Culture Study Podcast - The Potent Ideological Stew of Evangelical Church Camp

00:00:00.000 I have a whole bunch of prompts for you as we plan some upcoming recordings. We need your

00:00:03.800 questions about baseball culture. This is for a special episode pegged to the playoffs. Melody

00:00:09.700 is going to be co-host and then we have another amazing co-host. Birding culture, running a small

00:00:15.500 creative business in like a sustainable way and then hanging out like different modalities of

00:00:21.340 hanging out, why we like limit our understanding of what hanging out looks like, questions in that

00:00:26.860 general vicinity. We're also working on an episode with Jen Hatmaker about starting over in midlife.

00:00:32.560 You can take this any direction you want. And we're also super excited to be talking with

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00:00:50.020 slash culture study pod. Thanks and enjoy today's show.

00:00:56.860 Before we got onto tape, Melody texted me and she said, should I read from my church

00:01:04.320 camp journal?

00:01:05.920 And my response, like I texted back as quickly as I've ever texted back and I was like, obviously.

00:01:11.480 So Melody, what is your selection for us today?

00:01:15.700 Okay.

00:01:15.980 So this is, I believe the year 2002 would have been between seventh and eighth grade.

00:01:22.700 Oh, perfect.

00:01:23.080 If I remember right.

00:01:24.140 So July 23rd.

00:01:26.860 11.45 a.m. Fell off my bunk last night. I was okay. We are having two and a half hours of

00:01:34.520 silence and solitude. It's incredible. I wrote a two-page letter to God, and I plan to write more.

00:01:41.440 Kelly got hit in the head with a huge rock. It bled horribly. I hope she's okay.

00:01:46.700 God really spoke to me today. I've set some goals that will hopefully please him.

00:01:51.480 two and a half hours of quiet time that is so ambitious we had like

00:01:59.100 20 minutes of reflection time in the morning yeah i'm also really curious melody if if your journals

00:02:06.480 if you were ever writing directly to god or were you always right like just reflecting in first

00:02:12.060 person i mean i definitely had the back and forth but like there were definitely some journals in

00:02:17.120 which I was pouring my heart out to the Lord. So I think I've destroyed those ones. I do think

00:02:24.880 it was like a double entry system where like this journal that I could find is like commentary on

00:02:30.080 the week, but the actual heart pouring out is long gone. This is the Culture Study Podcast,

00:02:42.500 and I'm Anne Helen Peterson. I'm Cara Meredith, author of Church Camp, Bad Skits, Cry Night,

00:02:48.340 and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation. Okay, so all three of us are very

00:02:54.520 familiar with Church Camp. I went to Church Camp from grade two until I was still attending as a

00:03:04.880 counselor who was working as like a youth intern at my church, like up until age 20, 20. I was very

00:03:12.320 deep in it. And when I was in high school, I was spending probably half of my summer there,

00:03:16.780 both as a camper and as a counselor, unpaid, of course. And then as a staff member, when I

00:03:24.180 graduated from high school, I think we should just for people who are unfamiliar, what are we

00:03:29.900 talking about when we're talking about white evangelical church camp in specific? What's the

00:03:36.640 vibe? The vibe, I mean, first of all, you're not going to go onto a website, like a church camp

00:03:44.200 website, and they're not going to say, we are a white evangelical camp. No, never. I mean, that is

00:03:49.920 not going to happen. So instead, and I think we might get to this with some of the questions later

00:03:53.980 on, but we are talking about this particular subset of camps. It's not about just showing up

00:04:01.200 to the woods to go camping for a weekend, but within the American Camping Association,

00:04:07.220 there are thousands of camps that serve a variety of secular, of religious, of all different sorts

00:04:16.200 of entities and identifiers. But this particular group of camps, white evangelical church camps,

00:04:23.980 Many of us did go to during the summer.

00:04:27.440 They were big and campy and fun.

00:04:30.140 They were full of Jesus.

00:04:32.080 They centered on the evangelical tradition within Christianity.

00:04:37.400 What else could we say?

00:04:39.060 There were camp names.

00:04:40.480 There was really good food.

00:04:42.420 There were zip lines.

00:04:43.580 Oh, my gosh.

00:04:44.000 When you got really good food?

00:04:45.360 No, no.

00:04:46.200 So I think that we should also say.

00:04:48.020 Some people got good food.

00:04:48.960 Some camps.

00:04:49.920 There are levels.

00:04:51.520 because i think some church camps were um fancier than others yes and to my mind actually the fancier

00:04:59.940 the camp got the less jesus was explicitly evoked so my camp cost i think in like the late 90s

00:05:08.820 i think it was like 80 for a week what a deal right if i were a parent i'd be like get out of

00:05:15.900 here you can deal with some jesus like whatever right um and it was so bare bones like we are

00:05:22.680 talking a cabin like each of our cabin the only thing that it had was five bunk beds that with

00:05:31.080 like the crappiest mattress right and then like a big bath house and at least back then i think a

00:05:37.920 lot of these camps have sophisticated in the years since but back then it was very much like let's

00:05:43.400 make candles let's do sports let's jump off their rickety dock that like is absolutely a health

00:05:51.060 hazard there's like rusty metal all over the place but the a lot of these camps ran on not a lot of

00:05:58.820 money and were able to do so i mean from backing from their their religious organizations mine was

00:06:04.020 a presbyterian camp that had like just that that nice 90s evangelical twist um but they don't have

00:06:11.240 to pay taxes right that's the thing that i think is really remarkable and sometimes gets lost in

00:06:15.580 the conversation about camp it's like there are all of these places where land was developed or

00:06:21.260 acquired or given to the church at some point in the last 200 years often in the most beautiful

00:06:29.400 places right like lakeside like there is a gorgeous lutheran camp on flathead lake in montana which is

00:06:36.060 like some of the most expensive real estate in the west and they don't have to pay property taxes so

00:06:41.140 you can continue to run it at pretty low costs. And they also run on either people who are paid

00:06:47.500 very little or people who are not paid at all because they're serving the Lord. So that's part

00:06:53.680 of it. Kara, what was your experience of Church Camp Lake? How long did you go? Yeah. Well,

00:06:58.980 the short answer is 30 years. So I started going in 1988 as a nine-year-old. You can do the math.

