Rick Green

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It's wall builders where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach with David and Tim Barton, David is America's premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. Tim's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. Check it out at wallbuilders.com. You can get all kinds of great resources there and that is the place to come alongside us.

If you can make a one-time or monthly contribution, that investment in liberty will pay off. It's a great way to help save the country. Help us restore the foundations of America. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Well, folks, the foundations are being destroyed and I'll tell you one of the things the righteous can do is stop the destruction. That's our job to be salt and light, to be light in the darkness, to be the salt that preserves the meat, preserves the culture. Let's get busy doing our job as Christians and not sitting on the sidelines. Again, Wallbuilders.com Check it out today. Get some of those materials, get engaged, make a donation to wall builders, get a biblical citizenship class started in your community. Those are the things you can do immediately to be a part of the solution. Instead of just complaining as we watch the culture crumble around us. Let's pick up the pieces, rebuild and let's shoot for a celebration two years and 100 days, whatever it is from the 250th anniversary of the nation, instead of a mourning at the 250th birthday to find that the nation's completely destroyed. How about we plan for a celebration for the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence? So think about it.If we've got two years and roughly three months from now, what can we do to make sure that happens? What can you do in your community, in your family, to make sure that that happens? Well, when we come back from the break, we're going to be talking to my friend, Kirk Cameron, about that very thing. Had a chance to visit with him over in the tavern. My show that's on Warrior Poets Society Network and also on Patreon U. And it's just a conversation. It's just a chance to sit down with somebody and, just like the taverns of old in the revolutionary period where they gathered to talk about the revolutionary strategies and tactics to save the country. And that's what we're going to do with Kirk Cameron when we come back. So stay with us. You're listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton

Hey guys, it's Tim Barton and I want to let you know about an opportunity coming up for pastors and ministry leaders. We are doing our annual pastors briefing in Washington DC and we do this every year. We do one in the Spring, we do one in the Fall. This spring it's April 16th and 17th. This fall it is September 10th and 11th. This is one of the most significant things we do to encourage and challenge pastors in this culture we live in.

It's in Washington DC and Tuesday night we do an after-hours tour of the US Capitol where we introduce pastors and ministry leaders to the history of the nation. The following day we have congressmen come and they give a briefing on what they're doing and how God is challenging and motivating and using them and, frankly, most pastors, most ministry leaders, they don't know the rich spiritual heritage of the nation or what God is still doing moving in the hearts and lives of leaders in this nation. I would encourage you if you're a pastor, ministry leader, you need to come to this. It's one of the best things we do at Wall Builders. To find out more, go to wallbuilders.com and look for the pastor's briefing.

Rick Green

Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. We're going to jump right into that interview with Kirk Cameron over in the Tavern. Well, good to see you. Thanks for having me on the talent and I'm thrilled that you've got a kid's show coming out. I'm going to start calling you Mr. Rogers. You actually said it's like a. What did you say? It's a cross between Mr. Rogers and something.

Kirk Cameron

Well, think of it as like a modern day, Mr. Rogers, in terms of those timeless moral value lessons, right with way higher energy. Think Dude, Perfect energy. Lots of energy and beautiful animation to animate out these great stories that Brave Books has already written. And we've got a puppet that is actually with a master puppeteer from Jim Henson's Muppets and his name is Iggy the Iguana. So I'm Mr. Kirk, I got a treehouse in my backyard and Iggy the Iguana lives in the treehouse with a super computer and all these adventures happen back there and we go through this portal and digitally enter Freedom Island where all the stories take place with the animals about First and Second Amendment, the Sanctity of life from the womb to the tomb, gender reality to the fruits of the spirit. So it's a great biblical lesson TV show for kids that parents can trust, that will build their character not just the kids but the parents too in a format that I think kids are going to find really entertaining.

Rick Green

I love it, man, and this is not entirely new for you. You've been doing the Brave Books thing for a couple of years now and man for you that became. I mean you were all over the country and libraries all over the country, really at the epicenter of this fight for our children. I mean it's literally the heart and soul of our kids. So while this is a fun show and entertaining and all that, this is war. I mean we're in the tavern, we can talk a little revolutionary war here. This is talk about strategy and tactics to save the country. Sounds like to me you made a conscious decision to say this is where the fight is and we're not going to let them have our kids. We're going to battle.

