Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Watch the Video

How does our theology (or lack thereof) inform our actions, how we raise our children, and ultimately what our nation will look like in the long-term? Today we talk with Kirk Cameron about how God has pursued him as a teenager and how the Lord is leading him to continually put his faith into action.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:

Welcome again. You have joined us for another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us someone that you're probably familiar with, Kirk Cameron. Kirk, welcome.

Kirk Cameron:

Thank you. Thank you. Nice to be with you.

Marlin Detweiler:

It is so good to have you here. You have been a wonderful influence in so many different ways and so many different things for such a long time. So tell us a little bit about yourself personally growing up and that sort of thing, and be sure to mention the significant highlights of your conversion because that was interesting to learn about.

Kirk Cameron:

Sure, well, thank you. I'm actually, I'm, I'm in Middle Tennessee right now visiting a few of our adult children. Most people remember me from Growing Pains, a TV show I did back in the 1980s. And I, at that time was a little wisecracking 14-year-old teenager. They called my character a hormone with feet.

Marlin Detweiler

And were you actually 14 also?

Kirk Cameron:

Yeah, I was pretty much the whole character that I was playing, getting into trouble, trying to stay out of it, giving my my brothers and sisters a hard time while trying to have a good time. And it was in the middle of that, that TV show, Growing Pains in the 1980s that I was converted out of atheism.

So I would have considered myself an atheist. My family never went to church. We never talked about God. I thought that Jesus was part of a different trinity. The Easter Bunny, the Tooth fairy, and God. It was when I met a really cute girl on the set of Growing Pains who invited me to meet with her family one weekend that I found myself at their church, and I heard the message of the gospel preached and went to a youth group meeting after that. That really got me thinking, and I started asking questions about the resurrection, about the Bible, about Christianity and other religions. What about science and evolution and eventually realized that there were really good answers to the questions that I had. Somebody else invited me to a church and gave me a Bible, and it made me start thinking about just the big questions of life, the existential questions, the big spiritual and philosophical questions.

What happens out there when we step out of here? When you die, where do you go? How did we get here in the first place? Is there really any point or purpose to life? And the Bible gave such compelling answers to those questions that I eventually became comfortable entertaining the idea that maybe I was wrong and God really did exist.

And I started hearing guys like Josh McDowell and Ravi Zacharias and John MacArthur and others who really got me believing that there were intelligent people on the faith side of things.

So this is how naive I was about everything Christianity and spiritual reality. And eventually, I was sitting in my sports car parked on the side of the road at 17 years old and thinking about the fact that one day I would die and I would discover if God was real and if heaven existed. And I knew that if he was and if it did that, I would not be going because I had never acknowledged his existence, much, much less asked him to forgive me of my sin and believed in Jesus. So I closed my eyes and I prayed and I did the best I could. And that was the beginning of my spiritual journey to becoming a follower of Christ.

The way that I think describes it best, I didn't have my theology straight. I couldn't have answered the question about how Noah got all those animals on the Ark or which Bible version is correct or which version of eschatology we ought to adhere to. But John MacArthur, who I didn't know who he was, but I started going to that church, someone told me was a good church, said in a conversation one time with me, he said, It's not common that people get saved out of Hollywood.

And if anyone ever asks you, How did you find God in Hollywood, I want you to remember one thing: you didn't find God. He wasn't lost. You were. And he found you.

Marlin Detweiler:

I thought he was going to be a little tongue-in-cheek with you and say you weren't actually in Hollywood when you when you found God, so to speak.

Kirk Cameron:

No, he was, he was dropping the the truth bomb that all of us need to understand. He is the seeking savior who goes after the lost sheep, who're not seeking after God at all. And and those are those are the kinds of theological truths that I began to hear at a young age.