00:07:05.860 And I just stayed for another 30 years. So I was a camper. I grew up in the American Baptist

00:07:12.200 tradition. So I started going to an American Baptist camp in Oregon called Camp Arowana

00:07:18.320 in 1988, not to be confused with a word that starts with M at the beginning of that,

00:07:26.620 although we were indoctrinated early on. And then I became really involved with an organization

00:07:32.640 called Young Life when I was in high school in the mid-90s. So I started going to a lot of Young

00:07:37.100 Life camps. Did you go to Malibu? Oh, I went to Malibu. I worked at Malibu. I did all the things

00:07:44.600 at Malibu at the boo. Before we lose people, Malibu is not in Malibu. It's not in Malibu,

00:07:51.040 California. In Malibu, Canada. It's a really, really, what I thought of as like the fanciest

00:07:57.240 of all church camps and i was like but you know when i said earlier that the the fancier the camp

00:08:03.100 got um oftentimes the less explicit jesus there was like young life was very invested in getting

00:08:09.580 kids to know jesus and so sometimes that would be like a a much lower stakes entry that also seemed

00:08:16.540 like we're all gonna hang out with like all the hot kids are gonna go here and so you should also

00:08:21.380 go to camp here with all the cool kids and it's like the best time like that's where the zip lines

00:08:25.940 were. That's where the zip lines were. That's where the good food was. Like we were, I later

00:08:31.560 worked summer staff at a covenant camp, which is another denomination in the evangelical tradition.

00:08:36.600 I worked for four summers there. And then I started being a camp speaker, but at Young Life

00:08:41.660 camps, which were a part of my story off and on for 20 years of that 30, they always had the best

00:08:49.100 food um girls were allowed to wear two-piece bathing suits uh because even though of course

00:08:55.340 not even though pure no they were oh they were oh whereas like at you know at some of the smaller 0.97

00:09:01.420 ones that's where they already had like that's where you could only have a one piece so a lot

00:09:06.320 of times the rules were a lot more liberal because they were getting kids in the door

00:09:11.260 introducing jesus and then the rules came yeah and a good way also to understand the difference

00:09:17.960 It's like at Young Life, like you would be listening to like Creed and like other songs that you're like, this song is about Jesus.

00:09:25.680 Right. Whereas like at my church camp, Creed was like a little too secular for us.

00:09:34.440 Like you weren't allowed to listen to any what's called secular music, which is music that is not Christian music.

00:09:39.060 um and it was all like praise music and christian music that we were allowed to listen to and that

00:09:45.660 we were part of like the the evening worship like lots of guitars that later transitioned into

00:09:51.820 the more like produced praise style of music but i want to get to the before we get too far ahead

00:09:58.720 of ourselves i want to get to the subtitle of your book so we're going to get to the bad skits

00:10:02.600 and cry night later. But that last part, how white evangelicalism betrayed a generation,

00:10:09.180 like that word betrayed, it's pretty strong. So I want to hear what you mean by that,

00:10:13.700 just to set the table a little. Yeah. Well, first of all, I wanted the subtitle to hold

00:10:19.680 a little bit of levity because that's exactly what camp is. Like camp, as we said earlier,

00:10:25.580 camp is the campiest. It's the funniest. It's sometimes the biggest and the roughest.

00:10:32.600 and the silliest. So I wanted, I wanted the title at large to convey what I hope readers find in the

00:10:39.380 book. So hence we have bad skits and cry night, which both, which especially if people have been

00:10:46.160 to camp evoke memories most likely. But then like you're asking, you have that subtitle,

00:10:51.620 how white evangelicalism betrayed a generation. And the reality is that, so if you then look at

00:10:58.880 the word betrayed. And we actually went back and forth on what verb we should use. We, as in both

00:11:05.680 my writing partners and the publisher, my editors, going, okay, is betrayed too much? But I think

00:11:14.020 there is oftentimes, if you look at the end result of what people are unpacking, millennials and

00:11:21.900 Gen Xers, those of us who went to camp in the 90s and 2000s and beyond, what we're unpacking when

00:11:28.660 it comes to harmful theologies, when it comes to messages of shame and guilt, in particular

00:11:34.600 around women's bodies, when it comes to patriarchal values, when it comes to exclusion toward

00:11:42.000 the LGBTQ community and in particular people of color, when we look at all of those things

00:11:48.420 as a whole, there is a betrayal that has happened toward particular people groups, but also

00:11:53.700 in this environment. To me, there's a betrayal toward and with who God really is and God's

00:12:02.980 intention. Yeah, that sets it up. So our questions today are all from listeners who are trying to

00:12:10.160 make sense of what they experienced at camp. And I think that this will allow us to explore a lot

00:12:15.380 of different facets, both of your book and just of like the camp experience. So let's start with

00:12:20.220 this one from Jordi, which Melody is going to read. Church camp in the 90s when I went was very

00:12:25.840 us versus them, quote, in the world, not of the world, eye roll. And I wonder about the through

00:12:32.060 line to the insularity of the Christian right. I mean, we were being taught to love our neighbor

00:12:36.580 and asking what would Jesus do and also actively pushing away from anything outside of ourselves.

00:12:42.680 How are these things connected? Why is there such a tendency towards separation in this particular

00:12:47.960 culture at this point I have to recommend the episode of this podcast that we did about Christian

00:12:54.940 music because it for me it unlocked a lot of the goals of the Christian music industry in terms of

00:13:02.820 creating an entire genre like a way for someone to pursue this experience of the world that is

00:13:11.960 only through the Christian lens right or even like the popularity of Christian bookstores at that

00:13:16.640 time like there was this idea that like somehow and this again this was pre widespread of the

00:13:22.840 internet like there was this idea that you could somehow insulate yourself from all exposure to

00:13:28.900 the outside world and that that was the way to live the the most godly life right is to reject

00:13:34.400 the secular influences so but i this part that jordi does in the second part of the question

00:13:42.400 where it connects it to the insularity, right?

00:13:44.460 Like the idea that like, I don't know,

00:13:47.720 like the always turning inward.

00:13:50.600 What does this make you think of?

00:13:52.840 Jordi, I think with this question,

00:13:55.380 I think first of all about white evangelicalism as a whole.

00:14:00.100 And so, and again, my book is about,

00:14:02.480 I mean, it's titled Church Camp

00:14:03.840 and it's obviously about church camps,

00:14:05.820 but it's also about white evangelicalism,

00:14:10.160 like all of it.

00:14:11.000 And so probably like Leah Payne did last year in that episode, just as she was defining the CCM industry, there's also, I think you have to also take a step back and define white evangelicalism.

00:14:25.580 So if you look at evangelicalism, there's so many different ways that you can define it.

00:14:30.860 So you can define it by beliefs, belief system, like the Bebbington Quadrilatical.

00:14:35.740 That's where there are four different markers or identifiers that evangelicals are known

00:14:41.940 by.

00:14:42.660 You can also identify evangelicals by voting habits.

00:14:45.300 So that's been a huge way that people have identified evangelicals, especially in the

00:14:51.300 last 10 years.

00:14:52.200 You look at the 81% that voted Trump into office in 2016, the 84% that voted him into

00:14:58.560 office then in 2024. Again, those are white evangelicals who are predominantly voting him in.

00:15:05.300 But then you can also look at the conversations that happen that folks are engaging with. So

00:15:12.540 there's one historian, his name is Daniel Silliman. And Daniel says that you can look

00:15:17.700 at the reading habits of evangelicals over the last 30 years, and that will give you an idea

00:15:23.160 of the values that they most espouse.

