Your reaction to this thought-provoking documentary about an evangelical Christian summer camp for kids lies not only in your religious beliefs but also in your convictions on the separation of church and state. But it doesn’t matter on which side of the fence you reside. It’s almost impossible not to respond emotionally to this fascinating, sobering and all-too-brief exploration of the politicized religious right and its hopes, dreams and power.

Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady bookend “Jesus Camp” with radio reports on Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement from the Supreme Court and the announcement of Samuel Alito’s nomination to replace her. In between, they follow a group of Lee’s Summit, Mo., kids who attend the Kids on Fire camp in Devil’s Lake, N.D., where they sing, praise God and President Bush and even get a chance to preach.

They are led by energetic Pentecostal youth minister Becky Fischer, whom audiences will view either as a dedicated servant of God or a nightmarish, narrow-minded scourge of freedom. Despite the fact that its creators try to present the material dispassionately, “Jesus Camp” is not a movie that inspires temperate emotion, and plenty of Christians will be offended by some of Fischer’s soundbites.

Acting as a secular chorus throughout the film is talk-show host Mike Papantonio, whose “Ring of Fire” show airs on Air America. Papantonio identifies himself as a Christian – he is in fact a liberal Methodist – but he fears what he sees as the indoctrination of children into beliefs that challenge a fundamental and necessary political tradition.

A Lee's Summit, Mo., youngster responds to the words of a Pentacostal youth minister in a scene from the documentary Jesus

The first documentary from Ewing and Grady, “The Boys of Baraka,” followed African American boys who left their Baltimore neighborhood to attend a boarding school in Kenya. Now, again, the filmmakers display their skills at getting kids to open up while keeping themselves firmly out of the picture. We meet a girl who admits her dancing is not always for the spirit but occasionally “for the flesh”; a 9-year-old who fearlessly approaches a stranger to talk about God at a bowling alley; a fascinating, articulate 12-year-old who sports an extreme mullet, aspires to be a preacher and says, in one unintentionally hilarious moment, that at 5 he realized he wanted “more out of life” and so became a Christian.

Children who attend the Kids on Fire camp in Devil's Lake, N.D., praise God and a cardboard cutout of President Bush in the documentary Jesus

Statements like that lend credence to the theory that the camp’s adults are performing an unsavory indoctrination, especially when the kids are handed plastic fetuses and told to pray to a cardboard cutout of President Bush to nominate an anti-abortion judge. Fischer chortles about her young charges, “They’re so usable.” Equally disturbing is her inability to see the irony in fretting about young suicide bombers in Palestine, then joyously proclaiming that she wants to see these children “laying down their lives for the gospel.”

But for the most part, Ewing and Grady wisely leave interpretations to the viewers, who are going to enter the theater with prejudices anyway. “Jesus Camp” may be stirring controversy, but the conversations it has spurred are worth having. And anyone shocked by what goes on at Devil’s Lake just hasn’t been paying attention.