The Michael Knowles Show - Kirk Cameron | We Honor The Fallen In The Fight For Freedom

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

This Memorial Day Kirk Cameron joins the show to discuss the great sacrifice made for our country and his drive for educating the masses on historical truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody, happy Memorial Day. I hope that you are all having a good time, you know, drinking, eating hot dogs, thinking about our great American heroes. I marked the occasion by sitting down with the great Kirk Cameron talking about some American history, where we came from, where we're going, and how to revive the country. Take a listen. Happy Memorial Day, everybody. It's sort of a strange thing to say happy Memorial Day because, you know, we're out, we're drinking beer, we're eating hot dogs, we're at the beach maybe. But we are, we are. are also remembering people who gave their lives to preserve our way of life, our country, and our freedom, all of which, I hate to remind you, seem more under threat than perhaps ever before, you know, in ideological ways, in some explicit physical ways, people burning down the country, this sort of thing. Fortunately, I am joined by one of the most positive voices out there today. I mean this in his demeanor, but I also mean this in the sort of things that he is doing. Kirk Cameron, you may know Kirk from a whole variety of different places. Of course,

if you're a big fan of 80s sitcoms, perhaps you would know Kirk, but also all the wonderful work he's done well beyond acting ever since then just a tremendous voice in religious issues, in political issues. Kind enough to join the show right now from what I can tell just looking into the monitor is the single most American place on Earth. Kirk, where are you right now? Hey, Michael, so good to talk with you. I'm kind of, it's a little kind of a fan guy moment right now. I'm an admirer and so appreciate the work that you do. So thanks for letting me come to you from my backyard. So I have a little bit of time. I've not tried to escape the state yet. And I'm still here in my backyard with my flag waving and I've got a campfire burning in my backyard,

which has been pretty typical of me for the last 100 days in response to the first 100 days of the current administration. I decided to have a counter a 100 days. I loved when you announced this because, one, we're all, we've all been a little down, I think, you know, over the first days of the Biden administration. But I liked your idea that, hey, we don't, we don't need to just go along with this. We can, we don't need to just sit even and complain. We can actually do something positive ourselves right now. We don't need to wait until the next presidential election or the one after that or the one after that or the one after that. So I'm there.

I think that waving the flag in your backyard is officially a hate crime in the state of California now, but you've got the courage to do it. So, so what's the mission? What's the plan? The Kirk Cameron, 100 days. So I don't have the best plan in the world, but I want to be a part of some plan. And we're here on Memorial Day, and it makes me think of my grandfather, my grandfather, Frank Bowsmith, who just passed away.

And he was a Navy corpsman fighting with the Marines on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II. He was a real hero. And he was a man of faith. He was a man of freedom. He was a family man. And when I look at so many people making promises, so many talking heads, talking about evidence and stuff that has been coined as hopium, I then see none of this stuff materialize. And I said to myself early this year, wait a minute, why don't we join together as we the people and come up with our own first 100 days? And I said, you know, I want to do something.

And history tells me that it's always a minority, a small group of people outnumbered, outfunded, usually persecuted, who pray to God, join together and begin doing things for honorable causes that turns the tide. So I decided for 100 days in a row, I'm going to build a campfire in my backyard. and I'm going to invite people on Facebook Live to join me in my backyard to pray, to play music, to sing songs of worship to God and go through a book that teaches us about what made America so free and prosperous and blessed all these years. It was written by a friend of mine called The American Covenant, The Untold Story, and I'm not here to promote a book. I'm just saying that our forefathers had a different idea. They didn't believe that Hope flew in on Air Force One. They said, no, we're a free people, and our hope comes from the power of God working through the hearts of moms and dads and brothers and sisters and family members.