And it was it was that theology. It wasn't the light and fluffy, you know, milk-toast seeker, sensitive theology that is so common today, but rather the deep historic ancient doctrines of Christianity that I was taught by some good teachers that helped to ground me in the middle of Hollywood so that I wasn't just blown off my feet every time a new spiritual teaching came my way.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, that is a really good thing to keep in mind because we've seen the benefit of some aspects of seeker worship because they really love the lost. But you have got to get grounded in your faith, and you've got to understand that there are real answers to real questions, and it does not need to remain fuzzy as if it can be defined any way we want to define what Christianity is.

Kirk Cameron:

Yeah, that's true. Well, when you figure out the Trinity, let me know, because that's still a little fuzzy for me.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, well and therein lies another truth. And that is, if we understood everything about God, we wouldn't need him.

Kirk Cameron:

Yeah. Yeah, I suppose that's true, But thank God for the things that we can understand and what he does reveal.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, speaking of understanding, You have understood the culture into which you have poured yourself in some really remarkable ways in the last couple of years. You've written some children's books, and you were challenged and provided some pushback to the woke culture. Tell us a little bit about the children's books that you've written, what you're trying to accomplish there, and maybe even give us some insights into the fight that has put you in a position of saying, I'm going to read these books to these children and I will find places that will welcome that which is good.

Kirk Cameron:

Yeah, Well, I don't consider myself much of a writer, although I love books and I love to read from great writers. But I met up with a company called Brave Books, and this was an ophthalmologist, an eye doctor, who was appalled by the things that his children were learning in school at two and three and four years old.

And he decided that the books that our children read really are powerful in shaping their values. And so he started this new company with books that have a pro-God, pro-America value to them, and he began to partner with people of influence in the Hollywood TV music book industries. And I partnered with them for this little book about teaching children how to grow the fruit of the spirit through the seasons of their lives. So this was a sweet little book about love and joy and kindness, gentleness, self-control.

Marlin Detweiler:

All those threatening traits!

Kirk Cameron:

Yeah, well, you would assume that they were threatening based on the responses from those public libraries when I asked to read this book as part of a public story hour. Now, to give context, many other groups of people are reading children's books, so-called, to little kids, including drag queens. So these are men who are biologically males, but under the skirt and the panties is, you know, male equipment, and they're dressed in fishnet stockings in heels and wigs and circus clown makeup.

And some of them are doing unspeakably lewd things with children. And the books that they're reading are confusing to children at best and abusive to children at worst. And so when I wanted to read my book about Christian virtue, I was denied by over 50 woke libraries that previously held drag queen story hours at those libraries. Now, remember, these are public libraries. These are not privately owned libraries that belong to a gay bar or a drag queen club.

These are public libraries paid for by moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and everyday community members. And they said, “No, we don't want your message. We're not interested. Our values don't align.” Well, I recognize that this was viewpoint discrimination of the worst kind.

I called some friends at the news when on Tucker Carlson's show, when he was on Fox and reminded them that this is the United States of America and that library directors, you can't do this if you continue, I'm prepared to assert my constitutional rights in court. They reversed course. We went to those libraries and we were greeted at the downtown Indianapolis Library by 3,000 parents and grandparents, families with children who were cheering, just so excited to be there in public.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's awesome!

Kirk Cameron:

And you know what? What was really encouraging was to see not only six floors of a library filled to the point of violating capacity limits and fire codes, but there were only about 150 to 200 of those 3,000 patrons that were able to get into the reading room because it was so small and our time window was so short.

But do you know what the other 2,700 patrons did who never got to get in to hear the reading? Rather than rioting like we saw during the lockdowns of COVID and the pandemic, rather than smashing windows and lighting things on fire and flipping over the cop cars that were out there to make sure that there was no violence, these moms and dads simply sat down in the aisles between the rows of books, opened up their book bags and read stories of Christian virtue to their children while they sang songs like God Bless America and Amazing Grace, and prayed to thank God for his blessings and his protection. It was a little local grassroots, spontaneous revival meeting in library after library, and we went to about 20 of them across the country.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's wonderful. What a terrible threat you must have been.

