Kidnapped For Christ (2014 documentary)

[onager]

"I was a rebel - the only Evangelical in a house full of liberals."

That's filmmaker Kate Logan's first spoken line in her new documentary, Kidnapped For Christ.

It's a serious look at stuff we saw in the comedy But I'm A Cheerleader! You're a "troubled teen," so your Christer parents have goons kick in your door at 4 AM and drag you off to....uh...yeah. Therapy!

Only this sure as shit isn't played for laughs. One of the first people we meet is 16-yr-old David, whose mother told him she could never love a gay son.

And shipped him off to the main subject of the film, a shithole called Escuela Caribe in the Dominican Republic. Conveniently far away from the prying eyes of American lawyers and other Agents Of Satan.

The tactics used will be familiar to anyone who's ever heard of $cientology's Rehabilitation Force Project. Isolation, forced labor, physical punishment, humiliation, etc. Hell, the tactics were familiar to me because I used them when I was a Marine Drill Instructor. I just didn't have the gall to try and call it "therapy."

Anyway, by the end of the movie, both David and Kate Logan are debating whether they even want to call themselves Christians any more. How they get to that point is why you should watch this. (I'm trying not to give away too much.)

Of course, all the genteel fucking sadists running these places are only doing it for Jebus and those poor troubled kids they're helping.

Forbes magazine estimates the "troubled teen" industry is worth $2 billion annually.

Oh. Well, yeah, there is that...

EDIT for the sarcasm-challenged.

[JNelson6563]

1. And they wonder why so many

have a problem with religion. *sigh*

Julie

[theHandpuppet]

2. I've been hearing quite a bit about this documentary

Do you have any idea if its been released in some way I can access it?

[onager]

3. It just started this week on Showtime...

That's where I saw it. A quick search didn't turn up any online venues for the whole movie yet.

The link below is to a good article about it at Daily Beast - "Come Because You're Gay, Stay For Jesus."

Kate Logan raised much of her funding by using Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns. That's a great use of the Internet. And a welcome change from the usual scam artists, woo peddlers and religious freaks abusing the technology.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/11/kidnapped-for-christ-review-come-because-you-re-gay-stay-for-jesus.html

[Curmudgeoness]

4. Thank god I wasn't a child of sociopaths!

These re-education centers are the bottom of the barrel. How anyone could trust them with their children astonishes me.

[AlbertCat]

5. Thank god I wasn't a child of sociopaths!

Well, I was, (and they weren't religious either) but thank any god you want, I was just ignored.

[Curmudgeoness]

6. I'm sorry for that, hon.

I hope that you now understand that being ignored was probably a good thing, all things considered. Harder to do when you are a kid.

[AlbertCat]

8. you now understand that being ignored was probably a good thing

Oh I do I do!

Because my father didn't ignore all the kids.


And we were an upper middle class family that went to the Country Club, y'know.... a demographic where none of that goes on, right?

[Curmudgeoness]

9. A demographic where

it is easier to keep it under wraps. No one is immune from abuse, they are only more immune from getting caught and prosecuted. It wouldn't surprise me that this is very common in over-achieving families.

[theHandpuppet]

7. In the place and at the time I grew up...

Last edited Mon Jul 14, 2014, 07:29 AM - Edit history (1)

Mental illness was considered a curse from God and something to be ashamed of, certainly not discussed or treated. I spent my childhood in a state of perpetual sleep deprivation, with a screwdriver and a flashlight under my pillow because our mother threatened to burn the house down if we fell asleep. Her rationale was that if the house burned down and we all died, at least there would be funerals to go to and she wouldn't be so bored. Didn't go to church but was religious; ran around the house cursing at the devil and beating the walls with a broom.

Superstition combined with mental illness can make childhood such fun.