00:15:26.880 So that's where you then see rugged individualism and choice.

00:15:32.480 Those are values that those who identify as evangelicals or that we would identify by

00:15:39.520 evangelicalism, those are values that they really carry with them.

00:15:43.820 So you have these shared values.

00:15:46.480 And with that, you have a shared experience.

00:15:49.000 And so in a place like church camp, which almost then operates as this utopia, this perfect place of shared values and conversation and understanding and whatever else, where as long as you believe the right things and say the right things and do the right things, then you are in.

00:16:07.800 Then there's also within this utopia, this utopian setting, there's also exclusion that happens.

00:16:14.740 So Kristen Dume says that oftentimes evangelicalism is defined by exclusion.

00:16:21.040 You can look at the history of it and see the exclusionary practices.

00:16:24.520 So you can see how there's an exclusion toward people who don't believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.

00:16:31.280 But then it starts to extend.

00:16:33.580 It might extend toward values about men and women.

00:16:36.920 Like we see that now with different bills that are in the house.

00:16:40.380 but you then see that when it comes to um anti-lgbtq rhetoric or everything that has happened

00:16:47.160 this last year around issues of dei so there are these shared values that are in that and within

00:16:53.220 that because there is there are shared values and shared understanding that is part of what is

00:16:59.740 creating the separation um so i think i that's when i thought about your question jordi that's

00:17:05.660 that was the first thing that came to mind there were a couple different places i thought about

00:17:09.080 going. But I was like, this is what is most valued and really like creating these places,

00:17:15.540 whether they're denominational or non-denominational or through a parachurch,

00:17:20.720 they're instilling values within children and really within the next generation

00:17:26.100 who are going to become grownups and who are going to, you know, hopefully influence culture.

00:17:32.380 The idea of camp as this experience of utopia is so useful to me because I think that that is what makes it such a persuasive tool, especially with children. It's like, this is what it could be like to have fun all the time.

00:17:50.080 I just have to like sometimes read the Bible. We get to sing songs every night. There are older kids in their teens who are interested in us and take care of us and there's no parents. And we get to sleep in bunk beds. Like it's just the most fun, right?

00:18:06.940 Or like when you're a teen, there's no school pressures, we're just flirting, but it's a

00:18:12.740 safe environment where it's okay that we're with other kids in spaces all the time.

00:18:18.020 And it teaches you too that like, okay, what if I, if I want this all the time, all I have

00:18:23.840 to do is give my heart to Christ, right?

00:18:25.640 Like I just have to become a Christian.

00:18:27.620 Like it holds that promise forth and it's not necessarily an experience that you get

00:18:33.140 and every day but then like your life rotates around I think anyone who went to these camps

00:18:38.060 maybe also if they were part of youth group like you got a little bite of it every week at youth

00:18:42.320 group and then if you did the weekend retreats which we did throughout the year like every

00:18:46.820 quarter there was one where you went like on an overnight and it was a little bit more of that

00:18:51.380 camp experience and it was an incredible place of social like it was safe socialization right 0.99

00:18:58.120 but it was so exclusionary like you had to like constantly especially as a woman be like what are

00:19:05.640 all the parts of me that are bad and that I should feel bad about and I cannot cannot imagine how

00:19:11.260 difficult it would have been if you were gay and you were trying to process this like yeah just

00:19:17.360 horrible to be told over and over again that this way that you felt inside was the most sinful thing

00:19:25.200 100% I mean the book the book started for me in and with a number of different places like

00:19:32.880 it started with this um this this question of the both and as far as when um in my life was

00:19:40.100 there an experience of the both and uh in which I felt the tension of two opposite things being

00:19:45.780 true at the same time and for me that was camp where it held so many of my dearest memories

00:19:50.580 and it was a place that I felt was problematic.

00:19:54.560 But the question also began with wondering if I could send my own kids to camp

00:19:59.700 or at least to the camps that I went to as a child and that I worked at as a grownup.

00:20:04.800 But then third, it also started with a question of wondering about the harm

00:20:11.380 that was happening, that was taking place, the exclusion that was taking place

00:20:15.840 toward women, people of color, and the LGBTQ plus community specifically.

00:20:20.580 And so the impetus of those three together, that's what birthed the book.

00:20:25.200 And with the almost 50 people that I interviewed, there was there was some facet of understanding and of understanding, but also of having experienced exclusion in these environments, perhaps except for the white, straight males that I interviewed, that was true of everyone.

00:20:44.880 So those parts of their identities and or of their personhood that they could absolutely

00:20:49.320 not do anything about were the very parts that camp excluded.

00:20:53.960 Yeah.

00:20:54.960 The one thing I'll say that camp does to white straight males, like this is the only time

00:21:00.480 in life that I feel like, oh, this is also rough on dudes is like the incredible focus 0.98

00:21:05.840 in those boys cabins on masturbation and on like stopping masturbating like that.

00:21:11.240 that would be so hard to deal with that and to, oh, like to feel just horrible about it all the 0.98

00:21:18.340 time. Um, but we can get into that. Yeah. They might be feeling bad about masturbation,

00:21:23.460 but like women, young girls are made to feel bad about the entire bodies and their personhood and 0.69

00:21:29.700 their identity. Not equal, not equal, but there is some sexual.

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00:26:28.200 Olivia, and I just love this question, so can't wait to hear more. I went to an evangelical summer

00:26:34.220 camp from age 8 to 18, and I absolutely lived for it at the time. It was fun forward, spirit days,

00:26:41.700 horseback riding, high rope, zip lines, the blob, a giant food fight. Of course, every single fun

00:26:47.540 thing was tied back to Jesus. You'd do a ropes course and then talk about taking a leap of faith.

00:26:53.180 There were skit-based Bible lessons and nightly campfires where we were encouraged to confess

00:26:58.040 cry, and recommit ourselves to Christ. As a kid, I bought in completely. I wanted so badly to feel

00:27:05.260 something real that I'd manufacture my own spiritual breakthroughs. I didn't want to be

00:27:10.140 left out of the emotional intensity everyone else seemed to be feeling. Looking back, I know I was

00:27:15.580 caught in a feedback loop of performance and approval shaped by the culture of the camp.

00:27:20.120 What I'm really curious about is why did it work so well? What were the emotional, psychological,

00:27:25.200 and social forces that made the drama of it all feel so profound and irresistible for so many

00:27:31.000 kids? Or was it just me? Especially those of us who now look back with a very different lens.

00:27:37.940 First of all, Olivia, it definitely wasn't just you. Let's talk about Cry Night. What is Cry Night?