Kirk Cameron:

Well, you know, and that is said tongue in cheek. I understand. However, there's great truth to that.

Marlin Detweiler:

It is. Yeah.

Kirk Cameron:

You're a horrible threat to the forces of darkness, which I believe are on their way out. So, yes, a great threat to the forces of darkness that remain in the world, and they know it. And that is why those who are actually contending for righteousness in the marketplace are actually canceled, silenced and marginalized. Contrary to the stated mottos of diversity, equity and inclusion. It's always the tolerance club that does the best at excluding people they don't agree with.

Marlin Detweiler:

But I think I had not considered it the way that you said it to the extent that you said it. And that is this is about light shining in darkness and they don't like it.

Kirk Cameron:

That's right. And the darkness can be blinding. Unless, of course, there is light. And that's who Jesus calls us to be. And we should let our light shine. And it exposes darkness. And then people run to the light as well. And the more of us that that stand up and speak up and lean in and shine light the less room there is for darkness.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. That is wonderful. I had not heard as much detail as you gave. I imagine that's true of many of our listeners too. That'll be wonderful for people to hear how that played out because the news that really hit the net hit the nation, but with Tucker Carlson and others was this is what you're dealing with. But the outcome of it was not as well known or publicized. That's great to hear.

Kirk Cameron:

It is exciting. And what really encourages me was not just what me and a book company did for a couple dozen libraries, but what this turned into was an opportunity to establish a day on the calendar, which is the National See You at the Library Day, where in library directors and parents and pastors all around the country meet on August 5th of every year now to pray and sing and read books of Christian virtue. Any book of their choice could be a brave book. My book, anybody’s book, a book of the Bible, at their public libraries.

That happened last summer. And the American Library Association came out in full force with a worldwide audience at one of their seminars to teach librarians how to block us and others who want to read these types of books from their libraries.

And we actually got an investigation from the United States government into that kind of discrimination. And they got reprimanded for it because they take funds from the government. So this is happening. Pastor story hour is a thing now. It's it's being implemented in states all across the country and thousands and thousands of people are participating. So we're really excited about what's happening.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's wonderful. Well, we're getting we've got to watch our time here. And I want to talk about something else. And that's a movie that you put together, a documentary I would call it a documentary. I assume you it called the Homeschool Awakening. What instilled that? You've been very much an advocate for homeschooling. I'm sure that's the most basic answer, but a little bit about how that came about and what it's been accomplishing.

Kirk Cameron:

Yeah, well, I made a documentary about homeschooling. It's interesting that my father is a teacher. He's a public school teacher. My grandmother is a public school teacher. So is my grandfather. And education has always been important to us as a family. My wife and I have six kids and we started out with our kids going to a terrific little private Christian school.

Although I was nervous dropping my kids off at the very first day of school, I thought, my goodness, I'm handing them over to the wolves. I don't even know these people. How do I know what's going to teach them? We eventually became comfortable with it, but after elementary school, we became increasingly uncomfortable with the options in our area in Los Angeles.

So we decided to homeschool our kids and that was an incredible adventure. Some of our kids went back to a private high school, which is a great experience for some of them. Others stayed throughout the homeschooling program till graduation of high school. So I am an advocate of parent-led education. I think that God gives children to parents, not to government institutions or even to churches. And I think that the church can be a great help to equip parents to educate their children well, whether that's at a church based school or whether it's at a private school or even a public school, if you can find a good one, I think you won't have many of those around for very long. But the homeschooling option is a very viable and effective option in my opinion.

So I made a documentary about it. It was one of the best decisions we ever made as a family, and we documented 17 American families from rural to urban settings around the country who homeschooled differently, uniquely, and successfully. We interviewed everyone from the kids to the parents to see what they thought of it, to university and college admissions officers, to employers to say, “What do you all think of those who have been home-educated?”

