Earlier this week, a fan of ours shared a link to some disturbing photos and videos that were shared publicly by a counselor from a Memphis area church camp with the title “God is so good…” and comments like, “Awesome and so beautiful…” I should mention, the fan who sent us the links is friends with one of the parents involved. In short, they were completely horrified by what the friend’s child had experienced.
Because the photos and video were posted on Facebook publicly, without any privacy settings, for the world to see – we shared the direct links to the content with our Facebook fans with the simple question, “CHILD COERCION OR…?” (I should also quickly note that in order for the kids to attend the camp, their parents had to sign a photo/video release waiver so the camp could share the content online for marketing purposes.) It was certainly not the “normal” sort of post for our page (illustrations of lesser-known Bible verses), so I wasn’t sure how it would be received by our viewers.
In short, our viewers went nuts about what they perceived to be significant emotional abuse of minors. The post went viral with hundreds of comments and hundreds of shares within just a few minutes. Suddenly, I felt bad for “Nita” – the original poster. Here she was, just sharing a some photos of videos of their normal every day church camp for other counselors and parents to share with family and friends, and… WHOOSH!
Here is the video that this post is referring to. (Sadly I cannot seem to embed it, but it plays just fine on the Liveleak page.)
Yeah, I bet that woke you up this morning!
And they're right, the backlash came hard and fast, and this group, which is really all about promoting their cute little illustrated bibles, found themselves under attack and those involved making some rather pathetic excuses for their actions.
However there were some connected to the camp who were more than a little troubled.
"My daughter was at camp when the pictures were taken last week. I am a Christian and raised Baptist. Never once did I EVER witness the likes of this! Pictures of my daughter were also posted on the woman’s page. Pictures of her crying and in very apparent emotional distress. When asked about the pictures of her, her response was that she was TOLD to pray with the other children, so she did. I asked why she was crying and she responded with, “Other kids were crying, it made me cry too.” So, please explain to be how children who are ENCOURAGED TO COPY what they are seeing other adults and children do without rhyme or reason or instruction is healthy? You cant. And when it ISN’T healthy, it becomes a form of abuse. Period. Emotional abuse has occurred that could scar these children for life."
Yeah no shit!
Look I of course have many negative feelings about religion and children, and religious indoctrination of children, but I myself attended a Bible camp as a child and was NEVER subjected to anything even remotely similar to this.
Which is good because if you think I am anti-religious now......
