Years of Poems and Spirits

I watched a documentary last night with my wife: “Jesus Camp”. It was a really good film. The story was told in a really “close to hull” fashion: tight and speedy. It does raise a few interesting questions:
1. To what extent parents are entitled to “own” their children’s mind?
2. Is this (i.e. Jesus Camp) a good thing for democracy?

I always wanted to but never had the time to read Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He must have some insight as to the first question. Nevertheless, what is an “ideal” education model? Can there be one that fills children with the tools to develop their own thoughts, but not the thoughts themselves? For example, is there a type of education that can nourish children’s curiosity, but not embed solutions (regardless what kind) into their minds?

Logically, there is not. Here is how to prove it: curiosity comes with the means to answer the questions. Yet how to find solutions implies adopting an epistemology, which is seldom idealogically nutural. In other words, had the pastor told the kids, “Go ahead wondering about the world to your heart’s contend. But all the solutions are in the Bible”, it would be no different from outright preaching.

Parent’s claim to children’s education can also be looked at from the public-space/private-space angle: is education a private matter? Or the public has a claim too? In the end, it has the same logic and ramification as the recent debate on “eminent domain“–but a much explosive one for sure.

As for the second question: is “Jesus camp” a good thing for democracy? Well, the camp does teach civic “participation” but not enough “association”. Again, I am circling around Huntington’s therom. Nevertheless, my point is I’d rather the extremists participating than not participating. Of course, the next thing to do in order to co-opt them is to show them how to participate. Hopefully, this documentary and Mr. Ted Haggard can have a mirroring effect.

By the way, the documentary did make a splash: the camp was vandalized after the film was released. And the pastor decided to close the camp for a few years. See article here. I don’t know what to make of that.