Rick Green and Kirk Cameron Talk Faith, Politics and the Constitution
By Movieguide® Staff
Rick Green, author of ‘Constitution Alive!’, recently sat down with actor Kirk Cameron to discuss the intersection between faith and politics.
The former Texas State Representative, also known as America’s Constitution Coach, is on a mission to encourage American citizens to learn about the values the founding fathers embedded into the Constitution of the United States.
“If you go back 20 years to 9/11, we were attacked and as a response to that when we went through tough times there was kind of a renewed patriotism in America,” he explained to Cameron on a recent episode of TAKEAWAYS. “That didn’t last long because it wasn’t an informed patriotism. I think what’s happening now with all the negativity of the last couple of years, now people are hungry for an informed patriotism.”
“Not only are they saying ‘I love America, I love freedom,’ they’re actually asking, ‘How do you do this well? How do I become a good citizen instead of just sitting on the sideline?'”
Green said that while many people teach that the founding fathers wanted to separate government and God, he said that the word of God informs much of what they wrote in the foundational documents.
“Let’s just take the Bill of Rights… the Constitution is saying, ‘God gave you these those things, you have those things and the government’s job is to protect those things well,” Green said. “That goes back to the Declaration where they lay out in the Declaration what they call the laws of nature. They say, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,’ that
they’re endowed by their creator certain unalienable rights.”
“From the beginning, our freedom is not given to each other; we don’t just come up with this. God gave us this freedom,” he added. “They go on to say that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the government. So what they’re saying in the Declaration is that God gave us freedom and rights and then we create a government for one purpose: to protect the rights that God gave us.
“It’s actually all over Exodus and Deuteronomy and the law that God gave us, the ability to defend your home, the ability to make sure that you can protect against those things and that we would hold people accountable and that if you did take someone’s life because they broke into your home robbing your home in the middle of the night that you were innocent in that that you had the right to do that in order to defend your family.”
Despite the American government’s shift away from God’s design, Green said that he is excited about how God can use current times to encourage citizens to become more well-read on the Constitution.
“Let me first say that the government is a blessing,” Green said. “It’s a God-created institution and it’s a blessing when it stays in its lane. When it gets outside its lane it becomes a curse because then it becomes abusive, then it begins to take away those rights.”
“If we’re gonna wave our flag we gotta understand why that flag is worthy of being waived,” he continued. “We got to understand what it really stands for, what the American system is… if you’re a citizen of the United States you don’t just have the rights that we talk about you have a responsibility. This is a duty. Our nation needs us to be good citizens and we can only be good citizens if we study citizenship, if we study what it means to be an American.”
Watch the full interview below:
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Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
