Were You Coerced to Go to Christian Bible Camp?

I went to Quaker camp for four summers as a child and let me tell you, there was never a religious camp for the young with less god in it than Quaker camp. Course they were just one week jobbies more for socializing and learning about contemporary Quakerism than they were for indoctrination (I mean, it’s Quakers, c’mon), but hey, maybe that’s the way it should be. I remember playing capture the flag and tie-dying socks more than anything else. Alas that some child must suffer at their religious summer camps D:

My parents, who I’m sure were just trying to get me out of their hair, often sent me packing to various Episcopal, Presbyterian and Boy Scout camps (yes, the Boy Scouts are a religious organization). I didn’t especially like them, but I encountered no offensive indoctrination. Of course, those are pretty liberal churches. I was just a kid, but I was an atheist. I kept that to myself.

Well I suspect camps vary. Grace Bible Camp’s kids schedule seems to include 40 minutes for personal/cabin devotion, 45 minutes of Bible study, 105 minutes of chapel (split into morning and evening services), and possibly more depending on what “Surprise Hour” is. A total of 3 hours plus of solid religion per day every day.

A Quaker or Unitarian Universalist camp is likely to be more relaxed.

I did go to a YMCA summer camp one year (my parents were redoing the house interior). I don’t recall any religion.

My daughter was an atheist before I was. While we still were going to church, I gave her the option of going to the summer and fall camps. I didn’t force or coerce her to go (I honestly would have rather had the time with her instead of paying money for a camp while I sat home and missed her). As a social being whose friends were all going to camp, of course she wanted to go to be with her friends. She always had a good time, and because she is a very animated person naturally, she was never harassed by the counselors (they assumed she had “the spirit” since she danced and clapped and sang and stuff during the songs).

My daughter is probably an exception, though. She is the child of an atheist and a (former) christian, so she saw both sides from the beginning and was able to come to her own conclusions early.

I fortunately was never forced to go to any camp, but the local church had a summer “Vacation Bible School” for a few hours a day over a week which my brother and I were forced to go to for a few years.

I don’t think a single kid there was in it entirely by their own choice. Obviously parents often need to encourage their kids to do anything rather than just sitting around playing video games all summer, but if you give a churchload of kids the choice between bible camp and some other secular summer camp (not necessarily Camp Quest, but even a band camp or something else relating to the kids interest) I am willing to bet that not a single kid will choose the bible camp.

Back when I was a theist, I worked as a counselor at a Christian camp run by the Southern Baptist Association. The kids were definitely coerced into coming by their respective churches.

At the end of each week’s camp, we had an evangelist come to preach, with the goal of getting campers to “get saved” or “rededicate their lives to Christ.” We did fun things during the week, but there was always an Christian take on everything we did. There were no courses on critical thinking or making rational decisons.

Hey Emily- I went to a Christian Science camp in Pennsylvania that had almost no religion involved.

Heres what was involved:

Random abandonment of the scheduled events for an all camp mudfight in the best rainstorm ever

Getting out of the early bedtime for astronomy class (no mention of god here, either)

Making model rockets

Catching rattlesnakes, newts, frogs, anything else that looked cool
Pottery

And my favorite thing for a religious camp?

Skinny dipping with the hippyish counselors.

Also, one Sunday a lot of people had a day off so they had the head cook teach a Sunday school class. He was an atheist (which the camp knew) and was just there because he had a ton of fun working there and got paid for it.

I miss camp.

I was a cub scout and then a boy scout for my entire childhood. The only time I have ever attended church was when I was forced to go to a service at one of these camps.

It was horrible, it made me cry. I told them I didn’t want to go, I told them I don’t believe in God, I don’t go to church, I was confused and hurt.

They didn’t drag me there physically but they certainly threatened to. I was told that “every one was going” and that attendance was non-optional.

It was a pretty traumatic event.

I just wanted to go camping…

When I was a child, I was forced to go to both Vacation Bible School and Bible Camp (which my church called retreats). Actually, there were a few summers where I had to go to TWO Vacation Bible Schools, one at my mother’s church and one at my aunt’s.

I recall one of the last Retreats I was forced to go to was particularly miserable. My real friends were going camping at the beach that same weekend, but I was not allowed to go because it conflicted with the retreat.

One of the things that really disillusioned me with the other youths at that church were some of the hypocritical gangbangers/wannabe gangbangers that would go for social reasons.

On that last retreat, I wandered off one night to explore the woods on my own. Back in the main camp, people could see my movement and flashlight and for whatever reason I really scared some of the other kids, because they thought I was a bear. A few of the older kids came over to check out what was going on. One of the much older and larger kids discovered me, and for reasons I don’t entirely understand–my best guess is embarrassment–he started beating me, and I was hurt pretty badly. I didn’t go back to my bunk that night, because I overheard some of the other older kids talking about the incident, and I was afraid I’d get jumped there, too.

Oh, and the food was terrible.