00:27:43.360 Yeah. So same thing, Olivia, you are not alone. Every single person I interviewed had a name for

00:27:49.200 this particular night at camp. So for those listeners who may not have grown up in the

00:27:54.940 evangelical tradition or gone to an evangelical summer camp, the point of evangelical summer camps

00:28:00.320 is conversion. Like the whole point was to convert. And so within these camps, there was

00:28:07.340 usually some sort of theological progression of talks that the speaker gave in which they were

00:28:13.080 trying to get kids from point A to point B, from not believing in Jesus to believing in Jesus,

00:28:18.840 from being a lukewarm Christian to being an on fire for Jesus Christian. So you have these talks

00:28:24.900 that are given and whether it happened the second night of camp, the fourth night of camp, the last

00:28:30.880 night of camp, there was always a night of decision. And it was a night that behind the

00:28:39.140 scenes as a staff person, we called it cry night. That wasn't what we said to the kids, but we knew

00:28:44.500 So that was that whatever was going to be said from the stage, whatever music was going to be played, whatever was going to be on the faces of the rest of the camp staff, because there was an expectation of what was going to happen spiritually and psychologically and emotionally, something was going to go down.

00:29:03.740 So we called it cry night. Some of the Presbyterians I interviewed, they called it confession night.

00:29:09.500 Some of the Pentecostals called it speaking in tongues or the Holy Spirit night.

00:29:14.500 uh, folks called it serious night and the cross talk. There were all these different names for

00:29:20.900 this particular, um, getting right with Jesus, getting right with God night. Um, but I think

00:29:27.380 about this one inner, this one woman I interviewed and I write about her in the book, but she just

00:29:33.120 said, what do you expect when kids are hyped up on sugar, when they're staying up late and then

00:29:40.400 when everyone else around them starts crying, what do you expect? How do you expect them to react

00:29:47.700 when groupthink and emotionality comes into play, when there's an expectation on behalf of the staff

00:29:55.880 members? And again, then also when one girl starts crying, and we don't want to just say girls,

00:30:01.240 maybe it's a boy also, but when one child starts crying and then everyone else starts crying as a

00:30:07.680 result. So you are not alone in this. Um, there have been numerous studies and I think for a lot

00:30:15.840 of people who are unpacking, um, their experiences within these environments, that's where they look

00:30:22.980 back and they just go, okay, but the, the, how was it not manipulated or coerced when all of the

00:30:30.960 sudden, you know, in my generation, it was all of a sudden Michael W. Smith or Jennifer Knapp starts

00:30:38.040 playing in the background, you know, or the guitarist like starts playing this music that

00:30:43.040 just makes you, I mean, music is evocative. There is power to music. But when that

00:30:50.640 purposefully happens and is purposefully paired with a message that is emotional, that is trying

00:30:58.160 to get a reaction, trying to produce a reaction and or response. A lot of times a yes or no

00:31:06.080 response, are you going to get right with God response in the listener? Yeah. I mean, it's kind

00:31:13.060 of like, I think of it as the narrative plotting of like a movie, right? Like you are reaching the

00:31:18.220 climactic point here. And of course you want to do the thing that like other people are going to

00:31:23.760 praise you and be like yes like this is what it's all about like all the adults all of the teenagers

00:31:29.340 all the counselors are going to be like this is amazing my camp was i think there weren't a ton

00:31:35.180 of people who didn't already consider themselves christians so there was a lot more and amongst

00:31:41.420 my friends too like we all were like the gung-ho camper people so like we were very much like it

00:31:49.740 wasn't ever like oh this person came to christ or anything like that but what happened in hindsight

00:31:55.160 was that it was really playing on like this feeling of like i'm with my friends for a week

00:32:00.560 and my friends came from all over the pacific northwest presbytery inland pacific northwest

00:32:05.820 presbytery so like there were a lot of people from places two three hours away who i didn't

00:32:10.260 see the rest of the year and i was like this is so intense this is so special and where else 0.60

00:32:16.180 does a tween or teen have a sanctioned place to just fucking cry their eyes out like just be

00:32:25.480 incredibly sad and like love like to express like feelings of like i i care about you guys so much 0.81

00:32:32.960 like this is so special right like it is it is so rare and so cathartic yeah it felt like it felt

00:32:41.380 really good and I think that that's like sometimes hard to recover is like how good it felt it wasn't

00:32:47.740 until I was a counselor that I began to feel the ick yeah yeah well and for me there was also I

00:32:54.160 think there was that piece but there was also a level of performance oh yeah so I like everyone

00:33:01.480 else is crying you don't want me the weirdo is not crying and swaying with your arms around each

00:33:05.800 other. I mean, I have an essay in the book. It's an essay of my, the, of my 10 year old self and

00:33:11.980 I'm at camp, camp Arowana. And so camp Arowana, um, is, it still is around. It's in the Mount

00:33:18.000 Hood national forest. So, um, it gets real cold there at night. So here I am 10 years old. I've

00:33:25.200 been raised in the church. We go every Sunday and every Wednesday. We, it's like, we practically

00:33:30.040 live there part-time. I show up and it's cry night or whatever we called it. And I am so cold.

00:33:37.540 I just want to go back to the lodge. I want my hot chocolate and marshmallows. So I remember

00:33:43.440 the guitarist starts to play. And I just remember like honking myself over, like shrugging my

00:33:49.600 shoulders forward. And I just start shaking a little bit because I was cold. All of a sudden,

00:33:56.200 I start feeling these hands, these little hands on my back. And I'm like, why are people touching

00:34:02.680 me? And then I start feeling my counselor, my cabin leader, and she's like kind of petting my

00:34:09.020 back. And she's like, it's okay, Kara. It's okay. And in this moment, I don't, I don't realize it,

00:34:15.220 but I have such a visceral memory of this. And that's when I remember, holy shit, they think 0.99

00:34:21.400 that I am like crying and coming to Jesus. And so instead of, of, um, saying, yeah, you're right. 0.98

00:34:29.520 Like I, I, I'm not, I'm not really having a moment with God. I just keep going and I just

00:34:35.240 keep convulsing and shaking. And pretty soon I'm like wiping saliva from my mouth and I'm putting

00:34:41.500 it under my eyes. Kid you not. I was pretending as a 10 year old to like have this moment with

00:34:49.260 Jesus. And I was so rewarded because it was exactly what they wanted. And then of course,

00:34:55.540 like a month later, the camp sends a letter home to my pastor. And my pastor's like,

00:35:00.280 Kara, I baptized you a year ago. Why are they saying that you accepted Jesus for the first time?

