Catch them young

Apparently tens of thousands of UK teenagers go to Christian youth camps every year. Really?! I thought people had better sense there.

They sound perfectly disgusting. Horrible yoof jargon is spoken, and horrible christian bullshit is pushed on the gullible young people whose brains have not fully developed yet.

…the evangelical tactics used at such camps are on occasions manipulative. Sermons at such camps often take the form of wild orations that aim to wear down the resistance of the audience to the message. Videos designed to whip up the emotional temperature of the audience are shown, and fervid calls for youngsters to accept Christ are made. This culminates in the centre point of such meetings: the altar call. After having their emotions softened, hypnotic music typically sounds out in subdued lighting as youngsters are urged to come to the front and give their lives to Christ.

And then Bacchus appears and they all go mad and beat each other to death.

Whatever the attempts to dress them in the garb of youth culture, many of Christianity’s most controversial doctrines are given a full airing at the camps. Youngsters are threatened with divine judgment, and they are initiated into the world of charismatic Christian practices. At Soul Survivor, the largest Christian youth festival in the UK, teens have been told that witch doctors can maim children by cursing them. They have also been informed that God judges us on death for our deeds and thoughts, and they have been encouraged to practise physical healings. Could the real “wicked” in Christian teen camps actually be their effects on teens’ emotional wellbeing?

Not to mention their intellectual wellbeing.

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