Let's Not Just Assume It...

Saw a show tonight on 48 Hours (which was produced by the same documentarians who gave us the fascinating Jesus Camp) called "The Lord's Boot Camp" about - you guessed it - a boot camp for teens prepping to spread the Word about ole J.C. (lord, savior, one and only escape hatch to Cloud Cuckoo-land) both abroad and - what is either 1) comical and/or 2) inordinately arrogant and shameful (depending, natch, on your own "perspective") - here at home.

Yes, that's right. They sent a whole batch of Boot Camp grads on a "Mission To Indiana" - because, as one of the tribal elders informed us, "Gospel says to go out into the world and spread the word. And, last I checked, Indiana is part of the world."

Hard to argue with logic like that...

Even more nauseating was the scene where Will Graham (Billy's grandson) rallies the kids with this nugget: "It's not about building houses, it's not about feeding people. Sure, that stuff's nice. But it's really about spreading the word about Jesus!"

One has to prioritize, after all.

Or take the scene where another elder, in charge of the mission to Zambia, says, in effect, "It doesn't matter what we can do for these people here, what really matters is that we get one of these [Western] kids to think they've made a difference in someone's life and, once we've done that, we can turn 'em out to spread the word."

In other Words (if you'll pardon the pun), it's all about the proselytizing. Spreading the word: "I Can't Believe It's Not Jesus!" in people's lives.

It's that kind of disingenuousness from the people in charge, the higher-ups and decision-makers who rather calculatedly use these kids' guilt in the face of extreme poverty and disease for their own purposes. Who, when faced with the scene in Zambia these days, wouldn't feel guilty? But you take a complex of geopolitical difficulties - to wit, ethnic, tribal and religious factions - and you provide a simple solution: Accept Jesus.

Maybe the kids feel like they've accomplished something - and they have: they've provided Zambian kids with shoes and tended their wounds. And then that all begins to fade to black when you hear their elders reiterate time and again that the philanthropy really isn't the point.

Despite whatever you may think about the kids themselves - my own feeling is that they ranged the gamut from well-intentioned and misguided (several of the girls who wound up in Zambia) to patronizing and self-absorbed (not coincidentally, most of those who were turned on fellow (but heathen) Americans) - it's the elders' disinterest in actual human suffering and preoccupation with producing another generation of like-minded zealots that really rubs your nose in the hypocritical motivations and the self-righteous rhetoric that spews from the mouths of these people.

Or, as one missionary girl says, when confronted with a young Mormon at a carnival in Indiana, "Who knew those Mormons believed so different from us Christians..."

Amen, sister.