00:35:05.540 Because they're keeping track of numbers. This is what they send to donors. But my pastor was like,

00:35:10.240 you didn't just accept Jesus into your heart for the first time. You walked down the aisle a couple

00:35:14.240 years ago. So anyways. Wow. And that's so interesting because since my, my camp was

00:35:21.040 Presbyterian, there was not, there wasn't a track, there was no keeping track of numbers as far as I

00:35:26.600 knew. And like, there was never any, when I was a counselor, there was never any like tally or

00:35:31.220 anything like that. In fact, there was always a real tension. And I didn't become aware of this

00:35:36.080 until later between the pastors who would come for a week at the camp and spend that week being

00:35:42.020 the speaker and some of them were very opposed to the emotional manipulation i mean if you think

00:35:49.220 about the presbyterians there we are called the frozen chosen there is an understanding that like

00:35:54.580 that sort of really emotional evoke like trying to force people into an emotion that then forces

00:36:02.700 them to um or encourages them to convert or accept jesus like that that is counter to the

00:36:09.100 much more cerebral arrival at faith, I would say. And so like that, like sometimes the pastors would

00:36:16.160 be like, I don't, I don't, that's not, we're not going to do that. Like we don't do a big cry night

00:36:22.100 during my week. And then there were some pastors who embraced it a lot more.

00:36:25.300 Yeah. But that, I mean, that to me is one of the most fascinating pieces and or parts of the story.

00:36:30.760 I mean, this is what I go into a ton in chapter six, but it's all about the transactionalism,

00:36:37.340 consumerism capitalism often found in these environments and so like you were saying earlier

00:36:42.200 as private institutions as religiously identifying private institutions these um camps christian

00:36:50.320 camps are i mean they are privately funded they are funded by the denominations but they're also

00:36:55.320 funded by donor dollars so i for instance i work part-time in development i'm a director of

00:37:01.640 development that's my day job so i have to prove to foundations and to private donors how the work

00:37:07.160 our nonprofit is doing is making a difference in people's lives of those we serve. So I have to

00:37:14.000 provide quantifiable and qualitative measurements for the work that we do. In the same way, even if

00:37:20.320 certain camps weren't, a good majority of camps were proving to donors and or to their private

00:37:28.240 funders that real change was happening. And one of the only qualitative ways that they were and or

00:37:35.340 are able to prove it is by the number of conversions by the number of kids who say yes

00:37:40.960 by the number who recommit their lives a couple of camps um of people i interviewed it was also by

00:37:46.740 the number of people who um who promised to be missionaries when they grew up and or dedicate

00:37:52.760 their lives to ministerial service so they're taking all of these different qualifiers and

00:37:58.820 they're saying this is what we can give as far as numbers go and that's also part of the ick

00:38:05.080 like you said where it's just like how do you actually quantify that you can't right okay this

00:38:12.100 next question is about another part of the message that we would get on camp i there's so much to

00:38:20.760 talk about here this comes from emily i attended evangelical summer camp every summer from 2003

00:38:26.100 to 2014 and had purity culture drilled hard into my head i felt so guilty for having my first kiss

00:38:32.160 at 18 that I confessed to my mom in tears. She was like, okay. I've since told her a lot about

00:38:38.300 the crazy purity culture I heard and was made to do with these camps, and she's always a little

00:38:42.200 shocked. I guess purity culture wasn't as big when she would have attended camp, but I'm so confused

00:38:47.920 by how little she knew about what camps were teaching girls. How did that shift come about

00:38:52.180 so quickly, and how did it stay relatively undercover for a lot of parents who probably

00:38:56.700 would have objected if they had known? I have found this to be a really common experience.

00:39:02.640 And it has come up in the conversations that I've had with my mom, who was a very active part of

00:39:07.220 our church and like was a youth group leader for some time, but like, clearly wasn't at like,

00:39:12.200 you know, wasn't going to camp with me. And I know Melody experienced something similar, like

00:39:17.340 our parents' generation did not experience that same, like there was obviously so much shame

00:39:23.600 around sex, but it was not purity culture as we understand it now. So where do you see the shift

00:39:31.060 happening? Wait, do you want me to read my journal entry for this part? Oh, God, Melody.

00:39:37.300 And also keep you coming in and being like, do you want me to read my journal entry?

00:39:41.120 People are going to love that. This is just like a taste. So these are like, this would be

00:39:47.000 permissible in court, you know, because like I took these notes live in a session. The session

00:39:52.660 i have written down was called mind trap okay our identity in christ he is our lover we are his

00:40:02.180 beloved he will do anything to get us back he is after us laughter tears and all and then the next

00:40:11.000 section is titled virtuous dating it is not also remember i was 12 it is not dating for fun dating

00:40:20.820 for fun is common and its main purpose is that you're not lonely on weekends. It's not dating

00:40:27.920 by emotion, which is based on quote unquote instinct because feelings waver and dating by

00:40:34.860 emotion is easier than listening to God. It seems right at first, but not a year later. We, as in

00:40:42.180 girls initiate and manipulate initiating is not our role our role is to pray and wait and our

00:40:51.340 purpose in life is not to get married and then i wrote purity underlined and i said we are not to

00:40:59.020 be a stumbling block for our brothers and then in stumbling all caps dress proudly exclamation point

00:41:06.500 Oh, Melody.

00:41:11.560 Melody, it was one of those when I was starting to write the book, I was sad for about 15

00:41:19.160 seconds because I had had a burning party a number of years ago with some friends in

00:41:24.940 which I burned a bunch of my journals and a bunch of these different proofs that would

00:41:33.000 have held up in court.

00:41:33.960 so part of me again the 15 second part of me wishes that I too had these journals but I'm so

00:41:39.800 glad um that you have them to further prove the point of what we're going to talk about

00:41:44.780 and now that it's on the record I can burn them so

00:41:47.580 uh I I think that I had it slightly less because I wasn't getting those messages in my home church

00:41:57.320 as strongly I guess I should I was getting them so I should give the context that this would have

00:42:01.900 been in the Bible Belt in Middle Tennessee and a Southern Baptist camp. So that's also like very

00:42:09.160 culturally significant. Yes, totally. Yeah, totally. I mean, I think in answer to Emily's

00:42:14.760 question, I mean, there's obviously so much we can unpack here. So Linda K. Klein, who wrote Pure,

00:42:20.920 a book that I highly recommend if people haven't read, which is all about the purity movement.

00:42:25.300 uh she's she's done the most work on this but the purity movement started in the 90s

00:42:31.420 camp reached its height like the height of christian camping of white evangelical camping

00:42:36.820 was 1996 really so that was the answer yeah wow that was the height yeah um so so to start off

00:42:46.500 there was such a natural pairing because of how the two coincided together like literally the

00:42:52.900 timing of both. So I, I did not grow up in the South. Um, I grew up, I'm purely a West coast

00:42:58.660 mutt, um, Oregon, Washington, and California, but it was a hundred percent a part of my adolescence. 0.82

00:43:05.920 And I would say a part of my adolescence really from, um, from, from preteen, uh, youth group

00:43:13.620 days all the way through late adolescence, like literally into my twenties. So not even still

00:43:19.480 getting to the question. I mean, I remember like learning how to date for the first time in my late

00:43:24.380 twenties. And part of it was starting to unpack and give myself permission to simply get to know

00:43:31.120 people. Um, you know, which was the, it was the antithesis of what you were just saying in that

00:43:36.000 journal entry, Melody, but you have, I, again, I, I think it's helpful for people if we unpack what

00:43:42.300 purity culture is. So if we can maybe talk about that for a minute, but you have purity culture

00:43:47.500 And what that is, it's an abstinence-only movement, and it was targeted, again, specifically

00:43:53.500 to teens and adolescents.