What are the best kinds? What are the pitfalls? What are the do's and don'ts? And my hope is that God will use that to reinforce the importance of parent-led education. I know I'm trying not to be a fire hydrant of words here, but I know that we have a little bit of time. Can I just end this topic with a quote from one of our founding fathers?

Marlin Detweiler:

Please do.

Kirk Cameron:

So. Noah Webster, one of our founding fathers, the father of American education, and the one who gave us Webster's Dictionary was a brilliant man. And he said this. He said, “Every civil government is based on some religion or philosophy of life. Education in that nation will propagate the religion of that nation.” In America, that religion was Christianity, and it was sewn into the hearts of Americans for two centuries through the home and school, public and private.

Our success, our growth and our freedom is the result of a biblical philosophy of life, our future prosperity, and liberty depends on educating our children in the principles of Christianity.

Marlin Detweiler:

And that was a public figure speaking in public.

Kirk Cameron:

Yeah, absolutely. And everybody understood it then, because, you know, out of control government in bed with our hungry religion in England and throughout Europe wreaked havoc on families and God-loving people. And so when the pilgrims and others got a hold of a Bible and they really began to discern its principles and use those for foundations, for civil body politics and for church government and for family and education, they understood these principles and they put them into our freedom documents and they built their cultures around them.

And so in the public square, they understood without God, we're toast. If we don't honor him and his ways, we are just going down the road of destruction that we came out of. And I think that's a word for our culture today. We've got to get back to the root that nourishes the Tree of Liberty and the tree of blessing and protection.

As soon as we severed the scriptures and the principles of Christianity, we're not progressing. We're regressing back to the paganism that we have been liberated from.

Marlin Detweiler:

That is that is so true. We have given over so many things to a government that really isn't serving according to the Constitution and in fact is not. I would say this, they're not they're not operating in society's best interest, let alone the historic context for it.

Kirk Cameron:

Yeah. Boy, well said. I agree with you. But of course, without the transcendent authority, the bedrock backdrop of the Holy Scriptures, they would argue that what's best for society is transgender rights, child mutilation, and, you know, doing all sorts of things to undermine this country because in their opinion, it's based on white supremacy, you know, awful biblical Western civilization values.

So I think we fight the battle in vain to try to just base things on tradition or on simple morality. If we can't ground those things in the historic Christian faith and then ultimately in the scriptures, I think that we're just buying time at best and we're going to end up paying for it.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, absolutely. The question, of course, when we talk about morality and values, whose values? By what standard?

Kirk Cameron:

Yeah, that's it.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's not where it starts. Very good. Well, I don't want to run out of time without asking you about some of your new initiatives. You're doing some things in television again. Now, tell us a little bit about the TV program that you've got going on Trinity Broadcast and then what you're doing beyond the book writing for children. You told me about both. We're about both of them here.

Kirk Cameron:

Okay. Well, I'm really grateful for my friends over at TBN, the Trinity Broadcast Network. You know, 20 years ago, that was not a network that I watched. In fact, I would have cringed at a lot of the things that I saw on that network. However, there has been fresh winds that have blown through those hallways. And I have been so blessed to be hosting a television program called Takeaways on Monday nights.

And in it, I interview wonderful people from all different backgrounds, sports celebrities to pastors. Doug Wilson, Nate Wilson, together with other figures like John Lennox and Dennis Prager and Dinesh D'Souza and Charlie Kirk, and then cooks and filmmakers like the Kendrick brothers and so many others. I've learned a tremendous amount. And that's on Monday nights on the TBN network.

You can just look it up in a search on the on the Internet. And then my most recent project is an extension of these children's books that I've been doing with Brave Books. And we're now doing a children's television show. So think of the timeless moral lessons of a Mister Rogers neighborhood only greatly modernized with high energy, fun music, hilarious dialog, a muppet like puppet named Iggy the Iguana and new guest stars at every turn.

