Burning Man Kicked Out a Christian Camp This Week, But It Wasn’t for Preaching

A Christian missionary camp was evicted from Burning Man on Tuesday night, and by Wednesday the story going around online was that Black Rock City had thrown out a group of believers for preaching about Jesus. That isn’t what happened. The camp, Shift the Atmosphere, was escorted off the playa by law enforcement around 10 p.m. on Sept. 1. Camp member John Hinerman posted videos to Instagram alleging the group was discriminated against for its religion and given three hours to pack up. Those same videos say the complaint against the camp was about filming attendees without their consent. Burning Man’s rule on that is not ambiguous: no photos or video showing an attendee’s face without permission. It’s a policy the event has enforced for years, in a place where a lot of people are having experiences they would rather not find on someone else’s feed. “Burning Man takes participants’ right to privacy seriously,” spokesperson Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley said. “Seeking permission and consent before filming or engaging other participants in Black Rock City is a requirement and responsibility for anyone at the event. This camp received multiple warnings and opportunities to correct their behavior, yet continued to violate our policies and were therefore evicted.” The camp was giving away coffee and matcha and playing Christian EDM loudly enough that neighbors asked them to turn it down. Burner Christopher Pietsch said the camp was set up in Hushville, a section of Black Rock City where amplified music isn’t allowed. “They were giving away coffee and matcha,” Jenae Gerstmann, from a camp nearby, told SFGATE. “They definitely had some really loud music. We had to tell them, hey, the volume’s too high. You got to keep it down.” They turned it down. Julien Rabinow, camped at Axis of Stillness, said members of the camp invited him in to look at biblically inspired paintings and asked whether he was ready to submit his life to Jesus Christ. He declined, then let one of them pray for him anyway. “I can understand why some people might be a bit put off by the question, ‘Are you ready to submit your life to Jesus?'” Rabinow told SFGATE. “I’m not one of them. That’s just me.” The camp says more than 600 people gave their lives to Jesus that week, with baptisms conducted in small water tanks on the playa. The tanks were a separate violation — Burning Man prohibits public pools and communal water on bodies, a rule that comes from the Nevada state health department. Rabinow watched the teardown happen. “So we were hearing some shouting there, and then it calmed down,” he said. “We saw a cop car show up, and then we walked around there again, and we saw one of the structures had just like flopped over and was blocking the street there.” Nearby campers said the group left much of its gear behind when it went, breaking leave no trace — the one rule at Burning Man nobody argues about. Longtime attendees told USA Today they couldn’t remember an entire camp being removed mid-event before. Individuals get ejected. Camps don’t. The Bureau of Land Management, the Carson City Sheriff’s Office and Shift the Atmosphere did not comment. Shift the Atmosphere wasn’t asked to stop talking about Jesus. They were asked to stop pointing a camera at people who hadn’t agreed to be in the video, and refused.