The Radical Attack on Family Values ft. Kirk Cameron

and I wanted to go read it at a public Story Hour just like the drag queens were doing well I was denied by over 50 woke libraries these are Librarians or Boards of libraries that have been infected by the woke mind virus that prefers uh for men in in fishnet stockings and high heels and skirts to read stories to children and shape and warp their little Minds welcome to the Elizabeth Johnston podcast this episode is brought to you by donatio Kirk Cameron is a Christian producer actor television and film icon and loving husband and father of six Kirk has made an incredible impact through films like fireproof The Homeschool Awakening and LIF Mark and has recently linked arms with my publisher Brave books Kirk has been lighting brushfires of faith and freedom across the country through movements like National see you at the library day his passion for bringing traditional biblical American values into public spaces is contagious and giving hope to families everywhere Kirk welcome how are you thank you thanks I'm doing great it's it's nice to see you thank you for having me on the show love love what we're talking about today yeah totally for most of us know you obviously from um the incredibly popular show Growing Pains and how long were you on Growing Pains Kirk let's see uh we were on for about six years about six six and a half Seasons this episode is brought to you by donatio what what if the necessary cost of processing your company's payments could be leveraged for the kingdom what if your business could do good simply by doing business this is why donatio processing exists a group of leaders who love Jesus and have Decades of experience in payment processing business leadership and nonprofit organizations founded donatio now you can keep the cost of doing business connected to your mission vision and values all while we're seeing receiving exceptional service with donatio 50% of every dollar earned goes to causes that positively impact the kingdom in fact if you and your business switch to donatio my ministry will receive that 50% just let them know I sent you on the surface nothing will change for you you do business like always but now you are also funding the kingdom and doing good with every transaction processed for more details go to donatio processing.com fill out the form make the switch and join the donatio family today do business do good donatio if you'd like to promote your business or organization on the Elizabeth Johnston podcast please reach out to us at admin Elizabeth johnson. we would love to work with you my most memorable moment on Growing Pains of course there's lots of funny scenes and lots of practical jokes that we played on each other as a cast but I remember meeting my wife who played Mike siver's girlfriend on the show and it was there on the set that this beautiful actress arrived and she was just sweet and kind and beautiful and I thought boy I'd really love to get to know her but you know I shouldn't get my hopes up because she's so far out of my league I mean I don't even stand a chance and then I noticed that she was wearing a necklace with a cross on it and listening to a band that not many people knew of back in the day was called Petra Petra was this amazing Christian rock band and I love Petra because I had just come to faith in Christ and so when she told me what it was we started listening together I asked her out she said yes eventually we got married 35 years later we have six kids and a grandbaby and best memory ever wow that's incredible and Chelsea is your wife's name and some of your children are biological and some are adopted right yeah that that's right we actually adopted our first four children so they weren't an afterthought they were our primary thought wow and then after our adoption adventure and my wife is also an adop adopted baby oh okay wow we had two kids after that the oldfashioned way so we've got a big Full House we've now got a little granddaughter because our our daughter Anna just had a little baby wow that is fabulous and I know that you're fighting for your kids and so many of the things that you were um actively promoting right now um Kirk back in 2018 when puppet shows and craft days got replaced by drag queen story hours in public libraries um I started raising awareness about this and um drag queen story hours were really still getting away with going into communities quietly covertly uh but now they're are saying the quiet part out loud and in some instances even admitting that uh their intentions are the grooming of our children tell us about what you are doing with CU at the library day well CU at the library began uh for me and Brave books uh couple Christmases ago when I I wrote a book called as you grow it's it's all about growing in the fruit of the spirit the sweet fruit of love and joy and peace and kindness and I wanted to go read it at a public Story Hour just like the drag queens were doing well I was denied by over 50 woke libraries these are Librarians or Boards of libraries that have been infected by the woke mind virus that prefers uh for men in in fishnet stockings and high heels and skirts to read stories to children and shape and warp their little Minds well when they denied me I went to the news told some friends taker Carlson and others and put these people on notice that they were violation violating the Constitution I'd be prepared to assert my rights in court we showed up to the to the libraries that said that nobody would come to listen and were welcomed by over 3,000 people at these libraries and this happened in DC and New York and uh Los Angeles and San Francisco and it culminated in a national event that was our take on see you at the poll so remember see you at the poll parents come and pray at the did when I was in high school yes so this is see you at the library where thousands of families are going to the public library to pray and to sing the national anthem and to to uh read books of Christian virtue Like Yours Like Mine like so many others and we did it last