Posted on 03/27/2012 6:35:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron thinks that America is off track. He’s concerned about our country’s future and he believes that we have to look to history to find “the secret sauce” that made our nation so great in the first place. With that in mind, his new documentary Monumental focuses on Cameron’s attempt to retrace our Pilgrim’s journey in order to better understand how our nation came into being.
I recently had a chance to talk to Cameron about his new movie and the reasons he made it.
Cameron’s reason for making the film is evident even in the movie’s trailer where he states that “something is sick in the soul of our country.” But when I talked to him, the discussion became very personal. He told me that as a father of six, he’s “become concerned about the world that our kids are growing up in.” He said that when we look around the country, we see “16 trillion dollars in debt, and you see families falling apart, you see homelessness and teenage pregnancy, and suicide and crime…”
Some see such problems and play the blame game but Cameron had another idea. “Instead of listening to everyone blame one another with the right blaming the left and the left blaming the right,” he decided to search for the keys to our nation’s greatness. He retraced the "escape route of the Pilgrims" and talked to historians about the tremendous obstacles that stood in their path as they fought for freedom. And as he notes in the film, the Pilgrims were far more courageous and resilient than many people give them credit for.
Cameron hopes that the film gets viewers more interested and excited in the history of our country. When I asked about his goals for the movie, he said that he wants "people’s eyes to be opened to the real history of our country.”
“I want people to understand the recipe for freedom and blessing and prosperity and I want people to be inspired by the stories of courage and sacrifice and selflessness,” he added.
And he was quick to note that “the history of the world is the story of people getting off track” so we are not facing a unique situation. History is full of people who took their history and freedom for granted, he said. And he argued that we can’t ever take those things for granted and we can’t wait for others to solve our own problems.
“We shouldn’t wait around and wait for the government to fix the problems of our country…we should fix them ourselves.” And as a born-again Christian, he added that faith in God is a good place to start.
In publicizing the film, Cameron has faced some tough questions about his own faith. While on Piers Morgan’s show a few weeks ago, the actor was confronted with questions about morality, homosexuality and abortion. And Cameron told me that he was unprepared for such questions and he was surprised how “disingenuous Morgan was.” Cameron told me that he went on the show to talk about his movie, not his personal religious beliefs.
His appearance and his statement that homosexuality is “unnatural” caused a lot of controversy but when I talked to Cameron, he was more focused on his film but he noted that as a Christian, he’s “called to love all people and not hate anybody and I don’t.”
Cameron’s new movie Monumental will be screened tonight in limited theaters as a one- night engagement. Click here to find a theater closest to you and also make sure you check out Townhall.com’s own Daniel Doherty interview Cameron at CPAC 2012.
The firehose of rampant liberalism and debauchery (I know... redundant) has long washed that "secret sauce" into the gutter.
And, oh, yeah, she's justified in withholding sex in order to control her mate (1 Cor. 7:5 notwithstanding). She is also free to start an affair while still married so long as her husband looked at naked boobies on the interwebs. And when it is all over, she has no need to apologize to her husband, much less repent
Seriously, Kirk. Look in the mirror, buddy.
His wife was spiritually lost, blind....He was showing unconditional love, not only to save his marriage, but so his spiritually blind wife would also turn to God. I have personal experience with this & know that when you finally do what God tells you to do and trust Him with your spouse, things change. I had it in reverse. My husband was controlling, made me feel worthless, he was sometimes cruel and heartless and flirted with women. I was ready to leave him, but I kept thinking about what this would do to my 3 sons. He was not a Christian. I knew what God wanted me to do; be kind no matter what, pray for him, return good for evil. I did not want to do this because I thought it was totally unfair that he treats me the way he did and now God wants ME to be kind, pray for him. I finally committed to God that I would do this with no conditions, no time limit. Within 3 months my husband, finally, after years of praying, turned to God. He later told me he resented my kindness and would purposely test my limits. He is a wonderful man today. He's not perfect, but neither am I. He works hard and made it possible for me to stay home. He lavishes me with gifts and our marriage is the best of anyone I know. That was the point of the story; to trust God.
His wife, who was not right with God, was not going to act like a Christian because she was not one. She did not respect her husband like God commanded, because she did not know God's commands. She was walking with the world and followed their rules. Maybe they will make a movie for wives. That might make you feel better.
• Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless.
In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church — for we are members of His body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:25-33)
Then, read Firebombed, which gives a Christian perspective on the movie. The woman in the movie was a hypergamous woman whose sin--planning to have an affair with another man while still married--was the same sin as her husband committed by looking at pornography: Lust.