I went to Children’s Bible Camp at Camp Raglan, NZ (http://www.cbm.org.nz/campraglan/campraglan.htm) most holidays, from when I was about 8 or 10 till I was 16, first as a camper, later as a junior leader. I always went voluntarily, and loved it… most of the time. They were bloody strict, and boys and girls were barely allowed to interact, least of all exchange contact details to stay in touch after camp (even the junior leaders!).
We had morning and evening service every day, group devotions time, bible verse memorisation competitions, and Thursday nights were always “holy spirit night” – people would speak in tongues, shake, collapse on the floor… you know, all the usual shit that happens when the holy spirit enters you.
Looking back, it was disgusting. It was indoctrinating as hell, they were right, everyone else was wrong, if you disagreed, your opinion was not discussed and acknowledged, rather you were corrected. And because we were in groups for a points race with a prize awaiting at the end (chocolate bars, bibles, christian books…), most kids did their best to learn their bible verses and be as “christian” as possible, whether they believed or not. If they didn’t, the rest of their group would give them hell for letting their team down, and they’d probably get in trouble from their leaders.
The guy who ran the camp I remember as an authoritarian bastard who got off on the power trip of being in charge of all these kids… most of the kids were scared of him, and the whole Camp experience makes me sick when I think about it now.

I went to “Vacation Bible School” too. I also went to Bible Camp for weeks at a time in junior high during summer. There were no other camp “choices.” We drove to church and took the bus from there into the mountains. We learned about the evils of Dungeons and Dragons, and we sang this song I’ll never forget:

Will ya won’tcha ain’tcha gonna,

If I coax ya wontcha wanna,

Aw come on ya saidja would,

Why dontcha wanna talk about Jesus, ooh ooh.

We would start slow and speed up until the words were just a blur. Ah memories.

I went to one church camp for a week or so with some friends who belonged to a church.

I think there was a prayer before mealtimes. But other than that I don’t remember much religious content.

I do remember the swimming and the talent show and that one night they showed us Creature from the Black Lagoon.

That was awesome!

I did Vacation Bible School several summers at a few different churches, and as a teenager helped babysit the younger kids during VBS. All I ever heard about church camp was from the friend who used it as an opportunity to smoke pot out in the woods. I have a feeling that among the older age groups at least as much of that goes on as praying.

My parents were relatively non-religious people, but I was still forced into a Methodist day-camp for the summer because it billed itself as just a babysitting thing.

It sucked beyond all comprehension, was full of truly hateful people and tried to teach us bad Christian music.

I was raised in a strict christian household. My parents were southern-baptists with deep roots in evangelism and fundamentalism. My first church service was at the tender age of three weeks. I wasn’t allowed to not attend church from then until I turned eighteen. Compulsory church required bible study and two services per Sunday, one service on Wednesday twice a month, AWANAs (weekly child indoctrination), vacation bible school during summer break, mandatory pre-meal prayer, and summer church camp. Church was our family’s only social outlet, the preferred source of friends, and the only acceptable activities outside of sports.

I spent many summers at church camp, pretty much every summer from 4th to 12th grade. When younger, I enjoyed the socialization and outdoor activities. It was exciting to be away from home with other kids my age, playing tug-o-war and capture-the-flag, singing songs, eating s’mores. Services, devotionals, sermons, worship, prayer, and bible study filled most of our days at some of the camps and other camps required as few as 4 hours per day. When you’re a kid, almost everything that doesn’t involve your parents is fun.

As I grew older, the pressure to believe and agree often resulted in my acting out and breaking the rules. I didn’t quite understand yet that I was an atheist; I’d never been given the option to not believe in their god. So, I broke the rules, sometimes I got caught, once I got sent home. Eventually, right about the time I graduated high school, I found myself permanently barred from our church campus. Turns out “men of god” don’t take kindly to uppity women with funny ideas about science and reason (as well as the audactiy to ask WHY and argue for logic in the middle of Sunday morning bible study).

My point is that I’m vehemently against the indoctrination of children which caused me more than a little distress as a young adult.

My sister and I were both forced to go to a Pentecostal bible camp as children and teenagers, although — since I was the “good” one — I escaped after two years. I still had to attend one or two scream-fests a year, but that was superior to having to live there. I don’t have any real horror stories, because I only had to go two years: they have a cult-like atmosphere, but beyond that I really can’t say anything.

I am so sorry to hear about the awful experiences some of you had. Well intentioned (and not so well intentioned) people can really cause a lot of harm. I’m not a fan of camps of any flavour. I hate sharing rooms, trying to smile and be nice to people before I’ve brushed my teeth or had a coffee… I am a Christian and I do teach kids in our church about Jesus, but I would call frightening children, not giving them a choice and not encouraging them to ask questions and use critical reasoning to be spiritual abuse. Reading these comments has reminded me how crucial this is, thanks for sharing your experiences.