Kirk Cameron

Yeah, that's right. You know, I recently was talking with Tim Pool on Timcast and that's not a show that I regularly watch, but found out that my son watches it quite a bit and we had this interesting conversation about Christian tolerance and there were those sitting at the table who were not Christians but were sort of lamenting that they wish the Christians would get more in the fight but understand that Christian principles say that we need to be very tolerant and they were saying you know, it's too bad that they're just basically always turning the other cheek, even when they're mutilating your children, they're filling their head with wrong ideas. That's where I had a chance to point out stuff that I've learned from you and Marshall Foster and Gary DeMar and other people that tolerating evil and tolerating tyrants is not virtuous for a Christian. We can turn the other cheek and go the extra mile.

That's what Jesus did. But he said you harm one of these little ones and I have millstones reserved for your neck and we don't- that's a no fly zone. So if we really want to love our neighbors, we need to understand that he who tells the stories to the children control the future and you control your children's livelihoods and their prosperity and their liberties. And so if you're outsourcing parenting to government schools and organizations or to a video screen that's going to teach your kids to hate God, hate America and hate their family, well we shouldn't be surprised when the culture goes down the drain. I don't think that's the result of biblical prophecy coming to pass. I think that's the result of self-fulfilled prophecies coming to pass from lazy Christians.

Rick Green

Amen, yeah, yeah, no doubt. Oh, so much to unpack and what you just said. I mean, first of all, just the tolerance thing and the fact that they were saying to you man, I wish Christians would get up off the mat and do a little fighting back and standing up for what they believe in. I remember Eric Metaxis is saying at an event last summer that I was doing with him. He said you know, I bet a lot of those, a lot of those Jews that were being hauled off on the trains were probably thinking you know which the Christians would get political.

I mean, it's a very similar kind of thing. These kids are literally being left to a very evil agenda and for the church not to stand up is the same as the church in Germany not standing up to Hitler. I mean it's a warped view of Christianity as it is. I mean, like you said, tolerance of evil is not a Christian virtue or value. So that whole thing, man, we could spend all day on that. People have pushed back on you quite a bit as you've been standing up out there in the culture and you've had to withstand some of that. Oh, you're just supposed to preach the gospel stuff. How have you been responding to people on that.

Kirk Cameron

Well, again, my understanding of the gospel is a little different from some who want to put the gospel in a little box that says that cleans my heart from my sins, so now I'm good with Jesus and I'm just waiting to go to heaven. I think the gospel is something that transforms men's hearts so that men with transformed hearts can transform their world. That's what I think the gospel does. I think the gospel makes me a new man so that I can now begin to love my wife the way that Christ loves me, and that transforms my marriage. And my marriage transformed can actually transform the culture in my home, and a home transformed can transform the culture of, maybe, neighbors or those in my church, and churches transformed can transform a nation. I think it's an inside out strategy that is, to be total and comprehensive in a culture.

Rick Green

Oh, that'll preach man, if you ever thought about doing something like an American campfire revival, maybe, or something like that, that'll preach right there. That's good. Sorry I interrupted you, go ahead.

Kirk Cameron

So, as far as pushback and all of that, I have no other choice. And all we have to do is look at Europe and look at other countries that have abandoned the gospel and abandoned the authority of scripture, to see where we're headed. And I do not want to be a part of the generation that throws our children to the wolves. I don't, and nobody listening to this should be either. So what do we do? We have to get off the defense, get on the offense and realize that God gave the cultural commission not to Hollywood and DC. He gave it to Adam and Eve to be walking together with God, creating the culture, replenishing the earth, taking dominion over all that he's made.

And that's not theocratic top down did dominion, domination, kind of stuff that we're trying to be labeled as by those who are actually doing that. The left is actually doing that. It's actually top down domination of woke, progressive ideas. They are not progressive. They're regressive, back to the pagan ways before Christianity liberated the world from those ideas and puts the, puts the authority and the power to govern into the hands of the people. And that's what you talk about all the time.

