Okay, Let me add a couple thoughts to this ridiculous video. I have hesitated to say anything too provocative because I didn’t want to offend anyone… but here goes.
Bottom line I find almost everything about this documentary offensive. I find the exploitation of young children who are clearly being manipulated offensive. I find the manipulation of young children offensive. I find the mixing of politics and religion offensive. I find the misuse of war imagery and metaphor offensive. I find attempts to explain it away offensive.
Loren Sandler is absolutely right these children are being indoctrinated into an us vs them worldview. By using war imagery we have distorted the image of Christ into a conquering dictator who is absolutely unconcerned with anything but the complete subjugation of those who oppose us (note I said “us” not “him” because that’s what we are really concerned about – people who oppose us). Those who employ war imagery will point to its biblical origin in defense but that is a complete misrepresentation of the metaphor. When Paul used the metaphor the cultural context was very different. In fact it was completely the opposite. When Paul evoked military imagery the Christians were subject to an incredible empire, one that oppressed and crushed everything that opposed it. His audience was viscerally aware of what it meant to oppose that empire and yet the Christian message remained one that was subversive. Even early Christian slogans like “there is no name under heaven by which men can be saved but Jesus” were a direct response to the Roman Empire and the slogan it promoted, “there is no name under heaven by which men can be saved but Caesar”. This was a battle not to stamp out differing opinions but to create space for different expressions of thought and belief. The Christians used war imagery to remind themselves about their commitment to what they were engaged in. They used military metaphor precisely because that was what they were up against, a military power, and they opposed that power not through force of arms but through a subversive model of openness and surrender. The military imagery was meant as a contrast to show the difference between how they fight and how we fight.
Today we are the oppressors. We are the ones that control the world economy, we control world politics, we control governments and militaries and weapons. To employ military imagery, especially with young children sends exactly the opposite message it did 2000 years ago. It communicates that inflexibility is our goal. That opposition should be crushed. That difference of opinion should be stamped out. It does not remind us of the contrast between our message and the empire- it reminds us that we are the empire.
By reinforcing this inflexibility at a young age we are simply creating a new Christian fascism, an inability to step back from a discussion and see our bias and context. It is the same thing that happens when Christians feel obligated to vote Republican in USAmerica or when Muslims react to accusations of being violent by burning churches.
Of course those Muslims don’t represent all of Islam, and these Christians don’t represent all of Christianity but I am concerned that by using very complex symbols and metaphors with children that don’t have the mental acuity to understand the implications we reinforce the wrong objectives.