00:43:56.000 But because it was a movement under the Christian umbrella, and really under the evangelical

00:44:01.960 Christian umbrella, it was all about these binary dualities. 0.90

00:44:07.020 So it was about being pure or impure. 0.98

00:44:09.660 It was about being Christian or non-Christian, good and bad. 0.96

00:44:12.960 and from that too though it also oftentimes um the onus was entirely on women so men and this 0.84

00:44:23.760 is what we talked about a little bit with the with a couple of sentences on masturbation but

00:44:29.080 for men in the purity culture it was all about a man's mind so it was training their mind to

00:44:34.820 control their body but for a woman or for a young girl it was all about their it was all about their

00:44:42.060 body. It was all about what their body did. So it was learning to control their bodies really to,

00:44:49.140 to respect and honor men, um, which was then a facet of complementarianism, which is something

00:44:55.940 in the church. Um, but it was to the detriment of women too. So that's where at a lot of camps,

00:45:02.460 um, women or young girls had to, um, they had to wear a one piece bathing suit. They were told

00:45:09.820 not to make purple. Um, that was almost part of the subtitle of the book. Wait, what's not make

00:45:15.340 purple. So making purple, um, is, uh, girls are pink and boys are blue and, um, you are not to

00:45:24.000 make purple when you are at camp. So in other words, you're not supposed to get together.

00:45:28.980 Now there's nothing in that that's being said about like pink and pink going together or blue

00:45:35.840 and blue going together. Um, but you had, so the bathing suit rule making purple, but there were

00:45:42.040 also oftentimes sexual metaphors that were used, um, to the detriment of women. So women were 1.00

00:45:49.080 compared to, um, being, being pure was compared to a shiny brand new car being impure was compared 0.98

00:45:56.220 to a beat up car. That's only going to get you $200 at the resale lot. Um, right. So it, I mean,

00:46:02.560 all of these things continued, but women were made to feel responsible for men, which is exactly 0.99

00:46:08.880 what Melody just wrote. But that was exactly how we were most loved by God and or accepted by God.

00:46:20.900 So I guess that's part of where I'll start with the answer and or for us to get into conversation.

00:46:26.340 yeah no i think that that like very clear like that um that binary between like good and bad

00:46:32.680 pure and impure that like once you have one drop of impurity you either like that you're ruined

00:46:39.140 right and you have to like re-virginize yourself in order to like unruin yourself which is something

00:46:44.560 that people did was like take a renewed pledge of virginity um and also just like

00:46:52.140 creates so much shame around any sort of like sexual experimentation or exploration.

00:46:58.420 Like, I'm not just talking about sexuality. 0.92

00:47:00.160 I'm just talking about masturbation, making out, like all sorts of things, right?

00:47:05.220 Just like figuring out what you like and acting on urges that like, if we're going to be biblical,

00:47:11.640 like at the age that we were when we were going to church camp, like all these people in the Bible were getting married.

00:47:17.580 So it's a very different scenario.

00:47:19.720 I do think that like that idea that our parents didn't know is so interesting right like that

00:47:27.900 they didn't know this the extent or the direction of some of the indoctrination that was happening

00:47:33.980 at these camps yeah and like some of it I like I don't know if my mom asked me about camp like I

00:47:40.080 wasn't going to be like and then we had this talk about purity culture right and like my mom didn't

00:47:45.300 have access to the sermons or, or any of that. Like there, there was not a really straightforward

00:47:50.800 way to, to discuss how that was happening, but I think it was very common. And it makes me really

00:47:57.540 sad because I think a lot of our parents wouldn't have wished that sort of self-loathing on us.

00:48:02.700 Yeah. Well, and I think because the messages were also so implicit, it wasn't like it was,

00:48:08.360 it was just part of the ethos. It was part of the understanding. And so for a lot of our parents

00:48:15.840 who perhaps grew up in the sixties or seventies or even eighties where there may have been more

00:48:22.300 freedom or it was, it was an age of sexual experimentation or whatever else. There wasn't

00:48:27.220 even that idea that this might be infiltrating and be influencing children. It's one of those

00:48:33.140 that in the same way, I don't, I didn't go home and tell my mom what was said, but I absolutely

00:48:38.180 wrote the same things in my journal. And I, it absolutely stayed with me and shaped me and

00:48:44.060 formed me to the point that now as a 46 year old woman, there are things that I'm experimenting

00:48:50.000 and saying out loud for the first time with my therapist going, Oh yeah, no, I never had this

00:48:56.140 conversation when I was 22 years old, because I was so in that world and dedicated to that world.

00:49:03.860 Yeah. So I've done a number of like, you know, events over the last two months and I'm wrapping

00:49:08.000 up now, but one of the events I did in Santa Cruz, we specific, it was with two queer identifying

00:49:13.120 individuals. And so the audience was almost entirely queer as well. And they both were

00:49:20.380 big in the camp world. One of the women was featured in the book. So, but at one point,

00:49:24.720 this woman in the audience stands up to ask a question and she just said, I feel like there's

00:49:30.360 such a disconnect with everything all three of you are saying, even though like, you know,

00:49:36.500 you've done your work, but she said, I feel like there's such a disconnect. It's almost as if

00:49:41.160 like your, your mind is like this balloon floating above your head and there's this

00:49:46.340 disconnect from your body. Like that's the way in which I hear you talking about your bodies.

00:49:51.600 and I was like holy shit but she for someone who like did not was not ever a part of this world 0.99

00:49:59.260 to see that in each one of us as we answered our questions even for you know a gay man a lesbian 0.97

00:50:07.340 and for myself as a cisgender woman to remember this time in our lives it's like of course we

00:50:15.300 would all still be unpacking the dissociation between mind and body, no matter who we are,

00:50:22.500 but at the influence of purity culture, at the influence of everything else. Like it was just,

00:50:27.600 it was wild. Like that's part of where I'm like, I've got so much still to unpack with my own

00:50:32.920 therapist, like about that, which I don't even realize. Right. And it also brings to mind for

00:50:38.960 me, like this conversation that we just had with Sophie Gilbert about her book about pop culture

00:50:43.640 and the feminisms of the 1990s and 2000s

00:50:47.520 and how purity culture, 0.99

00:50:49.400 even for people outside of the church,

00:50:51.280 was all over the place

00:50:53.020 and really affecting a lot of women

00:50:55.660 who never would have thought of themselves as Christian

00:50:57.760 or beholden to the norms of purity culture.

