Christian evangelist and ‘80s heartthrob actor Kirk Cameron was trending on Twitter on Tuesday, as critics pounced on comments he made ahead of the release of his new movie, “The Homeschool Awakening.”
“The problem is that public school systems have become so bad. It’s sad to say they’re doing more for grooming, for sexual chaos and the progressive left than any real educating about the things that most of us want to teach our kids,” he said in a recent interview.
Cameron called out “those who are rotting out the minds and souls of America’s children” and suggested they were “spreading a terminal disease, not education.”
“And you can take your pick. Just go down the list. The things that are destroying the family, destroying the church, destroying love for our great country: critical race theory, teaching kids to pick their pronouns and decide whether they want to be a boy or a girl, The 1619 Project,” he said.
He continued:
“If we send our children to Rome to be educated, we shouldn’t be surprised if they come back Romans. If we want them to love God and love their neighbor and feel gratitude and thankful that they live in the United States of America, the freest country on earth, then you’ve got to teach them those things. I realized that there was no better way for our family to do that than to bring them home and join in with this rich, robust community, with tons of curriculum to be able to have the flexibility and freedom to raise our kids the way we wanted them to be raised.”
Cue the Twitter dumpster fire.
Antagonists responded in a flurry of thousands of profane and rude tweets, attacking Cameron’s devout Christian faith and beliefs, his socially conservative views, his acting abilities and, not surprisingly, homeschooling itself.
The irony, of course, is that very few actually challenged or defended the status quo or what the actor/activist was saying. Instead, they resorted to ad hominem attacks. Going after people rather than debating ideas is a hallmark of the radical left.
This isn’t the first time Kirk Cameron has been attacked for championing or speaking out about his deeply held convictions. Over the years, critics have gone after him for supporting the biblical definition of marriage, creationism and religious freedom, to name just a few issues.
After decades in Hollywood, Cameron has thick skin, developed over time and fortified by his strong faith. But it wasn’t always the case. Growing up in an agnostic/atheistic home, the former Growing Pains’ star found the Lord at the age of seventeen.
“I had everything that I wanted,” he remembered. I had as much money as I wanted to spend. I was traveling around the world meeting famous people. I was a famous person. I had everything that I wanted. But I met a man, who was the father of a girl that I liked, and I got to talking to this man, and he said, ‘There’s still something that you don’t have, though, Kirk. You have a lot, but you don’t have the Lord.’”
Cameron attended a church service, heard the Gospel, and spent over a month questioning, talking and pondering. One day, alone and sitting in his car on the side of the road, he prayed a “clumsy” prayer of salvation.
Many childhood actors have faced a very different fate – suffering through multiple marriages and divorces, cycling in and out of substance abuse rehab facilities, or even spending time in jail. Lindsay Lohan, Macaulay Culkin, Danny Bonaduci and Dustin Diamond come to mind.
By contrast, Kirk and his wife, Chelsea, are poised to celebrate their 31st wedding anniversary in July. They have six children, four of whom were adopted. “For me, my family and my faith have been what’s really been my anchor, and grounding me, and helping me navigate through a lot of the things that really destroy marriages in Hollywood, and in your own personal integrity,” he once said.
We should all admire Kirk Cameron’s principled, brave outspokenness. He’s willing to use his platform and his celebrity to advance biblical truth. We should be cheering him on. Actors are trained to play to a crowd and seek the applause of their public, but it’s clear that the kid we once knew as “Mike Seaver” in Growing Pains is laser-focused on using his time to bring honor and glory to God, and Him alone.
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