God's army" dedicated to "take back America for Christ."

In response to the negative reception to the treatment of the children in the film, Fischer announced in November 2006 that she would close the camp, but would attempt to replace "this one event with a different one, probably a conference of some type."

Fast Facts

1. Directed by: Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
2. Release date: September 15, 2006
3. Running time: 87 minutes
4. DVD version includes many deleted scenes
5. Camp was located in Devils Lake, North Dakota
6. Camp was sponsored by Kids in Ministry International organization, which is directed by Becky Fisher

1. "This film asks a lot of questions and it doesn't pretend to know all the answers. One of the issues the film brings up is when does education become indoctrination, become brainwashing. The people in our film would say if you don't like what's someone's doing, you call it brainwashing and if you like it, you call it education. I think that is an interesting concept. It's a matter of opinion."—Director Heidi Ewing
2. "As a ministry, we are stronger than ever, and have more invitations to minister than ever before. But somehow that information is always buried at the bottom of the media reports, if it's mentioned at all."—Kids in Ministry International Website