Documentary chronicling the life of a teenager in Lubbock, Texas named Shelby Knox begins with the Southern Baptist and aspiring opera singer attending a youth assembly called True Love Waits at her parents’ side.

Led by a charismatic youth pastor named Ed Ainsworth – who announces “Safe sex? You have been lied to, kids!” – the teens are warned not to get hurt “physically, mentally, emotionally and financially” by becoming sexually active. At the end of the assembly, they receive rings and give vows to their parents to abstain from sex until marriage.

Shelby becomes active in the Lubbock Youth Commission, an organization empowered by the mayor to give the town’s teenagers a voice in local government. Exposed for the first time to older, more experienced kids who fall outside her church clique, Shelby – a bright, passionate kid who enjoys the limelight and having her voice heard – begins to campaign for better sex education in schools.

She takes up her cause with fervor, but when she runs for president of the commission, loses to a student one year her senior who aspires to one day be mayor. With most of Lubbock – in one form or another – against sex education or tolerance being taught in the schools, Shelby quits the commission, and throws her support behind a group of students suing the Lubbock School Board for the right to form a gay and lesbian alliance on campus.

Directed by Marion Lipschultz and Rose Rosenblatt, this aired last year on PBS as part of the network’s long running POV series, which showcases independent documentary film. It was funded by grants from Hewlett-Packard, American Documentary, and the Playboy Foundation, among others.

The Education of Shelby Knox ranks with Bowling For Columbine as one of the best made, most thought provoking documentaries in recent memory. Lipschultz & Rosenblatt spent three years with Knox, and while it’s never a question which side of the sex ed debate the filmmakers fall on, they do a commendable job giving screen time to the Southern Baptists and conservatives with different values, and document life in a small town with honesty and terrific finesse.

The camera operators here have a remarkable, fleet footed ability to get their lenses in the exact precise spot where some priceless event is occurring. In a scene where Ainsworth makes his rounds and jokingly accuses a teenager of drinking, the camera quickly pans down to the parking lot as the kid tries to walk a straight line to demonstrate his sobriety.

The style of the film owes such a big debt to The Real World that I expected to see “Created by Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray” appear on screen after the pop music transitions. As for the content, the shows are poles apart. Sex education is only part of it. This is a story about someone who believed everything she was raised to believe, but after being exposed to diversity, simply started asking questions, questions that never get answered to her satisfaction.

To be fair, Knox shares the same air of superiority many of her opponents fashion. She seems motivated to spread the sex education gospel primarily as an aid for all the poor souls out there who didn’t have the great church or family support that she did. While her words sometimes betray that vanity, her evolution as a free thinker is noticeably more profound than the adults who criticize her.

Ainsworth is a highly personable guy who wants to help kids, but actually tells Shelby that “Christianity is the most intolerant view in the world,” as if he’s proud of it. Her parents, Danny and Paula, are at a loss to explain what would have provoked their little girl to become a Democrat, but when her mother decides to join Shelby on the picket line, it’s plain to see that being raised in a family that encouraged tolerance had a lot to do with it.

Even though she stood at the same assembly where her daughter pledged sexual purity, Paula Knox is capable of later acknowledging that this view might not be very realistic. Shelby – who as far as the film is concerned, keeps her chastity vows – arrives at the conclusion that God wants His believers to question life, and has no use for blind followers.

A lot has been written about Islam reconciling its moderate factions with its radical, intolerant ones, but this film shows that the same battle is occurring within Christianity. It’s not being waged in war zones, but in courts, school boards and towns like Lubbock. This is highly recommended.