And then we as people of character and virtue take positions of leadership not only in our homes, but in our churches, our communities, our states, and the national government. And it starts with self-government. And so I've been teaching this for the last 100 days in my backyard. It's called the American Camp Fire Revival. That's my plan. Kirk, what you've said is something very radical here. You're talking about American freedom, and you're saying it's way too radical out there for California. But it's actually, I think even a lot of conservatives don't quite appreciate what you're saying, because what you're saying is that if we want to restore American freedom, we need to get back to family, we need to get back to community, we need to get back to God. But I think the prevailing view right now on the left and all too often on the right, is that true freedom can only exist when I shake off the shackles of my family. You know, for instance, when you take away the necessity of parental consent

for the way that your children are educated or the sort of things your children can do. The only way we can truly be free is when we shake off the shackles of God. You know, this country, it's a secular country founded on a firm separation between church and state. And that's true freedom. And you're positing a totally different vision of liberty than that. So who's right? You know, Michael, as you were saying those words, we need to shake off the shackles of family and true faith.

I could just smell the fumes of horse manure coming through my computer as you were saying that. Because that couldn't be further from the truth. You see, those are the tenants of Marxism that you're talking about. These are the tenants that are designed to divide a people and make them easily conquerable. And what I've been learning is that our forefathers and our foremothers were not just these religious fuddy dutties who were trying to just run away and be by themselves and create this weird little religious community. They wanted a full thriving, flourishing human society. And they understood that it could not be created and freedom could not be achieved from the top down, where you had an emperor or a king or a queen or a czar or a shogun. or a prince who would who would give you everything you need and and allow you to have freedom it came

from the inside when your when your own heart was liberated from uh from pride and selfishness and you began to love god and you began to love your neighbor and you governed yourself see george washington and Abraham Lincoln and the pilgrims and our founders they said no it's it's counterintuitive to what you see in other kingdoms. The kingdom that is characterized by freedom and blessing begins when you begin to govern your own self. And then as a self-governing mom and dad, you can then govern your family and your children.

And then children begin to grow up and go into the world and heavenize the earth as they implement these principles of integrity and honesty and truth and compassion and love and mercy. And that's the inside out, bottom of the earth. strategy that built America and allows us to have limited small government. If we don't govern ourselves, they said, we'll have no choice but to have someone from outside and up high come and beat us back into obedience. And if we don't voluntarily submit to things like the 10 commandments, then we will be ruled by the 10,000 commandments of the tyrants. And I see that happening

right now. And so I'm trying to call people back to genuine revival that begins in the heart and in the home. Kirk, how did you get so smart? I mean this, not as flattery. I'm not being glib. No, what you're describing here, you're talking about American history, and you're saying that the popular view on the left, but all too often on the right, that our founding fathers were atheists or total secularists, that that's not true. Obviously, you're right, that America was founded in this flourishing. You're getting the whiff again. You know, this historical, anti-historical idea that our country was founded to be this secular

country rather than a shining city upon a hill from a model of Christian charity, one of the earliest American speeches. You're knocking down that idea. You're recognizing the philosophical distinction between liberty and licentiousness, which all too often is totally conflated. But you recognize they're not the same thing. opposite things. I'm not joking when I say you, you are expressing a much wiser, truer opinion than the vast majority of American commentators on this, even many on the right. How did that happen?

Well, you're right. There are so many people on the right on the left who are brilliant and far smarter than I am, but I'm seeing that much of it's not working. A lot of it feels like a hot a bunch of hot air to me. And I say, wait a minute, wait a minute. In a very short amount of time, history shows us that America became one of the pinnacle nations in the world. And guys like Alex de Tocqueville and others came over and said, what's the secret of the success of this new nation? And it's not in their military and it's not in their, it's not in their economy. And it's not in all of these places you typically want to find it. You know what? Their churches have pulpits that are on fire with the gospel. And people's hearts were being transformed.

and they wanted to do the right thing without having to be told. And when that begins to happen, all of a sudden, it's like the Lion King. It reminds me of when Simba, who believed the lie that he had murdered his father, Mufasa, runs out into the wilderness, loses track of his identity, and then Rafiki goes out there and says, Simba, you've forgotten who you are. And he takes him to the pool of water and he sees a reflection of his father and he hears the voice of Mufasa in the sky and says, Simba, remember who you are.