00:51:00.520 There was still this incredible emphasis on like, 0.98

00:51:04.720 yeah, you can be slutty, 0.98

00:51:05.740 but like make it clean somehow, you know? 0.98

00:51:08.200 And that to me, like when people say,

00:51:10.420 well, I'm not a Christian,

00:51:11.320 I don't care about the stuff 1.00

00:51:12.280 that's happening in Christian culture. 0.98

00:51:13.460 Look at what's happening in our government right now.

00:51:16.080 All of this stuff is having real ramifications on the way that we experience the world around us and the way that your kids experience the world around them, even if they're not going to an evangelical Christian camp.

00:51:27.920 There are 100% clear correlations between the values of purity culture, how that plays

00:51:35.580 into complementarianism, which I know I just hinted at, but complementarianism, within

00:51:43.200 like a theological belief system, you have what's called complementarianism and egalitarianism.

00:51:49.560 So egalitarianism means that men and women are equal in their roles of service to the

00:51:56.960 church and or at home wherever they find themselves complementarianism means that men and women

00:52:02.960 complement each other so men are then the head over women women are always complementary to men

00:52:11.400 so all that to say you have really you have this big idea of the patriarchy and how that shows up

00:52:18.800 in camp but again in white evangelicalism as a whole is that it shows up in purity culture

00:52:23.840 It values complementarianism, and that directly plays into values of Christian nationalism.

00:52:31.240 So what we are seeing today in our country, it is 1000% connected.

00:52:43.240 Today's episode is brought to you by ZocDoc.

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00:52:47.980 Yeah, well, I am an older sister, and I therefore have to tell my younger sister how to live

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00:55:17.180 So our final question comes from Amanda, and I think it's going to,

00:55:21.800 I think, put a fine point on why we're talking about this now.

00:55:24.840 I have more of an existential question. Why does my time at evangelical summer camp have such a

00:55:31.880 hold on agnostic adult me more than 30 years later. Looking back, I almost feel like the

00:55:38.560 entire experience was a cult, but like a couple of weeks wasn't enough time for full indoctrination

00:55:43.880 or something. My memories are mostly positive, but strangely ever present in my real life and

00:55:50.000 my dreams. I think about this time in my life a lot. Is this normal? What do you think? The people

00:55:56.600 that you spoke to, like, I just, I feel like it does. It has such a hold on so many of us. It is

00:56:01.340 so foundational for me. It's so foundational. I think for me, when I hear this, I just go,

00:56:08.020 yes, your experience was absolutely normal. And your wonderings, existential or otherwise,

00:56:14.680 are also completely normal. I think you have this experience. It's the utopia that we talked about.

00:56:20.620 But you also have within camp, camp is this place that, and I guess we kind of hinted at this

00:56:27.620 earlier, but camp is this place of ultimate belonging. And when you're in, you're in. And

00:56:33.740 when you believe the right things, and when you believe the right things, as far as what they

00:56:38.340 are oftentimes touting you to believe, when you say the right things and do the right things,

00:56:42.860 then you experience this deep belonging of person and a place, um, that, that who I am

00:56:50.600 is reciprocal to who they are. And I think for us, especially as young people, I think about my kids,

00:56:56.780 they're ages 10 and 12, almost 11 and 13. And that which they are experiencing right now in this

00:57:04.500 world as young men is shaping them. I have no doubt that it is going to continue to shape them

00:57:10.200 into who they are and who they will become years later. So in the same way you have camp for many

00:57:16.060 of us, it gave us this place of belonging. And when we have belonging, that is not something

00:57:21.300 that leaves us. Even if we leave that place, to me, I, that's kind of the only way that when I,

00:57:27.360 when I thought about answering this, I thought about, um, in a lot of the places that I've been

00:57:31.960 speaking, I've been speaking about belonging because especially for people who have walked

00:57:36.760 away from the place, they, from places like camp, they still see it as a place that was

00:57:42.400 deeply formative to them that holds such positive memories, even if they don't agree with it

00:57:48.500 anymore. Even if they wonder if indoctrination was taking place or if it was a cult, I think

00:57:55.820 that's part of the tension. I mean, it's no coincidence that I was deeply involved in not

00:58:00.880 only camp, but also like in my church and valued so much of like the intergenerational connection,

00:58:06.480 the feeling of community. And now I'm writing a book about community. Like I am also not in any

00:58:12.580 way a part of the church anymore, but like those sorts of connections, like I know that they are

00:58:17.480 possible. They have imprinted on me in all of these ways for good and for bad. You know,

00:58:24.360 sometimes I think about how church teaches you to put up with people who are weird, people who are

00:58:30.480 annoying, teaches you how to be in intergenerational spaces. It teaches you how to just show up even

00:58:38.560 when you don't feel like it. And all of those things are really important. And I think camp

00:58:44.700 taught me how easy it was to have fun like how little you needed I loved the visceral experience 0.99

00:58:54.440 of camp I loved my stupid one-piece bathing suit that was all I was allowed to wear I loved the 0.97

00:59:00.180 the eight cds that we had on rotation and like the bad skits that we did to bye bye bye bye in sync 0.98

00:59:06.840 like I thought that was the coolest like we did so much capture the flag was like the most fun

00:59:13.240 thing that I had ever done when I was a fifth grader. And it's, I think in my memory, I work

00:59:19.460 hard to separate that from all of the other ideological stuff that was happening. Like,

00:59:24.040 I can still love that part of the experience. Yeah. How do you feel now?

00:59:31.760 How do I feel now? I mean, this is the tension. And again, this is where the book birthed for me.

00:59:36.140 So at my launch party, this woman stands up also at the end and she goes, this is a different night.

00:59:40.900 and she goes I got your book in the mail this morning and I read it this afternoon

00:59:45.100 and she said I think this is your atonement and I was like oh my god you know she's like

00:59:53.580 what do you think about that but I mean she had been like I mean I was a camp speaker yeah for

00:59:59.420 almost 15 years like this is these are the messages that I was giving and I you know I'm

01:00:05.240 just like yeah I think this is yeah and I will never stop atoning but like this is what I said

01:00:12.160 the thousands of kids like totally yeah I do still find a home in the Christian tradition

01:00:17.060 I'm on the the very far opposite side of it I call the Episcopal church home now um but I that's 0.99

01:00:24.540 where I I see the harm that is happening um again theologically but also to particular people groups

01:00:31.280 and i i'm not going to send my kids there um my boys are uh mixed race or black um and depending

01:00:39.440 on the day and on how they choose to identify that day i also realize the exclusion um that

01:00:45.140 oftentimes happens in these environments to people of color in particular and i know how

01:00:50.240 important their racial identities are and i'm not about to put them in a position of harm to

01:00:56.660 the detriment of their identities as young black men. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't even talk about how

01:01:03.260 whiteness is kind of the assumed status quo in these spaces. I mean, my camp experiences were

01:01:09.000 incredibly white. And I think it's one of those things that a white evangelical church, they 0.82

01:01:14.620 never say that they're white. And a lot of them aren't entirely white. There are people of color

01:01:19.380 that are held up as an example of why we are not a white supremacist space. But you can still,

01:01:25.760 like they are governed by norms of whiteness in ways that are very important and that people

01:01:31.360 internalize 100 i mean they like so camps were established in the late 1800s they were established

01:01:39.600 as a place for young white men to get out of urban environments into nature so that's how

01:01:46.640 they birthed not um as far as like the american camping association like the roots of that

01:01:51.820 Um, they also have their roots in the revivalist movement and in, um, all the wagons that came

01:01:57.260 across the country, the camp meetings that were taking place, but you look at that and

01:02:02.100 then you look at the environments and, um, you, you look at the numbers within these

01:02:06.980 environments.