As well, she withheld sex from him in order to control him, driving him to pornography, in contravence to the Biblical admonition against withholding intimacy (1 Cor. 7:5). She also clearly had no respect for her husband, in contravence of the Biblical command that wives respect their husbands. Her entire charge against him was that he didn't meet some subjective criteria of creating a state of permanent emotional ecstasy, an obligation even Christian leaders commonly try to put on husbands, but which is entirely absent from the Bible, is entirely selfish, and is also entirely logically impossible.
You make the common mistake of expecting non-Christians to act like Christians. They won’t, and the FICTIONAL wife in the movie was not right with God, and therefore was acting according to the standards of the world.
It is the husband’s responsibility to disciple her. Eph 5.
Re: Fireproof
Thanks for the link to the movie review. Sounds like a truly awful movie.
Wow, you took away a COMPLETELY different moral from the “Fireproof” story than I did. I saw a man who was willing to humble himself to his wife in order to save a marriage “instituted by God”. I loved the movie.
LOL at “driving him to pornography.” Nobody is DRIVEN to pornography by anything other than their own weakness, whether or not their wife is not getting it on with them.
“where it is up to Christians to Christianize the world,
instead of the fact that the world is going to continue to get worse until Christ Himself comes to redeem it.”
How ‘bout that whole, “Go and make of all disciples” thing? I think Christ was serious about that.
Unlikely, since 75% of all spending decisions are made by women. But you're only making my point for me. Both were unbelievers. He was driven to repentance. She never was driven to repentance. There is not a single part of the movie that indicates any repentance on her part for her sins, even after they got back together, even after they had a second "wedding" ceremony. Everything is brought to a "happily ever after" moment, without the pre-condition of her repentance. It creates the illusion that she wasn't equally at fault. But her sins were of the same kind as his: Her planning to have an affair with a doctor while still married was the same sin as him looking at pornography. It's called lust. But it's okay for her to do it, because her subjective emotional desires weren't being met.
You're right about pornography. I've had problems there as well. But what about the emotional pornography sold to women in the form of romance novels and Lifetime Network and all that? It's a kind of pornography where women are allowed to fantasize about a man keeping her in a constant and eternal state of emotional ecstasy. It demeans men by making women believe that the entire reason a man exists is to fulfill a woman's subjective and selfish emotional desires. The church actually encourages this kind of pornography, with Christian booksellers churning out tons of Christian romance novels and movies. This is porn for women, pure and simple. Both are based in lust, but the lust expresses itself in different ways. We wink at one form while rightly condemning the other. Why?
Instead of looking only at the man in the movie, look at the woman’s behavior, compare it to the standard of the Bible, and then ask yourself why she was never required to repent.
Then, read Firebombed, which gives a Christian perspective on the movie. The woman in the movie was a hypergamous woman whose sin—planning to have an affair with another man while still married—was the same sin as her husband committed by looking at pornography: Lust.
As well, she withheld sex from him in order to control him, driving him to pornography, in contravence to the Biblical admonition against withholding intimacy (1 Cor. 7:5). She also clearly had no respect for her husband, in contravence of the Biblical command that wives respect their husbands. Her entire charge against him was that he didn’t meet some subjective criteria of creating a state of permanent emotional ecstasy, an obligation even Christian leaders commonly try to put on husbands, but which is entirely absent from the Bible, is entirely selfish, and is also entirely logically impossible.
The wife was spiritually lost. She did not know God’s laws. She was acting like the world acts, the reason divorce is so high in this country.
I read this story yesterday about the lost;
Chuck Colson tells the story of Ron Greer, an ex-convict who was rehabilitated through Colson’s Prison Fellowship ministry. Greer, who became a pastor after serving his time, was once interrupted by a group of gay activists as he was conducting a church service. The activists were disrespectful and disruptive. They shouted obscenities and urinated on the restroom floors. They even went so far as to throw condoms on a prayer altar.
The pastor, who had preached that homosexual behavior contradicts the Bible, stood and smiled as the service-crashers carried on. Later, he was asked by the press why he didn’t get angry. Greer said, “I have no more reason to get angry with them than if a blind man stepped on my foot” (see Romans 12:14).