You are the rightful son. You are the king. And he runs back and Scar sees him. And who does he think he sees? He thinks he sees his father, Mufasa. And then he fights him. Simba wins, regains his place as the king. And all of life comes back into the pride lands.

And darkness and the shadows begin to flee. I think we as Americans have similarly forgotten who we are. We come from a long line of freedom fighters who are not looking for riots and lawlessness, but we're the army of compassion who is looking to bring healing to a broken nation, who's so woke, they've fallen asleep to what really brings freedom and truth and healing to us. And if we will move from the heart and get back to these essential principles, which, by the way, I've tried to encapsulate with something that I've made, made available called the Pledge to Renew the American Covenant.

Most people don't even know that we had such a thing called the American Covenant. And these are sacred promises made by our forefathers to God and to one another. And it begins with stuff like this. We affirm as a family to do these things. And it talks about the personal level, the family level, the church level, and the civic level. And if we'll come back to these things, I believe we'll begin to see life come coming back into this land of promise that we've inherited. I think you're right.

And I love the Mufasa analogy. Remember who you are. And you're probably uniquely qualified to perceive this sort of thing as a storyteller, which is we have these national stories and these national stories tell us about our identity. The way we understand our past is going to influence how we behave in the present and what our country is going to look like in the future. So right now, there's a battle over American history. You've got the traditional understanding, which this is a good country, founded on good principles with good people. You know, got some problems. We're all broken. This is a fallen world, but it's generally a good place and we like that. And then there's the 1619 project version, which is, in their own words, a reframing of American history. They lied about some facts there too, but they're just going to shift the frame, like you're moving the camera, and they're going to present this picture of America as intrinsically evil and wrong, and we have to be very sorry and ashamed of it. So how do we reclaim the story?

I mean, what is the story that we're telling? Well, one of the ways that I'm doing that is by going to more reliable sources than the 1619 project or your typical social media news feed. And it's hard to find trusted sources now. And so, again, the one that I'm actually spent 100 days of my life in a row, traveling across the country and changing my flight schedule so that I could have a campfire at a hotel or a friend's house or my own backyard is this book called the American Covenant. I hesitate to even show it up because I don't want you to think I'm trying to push this. But what it does is it goes back to information that people don't hear anymore.

And it's talking and quoting from people who understand history and see the world differently, that history truly is his story, his story. And that there is an unseen hero in the events of the world that are being played out on the stage of Earth. And Michael, I think you and I and everybody else who's alive today have been placed on this stage to play a strategic role. We're not the main character, but we're supporting characters of the one who's working all things together for good. And I want to be wise. I want to play my part. And that's the way our founders and forefathers and mothers understood time and history. Let's play our role correctly. Shakespeare said that as well.

All the world is a stage. And if we see this world as a narrative that has been authored by the most benevolent being in the universe, then we can have hope and we can find courage to do the right thing against all odds, knowing that it will turn around and it will be good in the end. Even if we're not here to see it, maybe my kids will. And that's worth it enough for me to put all I have into it. What an important point. When you look at American history and you look at all the great characters, George Washington,

and Governor Bradford, Lincoln, all these people, to recognize the most important character who is God. And you see the hand of Providence. I was going to say the unseen hand of Providence, but actually you can really see it. The odds that when the Mayflower lands at Plymouth Harbor, they get delayed, there's all sorts of sabotage in the old world. They finally make it here.

They're blown hundreds of miles off course. They land at some random spot. And out of the woods pops the two, Indians on the entire continent who speak English, one of whom, Squanto, lived in London and was talking to the pilgrims about the streets of London because he had been captured, he was brought over there, he was freed, probably freed by Catholic monks, brought then to London, comes back on another ship. The odds of this happening, just by random chance, are virtually nothing and yet this is the first moment that allows these pilgrims basically not to just get

totally wiped out on their first winter in the new world. What are the odds of that? I think we don't think we need to play the odds. You know as well as I do that the hand of providence is behind all things. And I love the story of the pilgrims. I think we can go back there and learn so much from them. In fact, one of the things that I thought was so fascinating is that when they first landed, they actually landed in a place that they thought was the mainland, but it wasn't. It was a little island off the coast of the mainland. And I actually went there in a little, private little boat. And there, they realized it was the Sabbath day when they landed. And so they didn't want to do anything for fear that they would do something that might offend the God of

Providence that had brought them all the way across the Atlantic in a little wine ship that had been designed only to go port to port in England. The mast had broken. They for sure thought they were going to sink. And so they spent the day praying. and reading scripture on a big boulder they called, they called pulpit rock. And again, this is the kind of wholehearted faith that they had. And they switched from a socialistic framework in the way that they did business to a free capitalistic mindset. And everybody had their own piece of land.

And if they didn't work, they didn't eat. And they changed things around to fit the principle. and scripture, and they began to prosper. It began to give thanks. That's where we get thanksgiving from. Those first couple of falls and winter with the pilgrims where half of them died. At one point, there were six people who were taking care of the rest of them, who were still living in the winter, most of them women, and some of them just laying on top of their children dead so that they could keep their children alive. This is the kind of character that we need to see in America again, And I'm hoping that all of this from the pandemic to the economy to the political things we see happening wakes us up and shakes us up.

And that character and virtue and faith rise to the top. And these, I don't think we're without a revival. These things are connected. I'm glad you brought up the point about the early socialism of the pilgrims because very often the left writes this office just some kind of shallow conservative talking point. It's not just some talking point. Governor Bradford writes about this in detail. about it. That's right. You know, they... It's a presentation. Yes, they did. And finally, they instituted a bit more private property,

a bit more private responsibility, and what happens, they all start to flourish. And they, they tie in together, this economic component with the political component. And then what's most important is the religious component. You know, Andrew Breitbart, the patron saint of Hollywood conservatives. He famously said politics is downstream of culture. And, you know, this is not to deny that politics influences culture, too. But certainly we can say, is downstream of religion. Cult and culture come from the same root words. So how do we revive the country?

So, Michael, that's such a great point. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, I don't know if you ever seen this, but there is a giant monument. It is 188 feet tall. It's, I think, about 180 tons of solid granite. And it's called the National Monument to the Forefathers. It's the largest granite monument in America. And it's hidden in a forest on top of the hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

If you have a chance to go there, I highly recommend it because it is the forefather's recipe for how to sustain freedom and prosperity in America. And if you look at it, you know, if my cup here is that monument, you would come up to about this high on top of the monument. And the top of it is faith. And faith then expresses herself through all areas of life, morality, law, education, resulting in liberty. And so you're right. It begins with faith and an internal change of the heart. This isn't something that politicians are making up. This is something that we can find in the 4,000-year-old principles found in the Judeo-Christian scriptures. This is the principles that the ancient Hebrew Republic under Moses flourished before they got their kings. This was about representative government. This is about a division of politics. powers. This is all about self-government. These are the kinds of things our founders understood. They applied it and it worked and we can get back to it. Well, I hope we can, Kirk, but all this talk, this has been way too positive and hopeful for a conservative radio show. So I need to bring in a

little bit of pessimism here. That's it. Let's shoot. Let's fire shots at the balloon. Well, here's the big problem. Recent polls show, every year fewer and fewer people are going to church. Fewer and fewer people are identifying with religion, the fastest growing religious group in America. It's called the nuns. And I'm not talking about cute little old ladies and habits. I'm talking about N-O-N-E, people who have no religious affiliation. So how are we supposed to get an American revival when everyone's fleeing church? I wouldn't worry about that. The solution is not sitting here and crying in our chick-fil-A soup as Christians. Okay? The solution,

is to understand, you know, if you look at the stock market, you can say, oh, we're in a downturn, we're in a downturn. Well, but you look at your trajectory over time, the Christian faith has been flourishing over time. Go back a thousand years. Was culture and life and living as a person of faith better or worse now than it was back then? I wouldn't want to be alive during the Roman Empire when people are being thrown to the lions and burned at the stake. We have more freedom now, and we are actually winning in the courts at the Supreme Court level and at state levels on religious cases

and we're about to have more freedom than we have had in a generation because I believe people are waking up. At the same time, I think it's good to separate the sheep from the goats and the wheat from the chaff. I think it's good to shake the place out and find out who is really in this to win this

and who's really playing church for the sake of keeping a job, or collecting tithe money or looking good to your friends. I'm not inviting persecution, but if we see challenges come, I say the kite that's really anchored with a good strong string is going to fly higher the stronger the winds. A very good point. The blood of the martyrs seated to the church. I'm sort of hoping we don't get thrown to lions or anything, but a little bit of trial.

of course, can be spiritually quite edifying, and that's true on the national level, too. So I'm glad you've given me hope again. All right, I'm shaking off that pessimism for now. We're looking back and we're, you know, we're trying to find our national future in the faith of our founders and trying to recover some of that. But now we've dealt with a church issue. What about the education issue? Students are simply not being exposed to this stuff. There was a survey that came out. now. It was 14 years ago. This was a 2007 survey. Imagine how much worse it is today. It was all the top colleges in America. They surveyed it was on civics and government and history in the United States. Graduating seniors did worse on the test than incoming freshmen. The students had

gotten more ignorant the longer that they were in the schools. And the question, I mean, the The question, I guess, is obvious to the answer is obvious. You know, when we vacate the responsibility, we abdicate the responsibility of training our children up in the way that they should go, we shouldn't be surprised when they come out the other side of the educational system without the results that we're hoping for. I think a friend of mine named Bodie Bachham said, if you send your children to Caesar to be educated,

don't be surprised if they come back Romans. And that's true. discipleship program for 12 years through high school and then an advanced discipleship program as we go into higher education. And, you know, that's why I come back to, well, what's the right thing? I'm not even looking to the left. I'm not even looking to the right. I think the choice, as Ronald Reagan once put it, is either up or down. We either go up to the eternal rules of right and the principles that are found in the scriptures that history show produce maximum human flourishing, or we go down to the ash heap of totalitarianism. And I think that what we need to do

is say, wow, educating our children is a sacred responsibility. I'm not going to just hand it off to somebody else. It doesn't mean I have to be a math teacher and a science teacher and a music teacher. But what it does mean is I can read good books. I can find good sources of information. And I, as a parent, understand that that little heart, that little soul, that little mind has been placed in my hands by God, and I'm going to lead their educational path and put them in the presence of good people, not just hand them over to a government babysitter where they're going to undermine everything that I want my children to believe and to embrace. We've got to recapture education. I think that's where we went wrong 40, 50 years ago, and that's the biggest single mistake that we've

made. We've got to recapture education. Of course, but Kirk, what do you say to people who say, You know, listen, I'm glad for you, Kirk, that you've got this clear sense of right and wrong and good and bad and true and false and beautiful and ugly. I'm glad you got that. But that's just your opinion, man, to quote the dude Lubowski. And maybe I've got my opinion of right and wrong. It's totally different. And look, you've got your preferences and I've got my preferences. And if you try to appeal to some eternal moral authority, why you're just a theocratic, authoritarian, I don't know, they'll find lots of adjectives to call you. What do you say to those people who say, it is very important for us to indoctrinate children in, say, drag queen story hour, but you need to keep your Bible out of our schools? No, I would say actually your narrative is actually backwards. The reality is that the truth of a good and kind and loving and just God is obvious. The evidence is all around you through what he has made and through the scriptures that he's left for us here and through the evidence of the transfer.

