A Teenage Holy War – Shiny Happy People

Audience Reviews

View More

Tara W. @tdubs88 Aug 30 Extremely interesting and definitely eye opening. A great documentary and extremely informative about an organization I was familiar with growing up in a Christian church. Definitely watch! See more J Aug 22 This is what happens when a cultist makes a show on cults. The people explain in the last episode all the worst traits and values bestowed on them as part of Christianity and then immediately demonstrate they still possess all these traits and justify it by aiming it somewhere else. Now they think there are fascists and they cut up people talking to make it sound like they are saying complete different things. You know, something you would do if you were on a cult. See more Stephanie P Aug 20 Wow, really nailed it on the head!! It was so weird seeing something that I lived through and knowing how the people being interviewed felt!! Knowing, okay, I'm not crazy, this did happen!! See more Nova K Aug 16 1 minute you're watching a series on an organization that a majority of my generation (that were Christian) probably thought about joining and the next minute they're talking about how evil the right wing of our government is. The producers just doubled down on re- abusing the people that shared their trauma to push a political agenda. They literally spliced their agenda into very raw emotional parts of interviews (of victims talking about Teen Mania) to scare us. Besides that, I'm glad it went bankrupt because they were straight up abusing children and I feel like the leadership of that organization should be in jail. See more Bryce T Aug 5 Interesting and compelling story as told by the young people who participated in Teen Mania. I didn’t feel as though this season did as good of a job establishing where Teen Mania fit within the greater culture the documentary was critiquing nor did we get to understand the leaders of Teen Mania in the same way we learned about the “quiver full” theology in season 1. I also thought the conclusion was a bit silly. After focusing on the spiritual and emotional trials of the teenagers who participated in the ministry, the documentary just jumps the tracks and barrels towards the conclusion that the evangelical community is coming after you. It’s a shame because one of the third-party witnesses to the Teen Mania craze (a Rolling Stone Magazine journalist who wrote a feature on the ministry) does a very thorough job of outlining the perils of the organization’s methods and how it impacted honest young people. Instead of exploring the way these young men and women dealt with questions of faith after leaving the ministry, they pivot to political issues such as the “convention of states.” It feels as though the filmmakers decided the documentary needed to end on this blaring alarm bell of “watch out for these people” when the previous ~3 hours of story telling didn’t earn that type of conclusion. Just like in season 1, I don’t think the filmmakers truly appreciate the meaning and depth of the spiritual conversations their interviews and archival footage provoke. I’m left with the impression that the filmmakers were less interested in discussing how traditional biblical values like living for Christ and shunning the culture could spiral into obviously un-Christlike actions and institutions than they were pointing at a failed and terribly flawed program like Teen Mania. The intent of the documentary is to convince the viewer that all evangelical Christians are like the men behind Teen Mania, but the words and actions of its subjects point to a much more profound conversation-one the filmmakers weren’t interested in or capable of having. See more Brent T Aug 4 I went on a mission trip with these folks when I was 12. It was kind of fun and really dumb. That was before we knew that christo-fascism was actively seeking to take over the world. Their theology was heretical, their christology was idolatrous, and their financial scheme was a failure because they didn't actually do anything other than raise money from participants. Watch this to see a time capsule view of how the Christianity of the Satanic Panic created a generation of idol worshipping heretics (who now sit on our courts and in our legislatures). See more Read all reviews

Shiny Happy People — A Teenage Holy War

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW