Kirk Cameron is outspoken, restless in his ambitions, and passionate about faith and freedom.
In 2022, the actor and film producer began writing biblically based children’s books for the Christian publishing house Brave Books. His first book, “As You Grow,” is the tale of an oak tree, its coming of age under the care of others, and the charity it extended to others once fully grown. In 2023, Cameron began to organize readings at public libraries around the country. He launched these events to push back against sexually explicit children’s literature and Drag Queen Story Hours, causing a firestorm of controversy. Last August, tens of thousands of parents and children nationwide participated in wholesome story hours on See You at the Library Day.
Cameron’s latest book, “Born to Be Brave: How to Be Part of America’s Spiritual Comeback,” calls for us to become part of America’s cultural and spiritual reformation.
“I’m not just going to pray for a revival, I’m going to be the revival of my family,” Cameron told The Epoch Times. “I have to do what I can to uproot evil, first in my own heart and then in my home, and plant seeds of truth and kindness and humility. If I can do that, it will spread.”
The Change Begins Within
Cameron said he makes a distinction between reporters and reformers. Reporters are “the huge numbers of us who spend a lot of our time ‘reporting’ to each other about developments we see in our present period of cultural setback,” he writes in “Born to Be Brave.” Reformers are those who move beyond talking, who step up and courageously act either to change or to present alternatives to that culture.Cameron underwent a transformation years ago. While a teenager on the 1980s sitcom “Growing Pains,” he abandoned his atheism and became a devout Christian. In 1991, when he was 20, he married Chelsea Noble, who played his girlfriend on “Growing Pains.” The couple has since raised and homeschooled their six children.
Meanwhile, Cameron continued acting, often in faith-based movies, and was a film producer as well. His Christian and conservative beliefs, especially his traditional views on marriage and sexuality, sometimes sparked protests and headlines.
Consequently, the advice he shares in “Born to Be Brave” comes from experience.
“It’s great to be a reformer and not a reporter, but reform yourself first,” he writes. “Men and women with reformed hearts can reform their family. And then reformed families can reform their community. But it starts with humbling and examining ourselves.
“Don’t just seek reformation. Be a reformation.”
Standing Up and Speaking Out
Cameron said he believes that every human possesses the virtue of courage. If we can find that courage and act on it, even when that means going against a corrupt system, then we can inspire others, he said.“When false systems like communism and socialism fail to produce the utopia that they promise, eventually the cat’s out of the bag, the gig is up,” he told The Epoch Times. “The mouse trap has sprung, but if the mouse isn’t underneath the hammer bar, he has a chance to run and tell all the other mice, and they have a chance to turn the thing around.”
Cameron offers swimmer Riley Gaines as an example of someone who has escaped that trap. Gaines is at the forefront of the protest against trans athletes in women’s sports. Yet Cameron also points to ordinary people who don’t make the newspapers but who are bucking American cultural trends, particularly in public education.
“There are everyday examples of mothers and fathers who are deciding that it’s a waste of time to complain about government systems that are destroying the education of your children,” he said. “Instead, they’re pulling them out of school, and they’re either homeschooling them or bringing them into a private school, or they’re going to their church and their community. They’re creating innovative new models to recapture wholesome education for their children.”
“It’s not that they don’t experience fear,” Cameron said of these people. “They’re holding onto the inspiration of those who’ve gone before us and to the promises from Scripture that our founders relied on to overcome their fears out of love for God, love for their country, love for their family, and love for their neighbors. It’s just the right thing to do. And when love conquers your fears, that’s a sign that you’ve got courage.
Roots
Cameron’s passion for the American past and the men and women who made this country is unmistakable.For instance, when he speaks of Noah Webster, the Founding Father most famous for Webster’s dictionary, Cameron’s voice assumes a note of eager delight. “He said the education of a nation will propagate the religion of that nation,” Cameron said. “And that’s true. Think of any nation around the world; its philosophy is ultimately the source of its values and its laws. He said that in America the foundational religion was Christianity, and our prosperity, our freedom, and our opportunities are the result of a biblical way of living.”
Paraphrasing passages from Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” Cameron said that the French visitor saw America’s religious faith as “the genius and the source of America’s success.”
But what happens when we do not tend to the roots of this success?
Looking Ahead
Cameron is convinced that we need to revive both faith and a sense of personal responsibility. He said he believes that this return to our roots could bring about a great American awakening. “I believe that we can return to the American character and the American blessing and protection that we have had in the past, and even surpass it, if we get back to those foundations,” he told The Epoch Times.According to Cameron, this combination of self-control and liberty explains American exceptionalism.
“That unique perspective of America was that we could govern ourselves if we each voluntarily submitted to the government of Heaven,” he said. “If I can self-govern and govern my family, and we can allow men and women to be free, well, then, we don’t need a Mao. We don’t need a Xi Jinping. We don’t need a Hitler. We don’t need a Stalin.
“We don’t need any of that stuff, because people are going to do the right thing from the heart. It’s called self-government, and that’s the kind of thing that we need to get back to.”
That return journey only begins with bravery, confidence, and daring. “We have the courage to push back the darkness,” Cameron said. “We have much more strength than we realize, and we can get the job done.”