year and had over 300 story hours in 46 States now this year we plan to 2x that we've already got uh many more libraries and story hours set up on August 24th all across the nation in 50 states wow so it's going to be an incredible day to um hopefully set a Guinness World Record uh the drag queens were recorded by Guinness World Record as having the largest drag Story Hour we invited them to come to one of our events which has thousands of them and when you have 500 libraries simultaneously doing them this makes it just a massive massive national movement uh they haven't called us back but that's okay we're going to set the record anyway way and we know who will show up and that's thousands and thousands of parents grandparents who love God who love America and love their children wow well of course the libraries won't call you back I mean you're such a bigot how dare you uh sing the national anthem well you know there's many great Librarians and libraries who want to call us back but there's people at the American Library Association it's the robes it's the ones with the badges and the certifications that push the agenda from the top down if you follow the money back you'll figure out where all of this stuff comes from not as conspiracy but as the way that culture generally Works people get greedy for money and power and then they are able to push their ideas from the top down so that's why you see what you see at the Olympics at the opening ceremonies that's why you see what you see at Target that's why you see what you see at the libraries because everybody wants a culture that's based on a set of ideas that produces what's best for them and our Founders in this country were they were people who had deep respect for the Bible its principles and Christianity even those who are not devout Christians you can look at Benjamin Franklin and others they understood that Christianity would produce human flourishing for everybody and the idea was take the authority and the responsibility away from a king or a queen or an emperor or a dictator and put it in the hands of all the people so now the people are co- Kings governing themselves well how in the world are you going to do that I mean how do you make the rules how do you make the laws well people need to have an internal sense of wanting to obey the laws the Eternal rules of right and if you can get that embedded into their heart downloaded into their mind now you can have a country like America that is free politically economically educationally without going crazy and disintegrating into T and Chaos because you have people who know how to govern themselves so these are the principles that we're fighting for these are the things that we want going forward we are a a republic we're not a democracy our Founders hated the idea of a democracy and that's why you see all these word games being played with love and inclusion and diversity and equity and democracy all of that kind of stuff and so we need to get back to teaching our kids these principles if we want them to have a good future yes and Brave books is doing that with the ecosystem literary ecosystem that they are building and I am honored to be you know one of their authors as well Kirk unfortunately drag queen Story Hour is not the only nefarious thing happening in libraries today public schools and libraries are known for giving tons of shelf space to this thing that we all used to know as very innocent and it's called Scholastic Books you have been doing a great job exposing Scholastic's agenda to sexualize our children tell us more about what Scholastic books is doing and what we can do as parents to combat the sexualization of children well Elizabeth this is there's so many things that we can talk about that are nefarious and wicked in the culture I don't want to give them too much time and what I think is more productive is to say what are we doing to contribute to the demoralization of our children and the disintegration of our of our culture and um man it it'd be like this imagine that you had your kids all all across the nation and parents are complaining that their girls are coming home strippers and their boys are drug dealers and you say we need to really stop this this is really terrible and then we find out well how is this happening well all of us are paying to send them to schools that teach them how to be strippers and drug dealers well look this at the end of the day is happening on our watch and it's being funded by the parents we're sending our kids to Public Schools where they're learning how to hate God they're learning how to hate the country they're learning how to adopt a set of values that calls good evil and evil good and boys can be girls and girls can be boys it does no good to complain about it what we need to do is replace it with the set of values that leads to health and success and we as adults have to begin to do this in our own lives and our own communities so yes Scholastic is wicked yes you have all this nasty stuff but here's the deal whoever wants the Next Generation the most is going to get them and if you will tell the stories to the children you will shape their ideas of what is good and evil but if we Outsource our parenting because it's easier or we believe the lie that we're not qualified experts to educate our kids so we have to we have to subcontract our parenting and discipleship out to the government we're going to have little kids that come back as little marxists little statists little atheists drag queens strippers drug dealers and you name it so that's why we got to do what we're doing and we need to support the people that are are are really leaning into that there's a million Ministries million churches out there there's great companies like Brave books and others so support these people yes and get these kinds of stories read them to your children and your grandchildren pull your kids out of the schools that are teaching your kids bad things and put them into places that teach them good things uh consider homeschooling consider private school consider a church that