Do you think "Jesus Camp" has ruined KC's image?

[ProspectiveTransplant]

Originally Posted by sadgirl80

Unfortunately, the subtitles of the films did say "Lee's Summit, Missouri."

Wouldn't most viewers assume Lee's Summit is just some random town out in the middle of the state somewhere, though? It's not as if most people have ever heard of it.

[luzianne]

Never heard of that movie.

[sadgirl80]

Jesus Camp | Watch Free Documentary Online

"Kansas City" is the first location mentioned in the documentary and was mentioned in the first 30 seconds

[sadgirl80]

For those who don't have the time to watch the whole thing. Here's the overview from Wiki, that shows how often Missouri is mentioned and featured through the film.

Jesus Camp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jesus Camp is about the "Kids On Fire School of Ministry", a charismatic Christian summer camp located just outside Devils Lake, North Dakota and run by Becky Fischer and her ministry, Kids in Ministry International. The film focuses on three children who attended the camp in the summer of 2005—Levi, Rachael, and Tory (Victoria). The film cuts between footage of the camp and a children's prayer conference held just prior to the camp at Christ Triumphant Church, a large church in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City.

All three children are already very devout Christians. Levi has preached several sermons at his father's church, Rock of Ages Church in St. Robert, Missouri. He is homeschooled, with his mother explaining that God did not give her a child just so he could be raised by someone else eight hours a day. He learns science from a book that attempts to reconcile young-earth creationism with scientific principles.[5] He is also taught that global warming is a political speculation, that the speculation stems from temperatures being higher in the summer months, that America's temperature has only risen by 0.6 °F, and therefore, the rise is not important. Levi preaches a sermon at the camp in which he declares that his generation is key to bringing Jesus back. Rachael, who also attends Levi's church (her father was assistant pastor), is seen praying over a bowling ball during a game early in the film, and frequently passes Christian tracts (including some by Jack Chick) to strangers, telling them that Jesus loves them. She does not think highly of non-charismatic churches (or "dead churches", as she calls them), feeling they are not "churches that God likes to go to". Tory is a member of the children's praise dance team at Christ Triumphant Church. She frequently dances to Christian heavy metal music, and says she has to check herself to make sure she isn't "dancing for the flesh".

At the camp, Fischer stresses the need for children to purify themselves in order to be part of the "army of God". She strongly believes that children need to be in the forefront of turning America toward conservative Christian values. She also feels that Christians need to focus on training kids since "the enemy" (Islam) is focused on training theirs.
In one scene shot at Christ Triumphant Church, a woman brings a life-sized cutout of George W. Bush to the front of the church and has the children stretch their hands toward him in prayer for him. This is a derivative of laying on of hands, a common practice in charismatic Christian circles. In another, Lou Engle preaches a message urging children to join the fight to end abortion in America. Children are shown a series of plastic models of developing fetuses, and have their mouths covered with red tape with "Life" written across it. Engle is a founder of the Justice House of Prayer and a leader of Harvest International Ministries, a network of charismatic-oriented ministries with which both the church and Fischer's ministry are affiliated. He prays for Bush to have the strength to appoint "righteous judges" who will overturn Roe v. Wade. By the end of the sermon, the children are chanting, "Righteous judges! Righteous judges!"

There is also a scene at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado where Ted Haggard preaches a sermon against homosexuality. The scene was shot before the scandal following the revelation that Haggard had had sexual relations with men. Before the service, Levi mentioned how he admired Ted Haggard and was looking forward to meeting him. After the sermon, Levi informs Haggard that he has already preached sermons and wants to be a preacher when he grows up. Haggard advises him: “I say, use your cute kid thing until you’re thirty, and by then you’ll have good content”. The comment leaves Levi baffled and a bit disappointed. Afterward, Levi, Rachael, Tory, their families and several other children take part in a Justice House of Prayer rally held by Engle in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Throughout the movie, there are cut scenes to a debate between Fischer and Mike Papantonio, an attorney and a radio talk-show host for Air America Radio's Ring of Fire. Papantonio questions Fischer's motives for focusing her ministry efforts on children. Fischer explains that she does not believe that people are able to choose their belief system once they pass childhood, and that it is important that they be "indoctrinated" in evangelical Christian values from a young age. Fischer also explains that democracy is flawed and designed to destroy itself "because we have to give everyone equal freedom".

The DVD, released in January 2007, includes several deleted scenes. In one of them, Levi's father and mother suggest that a future president may well have been at Kids on Fire. In another, a woman takes several of the kids on a "prayer walk" through Lee's Summit, and later takes them to a pro-life women's clinic. A Planned Parenthood clinic is located next door, and the woman has the kids pray over it. In an interview, the pro-life clinic's director says that she was very pleased to see children so passionate about ending abortion.

The DVD also includes commentary by Grady and Ewing. They reveal that when they arrived in Kansas City, there was a great deal of excitement over the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. However, according to Grady and Ewing, Fischer and the others did not see their activism for socially conservative causes as political, but as a matter of faith. They also reveal that Fischer and the others did not understand why some of the scenes of them speaking in tongues and praying over objects were included in the film.

[sadgirl80]

This film was nominated for Best Documentary in the Oscars. The ironic thing is, if this documentary did anything besides damage to image, it helped spread to the rest of the US that Kansas City is in MO, not in KS.

[TinaMcG]

Look, there are all sorts of crazy all over America right now. You hardly ever hear about Kansas Krazy anymore because there's so much of it in Texas, Virginia, Maine, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina...who have I left out? Missouri is nowhere near the Top Ten of Crazy in the US.

[KC_Sleuth]

I know very, very few people who have seen this film. It serves a niche audience. Most of them are not religious or intensely question the teachings of religions (as I do). Films like Jesus Camp are decent but they tend to "preach to the choir" and have a tendency to reinforce confirmation bias. That said, I would expect that the target audience of a film like Jesus Camp would be sophisticated enough to refrain from forming generalized opinions about an entire metropolitan area based on the actions of one wacky church lady in a sleepy suburb.

[WestCobb]

As someone who had absolutely no opinions or experiences with Kansas City when I saw the film when it came out, I'd say the film didn't form my opinion of KC in any way. I barely noticed the people were from KC. Now, seven years after the release date, I think the film has even less of an impact on KC's reputation.