Rick Green

So good though, man, just the way you lay that out.

Kirk Cameron

I got to keep it simple because I don't understand it if it gets too complicated and one of the fascinating things. I got to talk to you about this because I want to get your take on it as a constitutional expert, I've been reading a book there's a guy named EC Wines and I've been talking to some other experts on the on the topic, but Marshall talked about this that our founders saved the Constitution and it was able to be. You know it passed through based on some speeches that were given by pastors I believe was Rutherford one of them, or Lang Langford I can't remember the guy's last visit for you

Rick Green

Leland and you might be thinking John Leland in Virginia, no one of the key guys for Madison.

Kirk Cameron

No but it was a different guy. But essentially he appealed to the ancient Hebrew Republic and the divine constitution God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai as the template for the founding father when they drafted up the Constitution, which of course, was also based on 150 years of sermons and all of the colonies and people have objected said no, Israel was a republic, it was a theocracy is very different and I, the more I study it, the more amazing I see the ancient Hebrew state was because it was a self-governing republic. It had a theocratic element to it. God wrote the Constitution, his law came down and it's perfect from heaven.

But the people they elected their own leaders locally. They had different levels of judges. They had the ability to not only elect them but then approve them, and the powers were limited. At the federal level, the powers were divided and they counted on people governing themselves, first and through their family, and then through the local levels all the way on up. So they had a Senate, they had a General Assembly, much like our House of Representatives. Division of powers, limited government. It was elected officers and a jury by jury, by trial. So it's absolutely amazing to see how the founders deduced all of this stuff from the scriptures and from the service that they had heard during their lifetime man.

Rick Green

I couldn't agree more. I think maybe Samuel Rutherford that might be the one that you're thinking of, maybe it was Samuel Rutherford, but you just nailed it and think about, even in the context of world history at the time, how outrageously unusual that was, and Dennis Prager talks about that in the Rational Bible that he did, where he breaks down each verse. He was a Torah expert before he was ever a talk show host. It was really interesting to hear him go through those things and talk about what the Torah brought to the world and how the Ten Commandments changed everything and how their republic, as you just described it it was really similar in 1776, right Everywhere in the world. It was a monarch, it was a king. That's where your freedom came from.

It's funny, these people that keep using Christian nationalism and all that that finally told us what it means. Right, I've been waiting for somebody to define this weird term that's been used and thrown out at everybody and finally the gal from Politico, or whoever she was from, said well, these are the people that think their rights come from God instead of from government. Well, I think Jefferson might have something to say about that actually agreeing with that, but that was unusual in 1776 to say that it came straight to us. And then we set up government the way that God's told us to do it. Same thing for the children of Israel totally unique at the time in world history.

Kirk Cameron

Yeah, absolutely so. Anyway, once they went to a monarchy with kings, everything went haywire 

Rick Green

Which Got told them not to do right, you don't want this

Kirk Cameron

It gets divided. But before that, when you had the time of the judges and before the monarchy, there was this model for civil government that God gave so that Israel wouldn't be in the dark about how to do things, and again, a self-governing republic. That's the responsibility and authority in the hands of the people, and our founding fathers understood that and that's where we get so many of the concepts that we have.

Rick Green

And or that to work. Kirk, I love the fact that you're saying self-governing republic. It is the missing element so much in our current culture. It's the lack of responsibility or the idea that with every right comes a responsibility. We're in this entitlement kind of mentality where we just want government to give us everything or society owes us everything. A self-governing republic says I'll take care of my family and you take care of your family, and when you're really in need you're my neighbor, I'll come help you, and when I'm really in need. But it's self-governing, it's not looking to someone else. And that takes hard work, that takes being willing to dig in and do what you talked about. Let God change your heart and then that changes your marriage, changes your family, that changes the community. So I'm just glad you're saying self-governing republic. We've got to start using that language more.

