[2] According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view" and attempts to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community".

Rachael, who also attends Levi's church (her father was assistant pastor at the time), is seen praying over a bowling ball during a game early in the film, and evangelizes to strangers, telling them that Jesus loves them.

Children are shown a series of plastic models of developing fetuses, and have their mouths covered with red tape with "Life" written across it.

Afterward, Levi, Rachael, Tory, their families and several other children take part in a Justice House of Prayer rally held by Engle in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Fischer explains that she does not believe that people are able to choose their belief system once they pass childhood, and that it is important that they be "indoctrinated" in evangelical Christian values from a young age.

Jesus Camp was screened at Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival against the wishes of the distribution company, Magnolia Pictures.

Furthermore, on the DVD commentary, Heidi and Grady refer to the central character, Becky Fischer, as "a great documentary subject" because of her charisma.

[15] Michael Smith of the Tulsa World gave the film three out of four, describing it as "impressive in its even-handed presentation", "straightforward" and "a revealing, unabashed look at the formation of tomorrow's army of God".

[16] The Chicago Tribune reviewer Jessica Reaves also gave the film three out of four and wrote that Jesus Camp is "an enlightening and frank look at what the force known as Evangelical America believes, preaches and teaches their children" and concludes that what the filmmakers "have accomplished here is remarkable—capturing the visceral humanity, desire and unflagging political will of a religious movement".

[17] David Edelstein of CBS Sunday Morning, New York, and NPR finds Jesus Camp "a frightening, infuriating, yet profoundly compassionate documentary about the indoctrination of children by the Evangelical right".

[18] Some reviewers responded negatively: Rob Nelson of the Village Voice called the movie "[an] absurdly hypocritical critique of the far right's role in the escalating culture war",[19] and J. R. Jones of the Chicago Reader criticized the film for "failing to distinguish the more fundamentalist Pentecostals" and for inserting "unnecessary editorializing" by using clips from Mike Papantonio's radio show.

[20] Jesus Camp was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 79th Academy Awards;[4] it lost to Davis Guggenheim and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.