has educational co-ops there's so many opportunities and we just don't have time to play games in the in the that's right yeah we're not just going to whine about it we're going to do something about it and that's why you and I both have offered authored these books with Brave books do you have your book there in front of you that you could I don't no I don't have it in front of me but you check it out in the show notes the name of mine is Little Lives matter and it's the it's a pro-life um children's book and the man you wrote that that's wonderful we just made an episode of our new television show for kids called the adventures with Iggy and Mr K and I believe that's going to be our very first episode it's a beautiful story and my little green iguana buddy Iggy he's uh learning to take care of these little tiny unborn lives that are living inside of these little bird eggs and when they hatch you can't believe it oh it's a great episode and it features your book wow that's awesome I had no idea so I learned something new well this brings me to another controversial topic and it is the education system as a whole in America and I'm just going to ask it are we Outsourcing parenting in America and if so what are the consequences not everybody certainly not everybody and thank you everyone who's who's not sending your children to a public school 7even eight hours a day God bless the single moms and the single dads out there who feel like I don't have a support system I don't they're saying I don't want this I don't want what's happening to my kids out there I'm trying to counteract it by taking them to church or reading them but listen if our kids go somewhere for 7 hours day five days a week and they have homework after that on top of that and we're putting our kids through a 9-hour 5 day a week program that's A full-on discipleship program that's a full brainwashing of our children and to try to undo that with an hour of youth group on Wednesday night and maybe a church service in the morning a little prayer at night it's it's just not feasible so I think if we first turn our minds around and say wait a minute God gave children to parents for a reason because you love them most and you're the ones that he talked to in Deuteronomy chapter 6 where Moses said to the people of Israel he said these Commandments that I'm giving you today download these into your heart live them out yourself and then teach them diligently to your children so who's the who's the teacher in in that little equation moms and dad and you teach it to them when they rise up out of their chair when they're sitting down in your house when they're walking along the way and when they go to sleep at night right so if we give our children to go and learn the opposite of Godly values nine hours a day we're essentially allowing the enemy to disciple and evangelize our children away from us away from God and away from the principles that make for a good country so we got to we got to pull them out of that yeah um unfortunately even even my father is um I us say this fortunately I think the system is irredeemable there are wonderful teachers in the public school system my father is one of them my grandparents are one of them I know many wonderful teachers God bless you for being a light in the darkness however you are totally hamstrung and hog tied by the people who write your paycheck and that goes all the way up to an agenda to indoctrinate all of the children and and it's just a matter of time before your sweet little school has to Bow the knee so what do you do guess what lots of teachers are exiting this the public school system and they're becoming teachers for homeschool co-ops and homeschool networks and private school networks and so now the resources outside of public school are rich find find a group of people go online and check them out go to your church uh we cannot give up the education of our children yes yes now Kirk we've been talking about the the problem a lot and we've been talking about homeschooling a lot and I want to Pivot more um into a couple questions I only have you for a few more moments um about parenting and I want to ask you what are some practical ways that we as parents and with it not being homeschool your kids obviously but what are some practical ways that we can build strong close families and relationships with our children what does that look like in your family here's some foundational principles that I've learned from the scriptures and from mentors pastors teachers that I really respect number one be the kind of person that you want your children to become yes I think more is caught than taught there are a lot of people who can point back to parents who told them one thing but then the parents did a different thing yes uh rules for for for thee but not for me right um if you want your children to grow up with a sense of gratitude for their their parents and their children then you know what treat your own parents with respect don't whine and criticize and complain if you want your children to have a strong faith in God let them seeing you hit your knees in genuine repentance and confession of your sin and and to your spouse when you speak unkindly to them show them what repentance actually looks like yeah so that they can say oh I know I did a bad thing I know how to go to God I know how to go to my wife and say I'm sorry I know how to go to my children and say will you forgive me why because I saw my dad do it I saw my mom do it growing up be a portrait of the the desired destination let your kids see it and then number two I would say stay in relationship with them no matter what if your kid gets a DUI if your kid gets FS on his report card if your kid talks back to you and won't clean up his room don't ex him out and cut him off simply because he's not performing what if God treated you that way based on your performance you wouldn't want that not on your best day yeah we've got to understand that God placed our children in our life according to his wisdom we need them they need us and we need to love them the way