Kirk Cameron

Absolutely. There's too many patriots and guys that have got, they got fire coming out their eyes and their ears and they're going. Man, let's just go 1776, right now I'm ready to go. No, no, no, no, no, no. Hold on, time out, time out, time out. Read in the scriptures Every time Israel went all 1776 without first going to Psalm 19, verse 6, or Psalm 17, verse 6, which is oh God, we're humbling ourselves on our faces.

Turn your ear to us and hear our cry and our prayer and be merciful to us. Help us, God. We know that we're the problem. It's an internal problem, not an external problem. If we don't go there first and get self-governing under God, in covenant with one another, following his ways, we're toast.

Because guess what? God actually brings enemies upon his own people. He did that all throughout the Old Testament. He brings them. Hebakuk says that God, how long are you going to let these wolves and tear us apart? Look how vicious they are. God says yeah, I know, essentially, and they're worse than you think. Oh, by the way, I brought them. I brought them to discipline my people, but I know how to take care of them too. Essentially, they've come to train you at compliments of your Father in heaven, you're welcome…itself and says my goodness, my goodness, I know who you are, I know how you work. I repent in dust and ashes like Job. That's where we need to get.

So I'm not quick to point fingers outside and say, all you bad guys out there, I want to say church, who are we before the Lord right now? Yeah, if you were God, would you put the current evangelical church in charge of the most powerful nation in the world? Would you knowing the clear show and and the given level to to biblical integrity, go down to your local church and find out what they're preaching and what they're doing? Do you want to put the corporate body of Christ in charge of the most powerful nation in the world? I don't think that I wouldn't.

I don't think that we should. I think that our founders had it right and that is not a top-down church-run state. That that is. That is wrong. What we need is individual people who govern themselves and their families according to the principles of faith, hope and  love of truth, beauty and goodness, and when we do that, oh man, we're involved in self-sacrificing service for our neighbors, loving our enemies and the. The world will go from black and white to color. It'll come back to life from the dead.

Rick Green

You know you're, you're really laying out the posture of the heart first, before we're ready to stand and fight and literally going into battle with the right heart and mind. Even and you saw that with David and so many times when they did that right man, they just wiped out their enemies. When they did it wrong and ran off into battle without the Lord saying go, they got destroyed.

Kirk Cameron

That's right. It was Sam Adams who said John Adams or Sam Adams, I keep getting the two of them mixed up. Sam Adams, he made a great beer, but he made it even better. Founding father, I think it was Sam that said. When they asked him about the revolution, he said which revolution? You talking about the war? Oh no, that wasn't the revolution. The real revolution took place in the hearts of the people before the first that religious sentiment in that's right of the people. The revolution began in the hearts of the people. They turned to God. The war was just a consequence of it. What does that mean? That religious people are gonna, are always gonna, go fight? No, what it meant is, when they turn their hearts back to God, they recognized that that truth and liberty and loving and protecting their neighbor was more important than than peace at any cost. And when the British came over to fire upon them, where was the shot heard around the world? Lexington and concord…truth, goodness, protecting our families is more important, and we're not gonna let you do that, because these things are important to us 

Rick Green

And even then their heart was right because Jonas Clark, the pastor there, had had taught them just war and defensive, not offensive in that case. That's why Parker said you know, captain Parker said don't fire unless fired upon. So it's interesting what you said about their heart being right. They came out of a church they were literally virtually every man on that field that day came out of Jonas Clark's church where they had been getting their heart right before they stood their ground.

Kirk Cameron

Yeah, that's that. That's right so.

Rick Green

Man, I, I'm just thinking it's, it's. It reminds me of our conversation. I think it was last summer. You know no Webster has this quote about. How did he say it? It's all the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, slavery and war proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. And the left can despise it, but it's the people that know it that neglect it. And if we're neglecting that truth and getting our heart right and applying that scripture to our life so that we're truly disciples, then then we're gonna get all of that bad stuff in our culture. And in the conversation you and I had. Was man, what's most important? It's what's most important is saturating ourselves in God's word. So if we're saturated in truth, then we can go out and build community and work with people and work on saving the nation and then tend the garden and all that. But it begins with our heart and our and getting our mind really saturated in truth.

