Since exploding onto the scene as a teen heartthrob in the popular 1980’s sitcom, Growing Pains, actor Kirk Cameron has been parlaying his popularity into a string of movies and faith-affirming specials and programs designed to educate and inspire the next generation.
“Non-Essential” is Cameron’s latest venture – a dynamic, free two-hour online special featuring well-known speakers and musicians emphasizing the essential place of the Christian Church and people of faith, especially on the heels of a critical election and in the face of a global pandemic that has upended and isolated millions since this past March.
To watch the online event, click here.
Debuted on October 18th at Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills, California, the program has already been seen by over one-million people.
Several of the event’s speakers, in addition to Cameron, included Dinesh D’Souza, Charlie Kirk, Ryan Higgens and Cissie Graham Lynch, expressed frustration with sweeping state-sponsored edicts that prohibited people of faith from gathering for worship.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, reminded those gathered that it was activist Christians who founded America, realizing that individual rights and liberties “come from God, not government.”
Dinesh D’Souza lamented that liberal activists – those clearly hostile to the Christian faith, aren’t satisfied with just controlling the nation’s most influential power centers – the arts and sciences, universities, political institutions and Hollywood.
“They want to control it all,” D’Souza lamented. “They want everything. The NFL, the Boy Scouts … But we have one giant megaphone – the church – and the secret weapon is us.”
So, what are we to do?
According to Non-Essential’s host, Kirk Cameron, the “secret sauce recipe” is found in principles largely forgotten, but recorded in the Bible and on the “The National Monument to the Forefathers,” formerly known as the Pilgrim Monument, located in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Erected in 1899 and commissioned by the Pilgrim Society, it’s the largest free-standing granite monument in the world.
Cameron’s description and message are must viewing for every young student – but also every adult, too. He walks through the symbolic significance of the structure, highlighting its emphasis on morality, God’s law, justice, mercy and liberty.
In the end, Non-Essential’s takeaway message is clear – America’s churches are essential, but only if the people within them are willing to rise up and play their part in the larger story.
Dinesh D’Souza’s closing tale of the lion and the lion tamer perfectly captures both the challenge – and the solution we all face on the eve of the 2020 election.
How is it possible that a powerful lion capable of so much is so easily subjugated to the whims and ways of a man a fraction of his weight and strength?
“The lion doesn’t know how powerful he is,” D’Souza notes, offering a prescriptive parallel to all believers:
“We are the lion and it’s time for us to roar.”
And vote on or by November 3rd.
NOTE: Click here to watch NON-ESSENTIAL.
Photo from Vimeo