Our goal is to build children's character through quality entertainment in a format that parents can absolutely trust. The show actually has a name. It's called Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk.

Marlin Detweiler:

Okay. And that's scheduled to debut in September?

Kirk Cameron:

Well, we're scheduled to debut either in September or November. We're not sure exactly. We're in the middle of pre-production right now. So we've got the sets built. The Iggy The Iguana is ready to go. The treehouse is all already. We've got some other stars from former Disney shows like Good Luck, Charlie, myself and others.

And we're in the process of raising the funds that we need to make the first two seasons of 20 episodes. So we're not partnering with Hollywood and a big streaming service because there's inevitably strings attached to all of that money. We would rather do what the Chosen did, and as a community group of faith, as the audience that wants that kind of content, we want to make it ourselves so that we're not beholden to others and their values because we need their money.

So they're doing a fundraising effort. And if people want to be a part of helping us make that work, there's really exciting and unique rewards that come with being a part of this production. You can go to www.watchbrave.com and you can see what we're doing. We've got the first two episodes funded already.

We need the other 18, and how you can be a part of it even to the point of getting tickets to the red carpet premiere of the first couple of episodes here in Nashville. Or you could even have one of your children or grandchildren play a minor role in one of the episodes of Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk.

Marlin Detweiler:

Thank you for taking the opportunity to promote that. I want those kinds of things out there, and so I'm happy for you. Tell us the website again.

Kirk Cameron:

www.watchbrave.com. Just as a little sampling, there are episodes about the sanctity of life from the womb to the tomb. One episode is called Little Lives Matter. Another one is all about gender reality from God's perspective. That episode is called Elephants Are Not Birds. Other episodes we'll talk about the Fruit of the Spirit and even warning about the dangers of socialism and communism.

They're fantastic episodes that the whole family can watch communicating important truths to kids even as young as four and five years old.

Marlin Detweiler:

That is wonderful. Well, knowing a little bit about your background from some of the people that we know in common, I'm thinking of Gary DeMar in particular. I know that you have an optimistic outlook for the future, as do we at Veritas. We are at a tough time now and the battle is worth it and we're going to fight it together. But I am really impressed and excited with the way that you have stepped in there and just simply said, I'm going to do the right thing the right way.

Kirk Cameron:

Well, I don't see it as an option. You know, and I'm so grateful for Gary. I'm so grateful for his bravery and for his courage and his excellence in his research. I would not have the perspective of hopeful, optimistic viewpoints if it weren't for Gary, at least as far as I can tell. And it helps me to read the scriptures relationally.

It helps me to see it historically, and I'm no longer of the camp that the best we can do is tuck our head between our knees, because the rapture is coming on Tuesday and the world's going to hell. I actually, rather than getting in the Rapture fever camp, believing that these are the last days and the end times, I think we're just getting started. I think these are the days of the early church and that our best days are ahead of us. And I see that in the scriptures. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. So I'm doing what I can to be the faithful and to the Lord and also to my great, great grandkids.

Marlin Detweiler:

That that what a way for us to look at life. I couldn't agree more. When I was a single man a long time ago, I went to a church that was pastored by a guy named Steve Brown. It was Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church. And one of the stories I remember him telling in a sermon was when an executive walked past a janitor who was not very well spoken. And he said to the janitor, as they saw him there reading his Bible is reading the Book of Revelation. He said, What does it tell you? And the janitor looked up and said, Jesus is going to win.

Kirk Cameron:

That’s it! I think he's I think he is objectively and definitively already accomplished that win. We're watching it all play out in time and space and how cool we get to be a part of it.

Marlin Detweiler:

It is a great thing to be a part of it, to see culture being redeemed. Kirk, thank you so much for joining.

Kirk Cameron:

Appreciate it, brother.

Marlin Detweiler:

You have joined us again for another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Thank you. Until next time.