life of those who have come to know him and walk with him. You're actually trying to indoctrinate a country out of the truth and into your pagan ideas that always produce death and despair. It always produces bondage rather than freedom. So if you want to make up this narrative that you have evolved out of the slime, that we are just a happy accident where we are overarching worms that there was no design in mind for the birth of my child and your nervous system and your muscular system and your skeletal system and all of the other wonders and miracles found throughout nature. You can keep your head in the sand and you can believe your happy fairy tale that really is designed to get you off the hook morally and try to absolve you of any accountability.

But I would rather stick with a time-tested method that has produced the greatest nation. on earth and maximum human flourishing and actually allows you to believe those crazy things in this country without being put into prison because we believe you were made in the image of God too. And so therefore I'm going to treat you just as kindly as I would like you to treat me, even though you're crazy. I love that answer. You know, I've noticed from the people who insist, there's no such thing as grace or sin, there's no such thing as right or wrong. It's all just an accident of pistons firing off in our head. I always look at them, to quote another line from the bard, and say, the lady doth protest too much, me thinks. These people seem sometimes a little

wrack with guilt. They don't seem quite so certain of what they're putting out there. Yeah, we have just this wonderful country. And I think that we've been living off the fumes of faith that our forefathers and foremothers had. And we need to get back. And we need to get back. back to these principles because the truth is, if there are other principles that produce more freedom, more flourishing, more opportunity for all people, by all means, please go live there, go there, and see what that's like.

Why is it that everyone's breaking the law to come here? And then they're wanting to then vote for principles and policies that are gonna take this country to become more like the place you just escaped from. That just doesn't make sense to me. And I can tell you, and those who have studied history know that the best places to live are in the places where people genuinely love God and genuinely love their neighbor. And that requires a change of heart. And those who want to use religion to abuse people, and there's been lots of examples of that in the past, even in our country.

That needs to be thrown into the trash heap, just like all the other false ideas. And we need to get back to something that's true and praiseworthy and honorable. And that's what I'm trying to be about. Yeah, you know, I notice a lot of people who prattle on about humanity and humanity and all this, they go on and on and on, but they don't seem to care very much about their fellow humans. You know, and people who say, we need to, you know, totally transform America. They don't seem to like their countrymen very much. And so I think what you're saying is so true. The countries that are the freest, the most flourishing, the most pleasant to live in are the ones that recognize God, that love God and that love their names.

neighbors and love their countrymen. Kirk, I've done my best to bring in some typical conservative pessimism here. And you have thwarted me at every turn. I'm leaving this conversation hopeful. And you're doing the thing. You're sitting there. You got a nice campfire, a fluttering, waving American flag. And, you know, looking back on our country and bringing up wonderful memories on Memorial Day. No better way to celebrate than that. Well, I'm encouraged by you. I'm encouraged by the Daily Wire. I'm encouraged by the guy that I just bumped into in the grocery store at Trader Joe's as I was getting some sausage for dinner tonight.

And, you know, he had an American flag on his shirt. He looked at me. I didn't have a mask on either did he. And he said, oh, my goodness. Look at this. Another free human. And he said, this is wonderful. And he said, remember, what you allow will continue.

And we had a great conversation. And those kinds of things inspire me to want to lovingly and courageously stand for the right stuff, just like you're doing. Thank you, Kirk. You have inspired me. Seriously, I mean, you've just done really great work. I've now got to go out and get the American Covenant, by the way. I know you said you don't want to plug the book, but now I certainly do. The American Covenant, got to go order it.

Kirk, keep doing what you're doing, man. It's just, it's such great work. It's so important. you've even managed to give some hope to a curmudgeonly conservative. Maybe many of us out there today. Thank you. Kirk Cameron, everybody. Thanks so much for coming on.

All right, Michael. Great talking with you. Thank you.