Baby Bible Bashers

[BelieveinScience]

I was browsing through the videos that were linked by 13 kids and wanting more thread link and found this documentary.

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v15575937B49RcfDp

 

The description-

Quote

Samuel Boutwell is a seven-year-old preacher. He takes his vocation to save sinners extremely seriously. Most Saturdays he stands in front of his local abortion clinic in Brookhaven, Mississippi and, Bible in hand, bellows: "Don't kill your child! Repent! God loves the little children!" He is one of three extraordinary children who feature in this week's Cutting Edge, Baby Bible Bashers, which follows the enlightening stories of these three of the Lord's "chosen children", and their relationships with God, their families and their congregations.

[Childless]

Give me a break. A seven year old does not have the mental capacity to understand religion, it's effect on society, or the many nuanced differences between sects. Most seven year olds do not even understand mortality. This kid is standing outside an abortion clinic shouting a script given to him by the adults in his life. His religion is not one he came to believe in through his own questioning and research. Why on earth would anyone take what he has to say seriously?

[Minerva]

He's only 7. There is still hope for him. Nothing extraordinary about him, though. Fundies use their kids as political mouthpieces all the time.

[JesusFightClub]

Anyone here seen the wee "Muslim" girl video? She's two and her dad is apparently putting her through a list of what seem like fairly hardcore questions. She lisps back answers. It's subbed, and my Arabic is about five words, so can't vouch for it, but it is adorable and very disturbing simultaneously.

[geniebelle6901]

There was a special on NatGeo had a special last year called "Pint-Size Preachers". Here's an CNN article about it.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/1 ... preachers/

[SealFan1963]

I had one of those kids come to my door years ago, he was about 8 and when I refused his offer of attending his church, he started screaming at me about how I would go to hell if I didn't repent, etc. I took my broom and chased him off my deck. The adult that was with him had stayed in the car. Freaks!

[BelieveinScience]

The video made me think of Zsu's kids.

[Peas n carrots]

I guess some think that having a cute kid will tell you the word will make you more receptive to the word of the Lard. I will maybe humor the kid and be a bit nicer about shooing them away, but it hardly makes me more receptive.

[teddybear]

Here is a four year old singing "Ain't no homo's gonna make it to heaven".

http://goodlawd.com/goodlawd-kid-sings- ... rch-video/

[mebeforee]

Those kids will either become just as fanatical to explain their own involvement here, or they'll feel really exploited. This doesn't prove anything about the children, it just says a lot about the parents and how far they'll go to make sure their children never have an original thought on the matter.

[alba]

This is even more revolting than the picture of a little Duggar holding a pro-life sign.

Children simply don't have the reasoning capacity to understand the nuances of religion, abortion, or sexuality.

[Kaylee]

I've seen some of these videos and I think it's kind of sad (reminds me of the movie Marjoe). I come from a tradition where it was common to have not kids, but young (12-16, sometimes younger) year old "preacher boys" get up and give short sermons and revivals and special nights or young kids "surrender to preach" and it always seemed to me like a lot of pressure to be under from a young age, and mostly the fault of the parents.

I have a friend who started preaching at 13 or 14 and took over pastoring his first church in his very early 20s. He's very smart and very dedicated to the Bible and preaching, but he is still very critical of the whole "preacher boy" thing and advises parents and teens/pre-teens against it. He also points out to other young preachers and those who want to preach that one of his biggest regrets is going straight from high school to "Bible college" and straight into pastoring, instead of going to a longer and more rigorous seminary program and having more life experience before taking over a church filled with people 2-3x his age and looking to him for spiritual guidance.

[CrazySister]

I HATE this!! I have serious issues with someone "preaching" who can't even vote! They have zero life experience and are developmentally incapable of relating to their "followers." I have two (unproven and my opinion only) theories about kids forced to do this: either they will end up athiest/agnostic abhorring their parents' belief system, or they'll end up like dear Mr. Uneducated, willfully ignorant, hate-mongering PP himself.

Edited for riffles.

[MetalLaLa]

The whole notion of child preachers just makes me believe even more in allowing your children to discover things naturally and not force your own views on such topics as sexuality, identity and religion onto them. Educate, don't dictate.

[tabitha2]

Children simply don't have the reasoning capacity to understand the nuances of religion, abortion, or sexuality.

Exactly.I think it is the same for children in pro-choice pickets also.

[fakepigtails73]

He reminds me of Isaac in "Children Of The Corn".

[Minerva]

Exactly.I think it is the same for children in pro-choice pickets also.

Mhm. Obviously people with kids can't always just go without them, but there's a difference between that and having your kid hold a sign. I do have a soft spot for dogs wearing feminist signs, though.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Give me a break. A seven year old does not have the mental capacity to understand religion, it's effect on society, or the many nuanced differences between sects. Most seven year olds do not even understand mortality. This kid is standing outside an abortion clinic shouting a script given to him by the adults in his life. His religion is not one he came to believe in through his own questioning and research. Why on earth would anyone take what he has to say seriously?

Even completely apart from the content of the preaching, the main "hook" is just "wow, look, a seven year old is speaking, he's a prodigy!" So the kid is going to build an identity on that - not doing anything particularly special, but doing it (or parroting it, more like) at a young age, so people say he's so smart, etc.

It's a long way to fall from there, once he hits his teenage years and giving a speech is no big deal, so he's just ordinary as everyone else catches up.

See also: Plenty of child stars, also various "youngest college kid evar!" stories where the kid is taking some community college at 8 and then is never heard from again.

SO much of this is about the parents' ego.

[thoughtful]

I've seen some of these videos and I think it's kind of sad (reminds me of the movie Marjoe).

For anyone who hasn't seen it already:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 0699935619

What an awful thing to do to a child.