Kirk Cameron

Yeah, and you know, I can imagine right now some reporter are, you know, from CNN or something here to watch this is this clip and gets just sees you holding up your Bible, saying saturate your mind in the word of God and trying to characterize that as yeah, so that we can then take it and cram it down everybody's throat. No, it actually doesn't work that way. I actually don't think that I can convert anybody, nor is cramming it down somebody's throat. That does not fit with either the principles of Christianity. That's just a top-down conformity system that never works. I mean, that's what the Roman Empire tried to do, or other big religious organizations in bed with the government tried to do, but that is powerless to change the heart they also changed.

The heart of people is the spirit of God working through the gospel, and so when we saturate our minds with the Bible, it doesn't turn us into Christian Rambos that well, we need Christian Rambos to defend their families and their country but it doesn't turn them into aggressive, dominating tyrants. It turns them into self-sacrificing shepherds and 

Rick Green

Tender warriors, warrior poets. You know it's that image. You got the strength, but you're driven by and led by that heart posture that you were talking earlier. Without the heart posture you become what the left calls toxic masculinity or whatever. With the heart posture correct, you become a Godly leader that can defend but also is defending in a righteous cause. So when you are angry, it's righteous anger because of you know God being offended. I remember you say this in the Biblical Citizenship class when you were teaching with the monument there, Rob McCoy's church, and you talked about when the heart's right, you begin to love what God loves and hate what God hates, and that stuck with me. It was like when the heart and the mind are lined up with the laws of nature and nature's God and you're following his commands, everything else flows well from that. But it has to start with that.

Kirk Cameron

Yeah, you're so right. So what can we do? 

Rick Green

Well, first off, I got us way off on a rabbit trail there because I wanna go back to the show, because this is battle right? This is, in my mind, the question everybody's asking is yeah, what can we do?

Kirk Cameron

I'd love to talk about the book and the TV show, but the question everybody's asking is okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got you, I'm with you, I'm part of the tavern, I'm in. You know, I wanna pray for the nation, but what can we do, 

Rick Green

what are the action steps they can take?

And, just as you're doing as someone who knows how to entertain and educate and combine those things in an effective way and you've done that so well with the biblical citizenship and American campfire revival and all those things and now the fact that you're targeting that age group where it's needed most, I'm excited about and I wanna make sure we give people I know you all already you were doing some crowd funding. You already did the first episode. The second episode are you still raising money or not? I forgot to ask you that before we came on. Can we send people to the? Is it at Brave Books still?

Kirk Cameron

So we're making the first two seasons of this new television program called Adventures with Iggy and Mr Kirk, and we have raised enough money for two episodes, but we wanna do 20, so we're still in the fundraising mode. And again, the reason we're not going to Hollywood for a couple of million dollars or some streaming platform to make these 20 episodes is because we don't want strings attached to that money. They're gonna all of a sudden they could control the content then. Yeah, Iggy's gonna be bisexual Rainbow. No, Mr. Kirk is gonna be. I'll be a bearded woman in drag. So we don't want that cause I look terrible. We don't even want that image in our minds. I look terrible in the dress. We want to go to the audience and do crowd funding and do what the chosen did. Hey, can we make this?show about Jesus and the disciples better than followers of Jesus. Let's all pitch in and let's do it. We're doing it in a way that's fun, with exciting, unique rewards for those who support us. Become an executive producer of the show. Have one of your kids or grandkids play a minor role in one of the episodes oh man, that's cool. Become the red carpet premier of the grand opening in Nashville and come hang out with us at the after party for certain levels of support.

Rick Green

All right, folks, we're out of time for wall builders today, but the website to participate with Kurt on the creation of this program is watchbrave.com. Watchbrave.com and you can, like you say, be an executive producer. Take your kids, get them in one of the shows, but just go watch one of the shows being done. Lots of fun things that you can do there. Check it out at watchbrave.com and then if you want to watch the full interview with Kurt, then be sure and head over to Patreon. At you, that's patriotacademy.tv, patriotacademy.tv, and you can pick up the tavern and our Founders Bible reading daily and our campus adventures, all the constitution classes, all of those things are available there at patriotacademy.tv. Thanks so much for listening. Today You've been listening to WallBuilders