God loves us and that is simply because God put them in our life and and they're our child and so don't burn the relationship yeah uh because they're not behaving the way that you want and then thirdly train them with the word of God don't let Siri and Alexa and Google train your kids don't put them in front of shows and don't send them to the youth pastor in the church to get your kids morals and the gospel you need to give them the only authoritative source of Truth and that is the word of God and that combined with it praying faithful mom or a dad or better yet both the devil and all the forces of darkness and Hell together don't stand a chance to stop your child from advancing the kingdom of God so good Kirk yes that's that's it you and I both have adult children Kirk and I want I I have 10 children five of mine are adults my six is about to reach adulthood and I want to speak to parents with adult or soon to be adult children for a moment when our children are little and we can you know childproof our home and buckle them into car seats and keep them safe in a crib it's it's completely different and as our children grow up we have both experienced uh that your relationship with them shifts and I struggled with that shift if I'm honest with my first child you know she was unfortunately my practice round poor thing and um and I've seen a lot of other struggle with this transition what wisdom do you have to share with parents who are launching children into adulthood yeah this is a great question and I'm I'm learning by doing as this is on the job training for me and for my wife but but my wife is just so much better at this than I am she's she's so good and so often I I watch and I learn and I value the fact that she always puts relationship Above Performance she values the things that God values she reminds me all the time you know our kids are our works in progress we can't be putting inspection stickers on them you know like pass fail stickers remember that remember that that great punchinello book by Max loo uh like back in the 90s or the early 2000s punchinello and then everybody walked around with these with these stars or these dots and you wanted the star but you didn't want the dots everyone's inspecting each other and evaluating each other based on how talented you are how pretty you are how smart you are and we've got to remember that our children are Works in progress just just like we are they're trying to make their way into the world as adults and we start by walking in front of our children holding their hands helping them walk and then we shift to walking alongside of them and then they're going to go right out in front of us and we're going to send them uh they're G to send we're going to send them out the door and we're going to send them out into the I am cheering you on I a refuge that you can always count on to be here for you and I'm a source of wisdom that you can always draw from and that's hard because we want to be their protectors and their providers we want to make the decisions for them so that they don't get hurt but at the end of the day they've got to be fully functioning adult humans and um God helps us along the way a lot of a lot of prayer has has been a main ingredient for us yes and and you know we're seeing the fruit of the seeds that we planted when they were little so I would say parents just hang in there wait just just wait on the Lord and and I'm beginning to see the the growth new growth in my children because of the hard things that they're going through um they've got to deal with it they've got to they've got to experience it and they've got to get their own Roots uh yes you know as they grow with God yeah it's been one of the most challenging things for me to accept is that I have to allow my children to get hurt sometimes and that that is where usually there's exponential growth is in the process of of them um having to navigate adulting so that's um so excellent as we close Kirk I just want to make sure that um everyone watching and listening knows how to be a part of see you at the library day since that is something that is just around the corner so tell us what we need to know about that go to Brave books.com Brave books.com and you can just check uh check click on the tab right there see you at the library go to the map find a story hour near you if you don't see one start one host Story Hour you can fill out the form we'll show you how to do it we'll send you a story hour toolkit which has the books to read it has the songs to sing it has the flags to wave the posters the bookmarks it'll make it a Smash Hit go to Brave books.com and support them as a company because these are one of the good guys Pro Amer Pro constitutional values and we need to get find everything they do pro family Pro free speech we could go on and on all the things that uh we want to to pass down to our children reading has become a lost art that we want to revive again as well so well I I can't wait for you to see the episode of adventures with Iggy and Mr Kirk and what's so beautiful about this is that it gives a nostalgic nod to Mr Rogers neighborhood and Sesame Street and it's just absolutely adorable and inspiring and I can't wait for people to see it I love it Kirk I just had a real go viral where I was just reacting to a Mr Rogers clip where he was talking about boys or boys and you can't change that and girls are girls I saw that clip yeah yeah well Kirk thank you so much I know you got a run I appreciate you being a part of the Elizabeth Johnston podcast God bless you in everything that you're doing we appreciate your stand for family values thanks Elizabeth God bless you too have a great day if you were blessed by this podcast and want to partner with us and you're watching by YouTube you can click on the links below if you're watching via the podcast app you can go to my website at Elizabeth johnson. org there's never been a more important time to teach our children the San of human life get my Illustrated pro-life children's book Little Lives matter at my website Elizabeth [Music]