The pastor’s response reminds me of how Jesus responded even as He was being nailed to the cross by Roman soldiers. If there was ever a time to get angry and spew out some verbal venom, that was it. Instead, Jesus uttered this prayer: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
Like Jesus, this pastor recognized that those who verbally attack us—because of our beliefs—are often unaware. They say ugly things because they’re in a self-deceived state that leads them to oppose God and us. They are misguided souls in need of God’s grace and truth. And we must respond with love if we hope to win them over to Jesus and the truth that will set them free.
We should guard against getting defensive and angry at those who verbally attack us because of our beliefs. Getting mad and resorting to their harsh tactics is not the way of Jesus (Romans 12:17). Instead, we can honor Him by striving to “conquer evil by doing good” (Romans 12:21).
"Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."
--1 Cor 7:5
You're half right. It is his own "lack of self-control," but the Bible makes the other spouse responsible for not encouraging and enabling this weakness. Once again, you seem to be buying into the popular "Christian" tripe that it is always the man's fault. I used to think that, too, until my "Christian" wife had an affair and justified it on the grounds that I wasn't doing enough to make her ecstaticly happy all the time (despite trying to do so 24/7/365). It caused me to have to re-think everything that is commonly taught in Christianity about marriage. Much of it is horribly un-Biblical, and is designed to appeal to feminine forms of lust while rightly castigating masculine forms of lust.
Of course, I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that in our culture, women have taken the spiritual driver's seat in the marriage, and are responsible for deciding which church to attend, etc.
Since when are firemen poor? They make a descent living and they choose their profession, no one has enslaved them. There is always someone waiting in the wings to have a well-paying job. If the job, conditions and pay don’t suit you, one is always free to walk out the door and look for something else to pay the bills.
Now if you mean poor in spirit, then the man and the woman, in the movie, were both poor in spirit. Yet, neither wanted to be that way. One tried and was rejected until she broke and it was her decision to break away that brought him to the cross road of choosing to change to rekindle not only her spirit of love, but also his own. Then together they could come reunite in the spirit of both of love and forgiveness and be reborn.
God didn’t tell us not to judge, God said judge properly so you will also be judged properly. And Jesus told us to love and forgive for in that there is redemption of the soul. Sometimes forgiveness sets another free, most often forgiveness sets us free.
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Fireproof. But was the wife a Christian when she did all those wrong things? I seem to recall the husband became a Christian first, and that’s why he repented. Also, the point was that the wife did not “deserve” the husband’s love and sacrifice at that point, but he had to give it anyway...just like we don’t deserve Christ’s love and sacrifice, but He gives it, anyway. That was the whole point. And I think the happy ending was that the wife also ended up coming to Christ. Therefore, she would have repented, though they may not have shown that on screen.
But none of that justifies your absolutely ridiculous and wrongheaded statement that it is a "Divorce-porn" movie.
(At least you haven't argued the ages old defense of wayward men as 'boys will be boys.' Or argued the position that women should be chattel. That's at least one point in your favor).
I respect the movie for pointing out the EVIL of porn, and your suggesting that it was pro-porn is just reality in reverse.
And none of your anti-Fireproof rant addresses the point of this thread, or, in fact, has anything to do with it.
It was the husband's repentance and coming to Christ that helped lead his wife to Christ as well.
It's just that the focus was on the man's journey, and not the woman's.
ding, ding, ding...i guess we'll hafta wait for the sequel to see *if* she came to Christ and indeed repented...
the man is responsible, by design...
Really? Let's see: Woman feels unhappy that her husband isn't putting her in a state of perpetual emotional ecstasy. She threatens divorce. Scared by the threat, he, all of a sudden, makes it his life's purpose to cowtow to her every whim, even if she meets his kindness with hatred and disrespect. He does everything she could ever want, and she isn't required to give him anything in return. He almost dies in a fire, and she doesn't give a flip, because he doesn't matter. He's just a man. It's her selfish emotional desires that matter, not his life. Then, she gets a cold and he stays home to take care of her. Then, finally, two alpha males fight like rutting bucks for the right to mate with her. Every sin she commits is justified because she was emotionally unhappy, and a woman should always follow her heart...
That's pretty much the definition of female emo-porn.
Making disciples is a different mandate than taking over the State(s), which is dominionism.
If you have been exposed to that cockamamie opinion, then I understand a bit more your extreme and emotional reaction to a movie that does nothing of the sort, but rather, talks about a man's beginning to understand his responsibility to his wife and home (as defined by Scripture).
In the movie, the husband becomes the spiritual leader, does he not? Isn't that a good thing? Isn't that Scriptural??
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