The most terrifying social condition our culture could contend with has been born again, and it is gaining speed. It is embodied in part by this season’s freshest horror flick, “Jesus Camp,” and is gaining increasing proximity to the forefront of our social consciousness, even as you read this.

Pastor Becky Fischer, the now iconoclastic figurehead of Jesus Camp and resident soothsayer of biblical inerrancy, said that, “If he had been in the Old Testament, Harry Potter would have been put to death.” Her ravishing beauty is only tempered by the brimstone she spews from her ears and 40-pound lamb shanks she brandishes as arms. Fischer decries that, “You do not make heroes out of warlocks.” She seems very confident Jesus wouldn’t like the Potter series. The children she preaches to seem to agree. Between their welcomed spasmodic writhing and epileptic fits of faith on the floor, they praise Jesus. Maybe Jesus should seek book recommendations from a more stable source. Perhaps Oprah.

Irony pervades at Jesus Camp, whose official title is “Kids on Fire evangelical summer program.” I won’t touch the fact that Jesus Camp is situated in Devil’s Lake, N.D., or that the camp’s mantra is “take back America for Christ.”

Under the dubious tutelage of Fischer, the young disciples (the preferred nomenclature for “camper”) of Kids on Fire learn to combat what they deride as the evil influences of society … which of course translates to abortion and homosexuality. Leaders of this camp argue that their efforts are the response to Islamic Fundamentalists who, because their youth are presented with rocks and grenades to lob, the Bible touting correlatives find it prudent to present their youth with an inexorable sense of fear and intolerance. And excuse them, but they “have the truth.”

It beats watching cartoons all day.

They have erected a Christian flag, which waves resplendent in front of the designated colors of this nation, an action ominously reminiscent of Hitler Youth. They pledge allegiance to such a flag — a fitting beginning to a day of indoctrination and a spiritual point d’honneur of weeding out the infidels.

These children are on a one-track course to getting pulled over and blaming the Jews for their DUI.

One such young disciple, a 12-year-old with a pseudo-mullet ponytail, claims he was saved at the tender age of 5. He preaches with the determination and vitriolic candor of a reanimated Billy Graham, except Billy Graham never wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Jesus” stylized like a Reese’s candy wrapper … at least not in public.

Evangelism is tightening its stronghold on the American mainstream. Before he was outed as a paying patron of gay sex and methamphetamine, Ted Haggard, the once lauded president of the influential National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group representing more than 30 million like-minded purveyors of religious and Republican piety, held weekly court with George W. Bush, actively campaigning against gay marriage and fighting to abolish separation of Church and State via frequent “faith-based initiative” advisory meetings with the White House. The irony here is as endless as it is haunting. The very definition of hypocrisy aside, the idea that one man inundated with such extreme spiritual bellicosity could impart any amount of influence on the governing body of the United States of America is enough to make anyone expatriate.

But the biblical lunacy of evangelists is nothing new. You can revel in their maudlin ignorance and supreme indignation every night on the “700 Club.” What is new and what is disconcerting is that the fundies are mobilizing. They are training. They are moving to bring about the Rapture tomorrow.

Children vehemently throw their hands up during sermons in such a way that you would think they were being offered free ponies, yet these children rally to give their lives up for Jesus. They call themselves “God’s army.” They are ready, too ready, to take up arms against non-believers. They have already declared their war.

“We can’t have phonies in the army of God,” Fischer warns, as she guilts her pre-pubescent congregation into an impromptu baptism by water bottle.

Believe that there are children in this country that pray that George W. Bush appoints “righteous judges” that will overturn Roe v. Wade. Believe that they don camouflage and enact precious choreographic numbers on the glory of the Lord as their parents clap along like blind seals. They let out hosannas between their eschatological arts and crafts periods, and clamor to lay touch to a cardboard cut-out of Dubya like some perverted holy artifact.

Evangelism is real, and it is scary. No longer a priest and a rabbi on Public Access, the God Squad is a very real band of brainwashed youth, born again within six years of being born the first time. Jesus Camp is real, and it keeps me up at night.

Max Lakin is a junior English and rhetoric major. He will be having dinner at the new restaurant Hitler’s Cross in Mumbai, which he will attend in his Bar Mitzvah suit and matching yarmulke.