I’m not sure if this is a case of religion or not. In any society, some parents are going to force their kids to participate in whatever is perceived as the dominant social structure (think recreational sports leagues — in fact I wonder if youth soccer will someday replace church). In American society (especially in my beloved South), evangelical Christianity is part of that package. I was never forced to attend vacation Bible school as a child as my parents were not hyper-religious. However, in my small, rural community, if you wanted to do something fun in the summer with your peers (aside from hunting for crayfish, mooning passing cars and bottle-rocket wars) that meant going to VBS. Oddly, I learned some of the best “cuss” words and heard more about sex from the other campers than from any other secular source.

Yes and all of the little kids who attend anti-war rallies and pro-abortion rallies chose to do so after an extended period of research and reflection.

Guess what? Kids get coerced by their parents every day. Even if they are those bad old religious folks who dare not to share your enlightened and intrinsically correct views on the origin and nature of life.

My mom pretty much made me go to Bible camp for 3 summers.I never liked it and EVERYTHING we did was related to God. We went swimming. The water is holding us afloat just like God. We ate. Christianity was the only religion that completely nourished you. We had church 3 times a day and one night we had to watch a guy draw a picture of Jesus and the counselors got mad at me for not crying because he was bleeding. Then at the end they asked me “How has your relationship with God grown?” I almost answered truthfully and said, “It hasn’t grown because I don’t believe in him.” But then they would have talked to my mom and I’d have to deal with her. Eventually, I took up a job and got out of it.

I went to church camp semi-voluntarily as a child. I was a zealot at the time and never really enjoyed it, although that had more to do with the snotty popular kids who also went than the religion being shoved down our throats (and, I assure you, religion was shoved down our throats). The part that seems the most glaringly bizarre in retrospect was the police officer who came every year to warn us of the dangers of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll. He used the stage name of “Deputy Dawg” and had a particular vendetta against Ozzy Osbourne: he’d show us posters of Ozzy Osbourne and tell us how he had sexually abused the girls in the posters. According to him, one girl was blind because Ozzy had habitually shot cocaine into her eyeballs (and the poster was PROOF!). He also set up a table of seized drugs and paraphernalia for us to see so we’d all know what an eightball of coke or some heroin works looked like–probably not the smartest exhibit for a bunch of kids and adolescents.

When my brother and I were kids we were sent to a two-week summer bible camp. I’m guessing that it was free or my mother arranged for a sponsor of some sort. We were poor, but not at all religious. I was only told that we were going to summer camp. When I arrived I was surprised by the “fun” prayers they told us we would do at each meal. In the afternoons there was a bible study section, which completely confused me. My brother and I were the only kids that didn’t have copies of the bible. I caught on pretty fast and I was able to explain what we had read or had read to us fairly accurately. I sort of got a gold star in bible studies. Throughout my entire childhood I was amazed to learn that Christians took the stories of the bible literally. Even my grandmother was an atheist. When I was a teenager she told me “Dead is dead. I don’t believe in heaven or an afterlife”. After her death I learned that she had taught Sunday school when my aunts and uncles were children, but that was more of a social norm at that time. Sort of like serving on the home and school association or ladies auxiliary. I really liked Beavers, Cubs and Scouts when I was a kid. I was pretty clean cut and the idea of hanging out with other kids talking about nature and citizenship appealed to me. I didn’t understand why this had to be done in a church. Later I learned you had to profess some sort of belief in god to stay with them. Which hastened my departure.

I’m so happy people are coming together to talk about their experiences with youth groups, bible camps and cubs/scouts. My mother sent me to bible camps, youth groups and my father taken me to cubs/scouts. It didn’t dawn on me the least, that my parents were sending me to be apart of their religion, and or me being a practicing Chrisitian. I recall reading the Bible during ‘Chapel’ , the people their were fun to be with, as sometimes there were skit’s held at night time. Still, the picture of Jesus, and zealot’s of Christian children/counsellors belief’s didn’t dawn on me that I was apart of a religious group. Now I remember looking back as it were singing ‘THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR THE GOOD GOOD FOOD’ or ‘ROMANS 3:16 SAY’S” during meal time. At that time it all seemed like fun, the question of the existence of God didn’t come up until much later in life, realizing the Bible doesn’t make much sense and all the time I still had a sense of reality. Like I wasn’t overly religious, like a girl I remember raising her hands in worship, I decided to mock to try to figure out what she was doing. The two boys behind my row in chapel starting to laugh at me, probably because they knew I was confused and hardly knew what was going on. Growing at home, my parents hardly explained the concept of religion, it was entirely up to me to figure it out on my own I suppose. Still, it makes me SO ANGRY, Christian’s set up these fun bible camps for children with tonnes of activities (which I was most likely obliged to take part in for summer fun), and get sucked into their way of thinking. Why can’t they’re be a camp for free thought? Where kids meet different kids from other cultures? A place where kids can grow, be creative and ask questions without bullshit religious dogma? IT’S NOT FAIR!