The Matrix of Jesus

February 24, 2007

This is a documentary peppered with American still-lifes. The scenes are of ordinary freeways and housing tracts from places in the center of our country.. the road signs that we pass.. the golden arches of McDonalds. It is a revelation to see this strange world. In between these glimpses of daily life we are ushered into the religious dramas of our freeway laden America. This at least seems to be the implication of the juxtapositions. Scratch the thin surface of the landscape and this is what you will find..

The filmmakers' idea to focus on children was a smart call. Becky Fischer, the pastor for children, explains how smart the "enemy" (in context this means Islam) is for teaching their children total commitment to their side. Then as she speaks to a room full of children she challenges them to go out and change the world.. to storm Satan's stronghold. The filmmakers evidently shared this belief in the importance of children. A series of interviews with adults might not have raised our interest.. the world is filled with believers. But to have the children front and center.. and to watch these cute-as-all-get-out kids start to pick up the message and take on these challenges.. that makes you sit up and take notice.. and worry.

I would not want to give anyone the impression that this was exactly the Christian world that I knew.. or that I was like those kids. There are some major differences in tone between this Pentecostal world and the more staid one I knew as I attended Christian schools. But Emily was constantly surprised at how much I did know of what was happening. I had to pledge allegiance to the Christian flag and to the Bible when in elementary school. I was on trips where you walk up to people cold and tell them about Jesus. I read those little evangelizing pamphlets. I watched plenty an anti-evolution video. So while the differences are important.. many things were familiar.. and in a way I could have been one of those kids

Watching the kids in Jesus Camp talk about their world.. I thought about the Matrix. At the end of the Matrix we have learned the true nature of the world.. that all those people who seem real are simulacra. In the final scene we are shown ordinary people are walking down an ordinary city street.. and yet they now look different. They are no longer people. The film had given us a mental template to cast over the world.. which made things look weird and people suddenly dispensable.

Evangelicalism is a similar mental template that governs the way the world appears. I remember my own Matrix moments coming home for Christmas break from college and walking through LAX.. all those people, all going their own ways.. I would consciously try to look at the world and see it from the perspective of eternal truth: these people were lost, wherever they were going was unimportant, the world was a façade for a deeper spiritual battle. The problem for me was that the template would always pop out of place.. and I could never quite see the world like that. It seemed so counterfactual.. these are just people making their way in life as best they can.. not sinners running from God.

The film does not exactly hold out a lot of hope for change in these kids. I watched Jesus Camp and wondered how in hell a kid could ever break out of this world. There are no hints that a percentage of these kids will lose their zeal and go AWOL from God's army. But here I am.. and AWOLer. Baby step by baby step I questioned the template. It now appears to me so obviously a template that it is hard to imagine seeing the world in that way again.. But this documentary gave me a brief chance to feel again how strong that template can be..

check out the trailer if you are curious: