Carry on Camping

Through my work with the churches & Scripture Union I spend a lot of time in the summer at Christian Camps. I have also been involved in them for donkeys years as a kid and in running them. Again I feel the need to justify them as 'religious' camps are so often misunderstood and criticised (deservedly sometimes although not in the case of any I am associated with). The camps are up front about their faith base, so people usually go expecting some sort of 'God slot'. That's what they get, but I think they are more geared to encouraging people to ask questions about faith, themselves and their existence. They present Christianity as the right choice, but I don't think they overstep the mark and try to brainwash or force it. So for me as a kid I came back from the camps accepting Christianity because I could see through the Christians there that it was a the best choice, rater than making that decision out of fear of hell, fire and damnation!

I have therefore found myself challenged by the opening of the first so called 'atheist camp' in the UK. It strongly denies it is anti religious, but has a strong humanist value base and promotes free thinking. Would I send my kid to a camp like that? Well if it's true to its word i shouldn't have any concerns. But people are people and all of us find it hard to remain impartial when it comes to the things important to us. Listening to the camp leaders on the radio I just got a sense of slight bitterness coming through, that perhaps the church had failed him earlier in life. They do this thing where the kids are told the story of a good and bad unicorn that has been passed through the generations. The challenge is to prove they exist, and presumably because no kid will ever succeed then that must mean God doesn't exist either! It's a very weak argument as it completely bypasses the central part of all religions...faith. It's irrational, but it's what 'religious' people build their lives around. Anyway, just to dispel any ideas that my camps brainwash people, I was interested to hear through Facebook that a girl from our camp has become the chair of the atheist society at university.

To add a lighter note to this heavy stuff, here is comedian David Mitchell's thoughts on the matter.


This year, the greatest pity must surely be reserved for the 24 eight- to 17-year-olds being packed off to the Richard Dawkins-supported atheists' camp in Somerset.

For them, the usual trekking and canoeing will be supplemented by sessions on rational scepticism and evolutionary biology, and group singing of "Imagine". Jesus Christ. Try telling them that there's no such thing as purgatory after that.

It must be weird for those kids, growing up with parents so insistent that they keep an open mind. Those brought up to be devoutly religious often kick against it. Maybe we can look forward to a new generation of archbishops, radical imams and cult leaders emerging from the camp's alumni?

Anything is better than their reaching adulthood telling their peers: "I was brought up to question everything, so I do."

But how are busy parents supposed to keep their kids out of both their hair and trouble over a hot summer? Here are a few other new schemes for independent-minded families:

Conspiracy Theorists' Camp - For children of parents who believe in questioning everything, including what is self-evidently true.

"We'll be spending a week in the shadow of Sellafield nuclear processing plant (it's where THEY don't want us to go - this way we're off the grid). After scanning everyone for subdermal microchips, we'll hold sessions on why no one has landed on the moon, why Princess Diana was both murdered and is not dead, and how there's a prophesy about 9/11 on the back of the Turin shroud. Also hiking. Bring cagoules."

Spirituality Camp - For children of parents who believe in being open to everything, including what is self-evidently bullshit.

"Join us for a week of exploration in the New Forest! As well as seeking out crystal skulls and listening for flower spirits, we'll be discussing and enthusing about hundreds of sincerely held sets of belief. From reflexology to astrology, from ghosts to homeopathy, from wheat intolerance to 'having a bad feeling about this', we'll be celebrating all the wild and wonderful sets of conclusions to which people the world over are jumping to fill the gap left by the retreat of organised religion."