01:02:07.360 So the reality is that across the board, 85% of staff members in camps that are with, that

01:02:15.320 are within the ACA, the American camping association, 85% are white.

01:02:19.320 So 15% people of color identifying.

01:02:22.220 As far as it goes with numbers of campers within white evangelicalism, 75% white identifying.

01:02:29.620 But you look at that and I mean, I think there are so many different questions we can ask

01:02:35.360 around that, but we can also recognize the assimilation and the conformity into norms 0.55

01:02:41.760 of whiteness that are taking place.

01:02:43.440 so just to read super quick um this is from one of the from one of the young men that i interviewed

01:02:49.520 he is a black by bisexual man and he said i lament the idea i needed to buy chacos

01:02:56.400 use multi-color highlighters from my bible and listen to white christian music to feel like i 0.50

01:03:01.920 was a part of what god was doing as a black kid i felt forced to sacrifice the parts of my blackness

01:03:07.880 i loved and the parts i didn't even know existed to have a seat at the table which was built on

01:03:13.160 white normativity i do not like comfort color shirts but that's what i wore because young life

01:03:18.560 told me that's what i should like my blackness was once used as the punch line of a skip because 0.98

01:03:23.880 my area director said there would be nothing funnier than a large angry black man coming in

01:03:29.200 and tackling someone so i think about that and i i think about this young man whom i felt honored to

01:03:36.560 share an hour or two across the screen with and to see that which he is still unpacking and for me

01:03:43.320 that stays with me and that is part of what needs to be named but that's also part of what I'm not

01:03:49.100 going to send my children into at the risk of their own identities yeah this intersects too

01:03:56.240 with an episode that we just did on intensive parenting norms and that like I don't think that

01:04:00.260 you should have to like police everything that your kid is ingesting at camp right like I don't

01:04:06.300 want that like that shouldn't be the norm but in situations like this it is actually incredibly

01:04:12.660 harmful because they're in incredibly intense spaces that imprint ideologically in ways that

01:04:19.880 like as evidenced by all of our stories here we are still unpacking decades later yeah so just

01:04:26.760 I mean YMCA camp it's a different story it's not I love the YMCA yeah yeah like Girl Scout camp I 0.99

01:04:35.500 don't have I do not have this shit from Girl Scout camp. Not at all. French camp. Nope. Science camp. 0.99

01:04:41.600 Nope. Like, not saying camp is bad. Camp is great. This type of camp. Can we end with what was your

01:04:48.380 favorite praise song from camp? Oh, my gosh, I might give you two. Feel free to cut these out.

01:04:54.320 No, I would say this is this is not a praise song, but it is memorable. So from my first from my

01:05:00.360 growing up years um my favorite camp song at the camp of my childhood was called you can't get to

01:05:07.020 heaven um and i don't know if you want to sing it with me but it is a little bit of a no i don't

01:05:11.440 know that one do you know that one melody no oh my gosh melody we might i don't think so you didn't

01:05:16.540 write this in your journal um so it goes like this oh you can't get to heaven and then you sing

01:05:22.600 Oh you can't. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you can't get to heaven. Oh, you can't

01:05:27.100 get to heaven in a Kleenex box. In a Kleenex box. Oh, you can't get to heaven. Oh, you can't

01:05:34.040 get to heaven in a Kleenex box. Oh, you can't get to heaven in a Kleenex box. Cause God

01:05:42.980 don't like them little snots. All my sins are washed away. I've been redeemed by the 0.98

01:05:51.340 Blood of the Lamb.

01:05:54.920 I'm kind of losing it because I can't look at you and sing it straight face.

01:05:59.080 There's so much going on there.

01:06:01.300 There's so much to unpack in that.

01:06:04.180 There's always Blood of the Lamb, man. 0.94

01:06:05.980 And those little snotts. 0.99

01:06:09.140 God don't like them little snotts. 1.00

01:06:11.180 It's a real tonal shift. 0.68

01:06:13.660 What about this song that you were like,

01:06:15.840 this is the most beautiful praise song.

01:06:18.440 Like, this is the song that I always want to be last song.

01:06:22.140 I mean, my favorite forever, and this also dates me, but I loved Seeky First.

01:06:28.300 Oh, I love Seeky First.

01:06:29.300 And the reason why is because I would sing the soprano part over the top.

01:06:34.140 So I'd be like this.

01:06:35.400 All of a sudden, I would just bust out this angelic voice that's cascading down over the top.

01:06:43.600 I was helping bring everyone to Jesus.

01:06:45.480 I mean sitting around the campfire singing that song it was it was a thing it was a thing

01:06:52.080 we would sing our god is an awesome god which is a very popular very common song

01:06:57.840 not only did we use the hand movements which were like bastardized sign language

01:07:03.480 which were very important but then at the very end after the last verse like you and this is

01:07:10.960 kind of the belonging thing like you learn these traditions at the end of the last verse everyone

01:07:16.420 got completely quiet and this is our the place where we sang was on logs yeah on a beach on the

01:07:24.580 lake and then you would yell jesus like really loud so that it would echo and hit like this is

01:07:32.460 like this is in podunk middle of nowhere uh northeastern washington but there were like some

01:07:39.060 some meth trailers out along that that um that lake that i'm sure heard jesus every single night

01:07:45.860 so that's one of my favorites um this has been an emotional wonderful episode like when we were 0.52

01:07:54.600 getting ready to tape i was like oh it's gonna bring up some shit it's gonna be good um and i

01:08:01.660 hope others who had no familiarity um learned something about how we all got messed up and

01:08:09.040 those who did have some familiarity found it cathartic in some way um if people want to find

01:08:14.600 more about you and your work where can they find you on the internet well first of all you can buy

01:08:18.380 a copy of church camp it is available wherever books are sold um they can you can find me on

01:08:23.480 the internet though um i am carameredithwrites on instagram and then on substack i'm carameredith.substack.com

01:08:32.200 Amazing.

01:08:32.860 Thank you so much.

01:08:34.600 Thank you.

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Culture Study Podcast - August 13, 2025

The Potent Ideological Stew of Evangelical Church Camp

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