Kirk Cameron | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 82
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By the time I graduated high school, doors were opening for an acting career, and I thought I might as well keep this career going.
And the doors that were opening were lining up with what was happening to me on the inside.
I want to be about things that promote faith.
I want to be about things that promote family and marriage.
And here I am looking in the rear view mirror saying, "This has been awesome." Hey, hey, and welcome.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special.
I'm really excited to welcome to the show Kirk Cameron.
Kirk is an actor and producer.
You remember him as Mike Seaver on Growing Pains, but he's also starred in Fireproof and Way of the Master.
He's currently on a 30-city tour for his marriage and parenting conference, Living Room Reset.
Now, quick reminder, we'll be doing some bonus questions with our guests.
The only way to get access to that part of the conversation is to spend money on us by becoming a subscriber.
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You'll have access to all of the full conversations with every one of our awesome guests.
Kirk, thanks so much for joining the show, dude.
Oh, man, it's my honor.
Great to meet you.
Great to be here with you.
I gotta say, my entire family grew up on, of course, you as Mike Seaver in Growing Pants.
Really?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Well, and this is kind of crazy because my family kind of grew up with you on YouTube.
I mean, you're quite the hit and legend and subject of debate and passion conversations in our house.
I really appreciate it.
I have to say, I was kind of insulted that, you know, I have a name profile and yet my wife was far more excited that you were coming on the Sunday Special than that I actually host the Sunday Special.
Well, you know, it is fun and it's funny.
So many people grew up in the 1980s with Growing Pains and shows like that and Who's the Boss and other kinds of shows, and you just feel like these people grew up with you in your living room, so it's like they're family.
You feel like you know them.
Exactly.
For me, it was the Fonz.
It was Henry Winkler, and I was pretty excited when I met him. - So in a second, I wanna ask you about what happened while you were on Growing Pains and your shift to Christianity, 'cause that was obviously the defining feature of not only your life, but also of your move and your career.
I'm gonna ask you about that in just a second.
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So let's talk a little bit about what has become sort of the defining feature.
Whenever there's an article about you in the press, it's always about your shift to Christianity while you were playing Mike Seaver on Growing Pains, which is a radical shift, at least from the outside, just because the character of Mike Seaver is so different from somebody who would become an evangelical Christian.
So what exactly happened to you and what was that experience like?
Well, I didn't grow up in a religious home, so I never went to church.
In fact, I thought that Jesus was part of a different trinity, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and God.
So, that was never on the radar, but I actually met a girl on the set who was really cute, and she invited me to go meet her family, and it was a Sunday morning at church.
And I heard a message from the minister that just I was answering questions that I was asking, existential questions, philosophical questions, and I got thinking about the fact that one day I would die, and if really intelligent people believe in the existence of God, maybe I'm wrong as an atheist, and at least I ought to reach out.
And I heard this message of God's grace and His love and His forgiveness, and I remember sitting in my sports car on the side of the road at 17 years old, and I thought about, I could get hit by a drunk driver, I could die today, And if what that man said is true, I'm not going to heaven because of my attitude.
You know, I was the big man on campus.
I was Mike Seaver on Growing Pains, and everything was on my terms.
But I understood that a relationship with God would have to be on His terms.
He's the creator.
And so I remember praying.
And asking God to show me the way.
And somebody gave me a Bible, I started to read it, I started to go to church, and asked a million questions.
Listening to guys like Ravi Zacharias, who I loved the interview that you had with him.
Listening to guys like John MacArthur and others who really got me I was captivated by the message of the gospel, and I wanted to live my life in a way that was different, saying thank you to the one that gave me air to breathe, water to drink, and I was 17.
So, as a 17-year-old kid trying to figure out your own identity, I know I...
I ruffled some feathers.
I know that I may have been like a bull in a china shop.
My words may not have been seasoned with all the grace that they should have at 17.
But I was trying to figure out, how do I do this?
I didn't grow up like this.
How do I honor God in an industry that doesn't always look to accomplish the same goal?
How did your parents react to you moving in this direction?
Well, it was interesting because my mom had gone to church as a little girl, but my dad didn't want us to go to church.
He wanted us to sort of, you know, figure it out ourselves.
And so she was thrilled.
She was like, great, I would love to go to church.
But the problem was my mom and dad were separated at the time.
Providentially, this news of me going to church actually brought my dad to church, and my mom was like, you're not going to church with the kids without me!
I'm coming back!
And so, that actually was one of the things that I think added to them reconciling their relationship, and then we were all coming together, and we were praying together, and going to church together, and it was a really beautiful, positive thing in our family.
That's an amazing thing.
So how were you received in the industry when you decided to make this move?
I mean, both my parents work in the industry.
I spend a lot of time around people in the industry.
I know that when my mom, she has four, there are four kids in our family, and she works at a very high level in terms of business production.
I remember when she would go to events and people would ask how many kids she had and she'd say four.
People would lose their minds.
They would freak out.
That's how many kids?
So many kids.
Then we'd be in the Orthodox Jewish community where I spend my life.
Like, what happened?
Where are the other seven?
Yeah, yeah.
Come on, you guys.
Get with it.
So what was the reception like to your move?
Well, I would say that there were some people who had a healthy concern, a natural healthy concern.
You know, when you hear of teen celebrities, child actors, often things enter into their life that make them go wrong.
And, you know, that can be very concerning.
So it was like, what is he into?
What's going on?
But it was kind of funny because really I think the changes were I just wasn't dropping as many F-bombs.
You know, I wasn't going to the same parties and I wasn't interested in some of the stuff that my friends were interested in.
And I think over time it's really served me well.
So there may be some parts that I had to pass on because of content or conscience issues, but at the end of the day
Look at me, I'm sitting here with Ben Shapiro on your show, married for 29 years, I have six kids, I'm working on projects that I'm passionate about, and I'm trying to spread a message of life and light, and I think all that is because God has pointed me in a direction that I think works.
Did the offers start to change?
And I've talked to a lot of conservatives in the industry, and you can see for some of them, they'll say, no, it didn't really change.
I'm still getting the same offers.
I remember talking to Patty Heaton about this, one of my friends.
And Patty, I said to her, you know, have you lost parts because of this, because she's so pro-life, and outspokenly so.
And she said, I don't think so, but let me call you back.
She called me back 48 hours later, said, yeah, I just found out I lost seven specific parts because of this.
So did you feel any blowback from folks in the industry, or was it something where it was sort of a natural progression toward more parts you wanted to do?
I think it's the latter.
I think that there were doors that were opening up that were just fantastic.
So I wanted to do...
I guess I began to see… I always wanted to be a doctor.
I could say it this way.
I wanted to be a doctor.
I wanted to be a surgeon.
My plan was to go to college, go to medical school, and this acting thing took off when I was 9 years old.
By 14, I was on growing pains.
By the time I graduated high school, doors were opening for an acting career, and I thought I might as well keep this career going, and the doors that were opening were lining up with what was happening to me on the inside.
I want to be about things that promote faith.
I want to be about things that promote family and marriage.
And the movie Fireproof came up.
And that was a chance to be a part of a really cool, inspiring movie.
I was part of a documentary called Monumental, which explored the founding principles of our forefathers, the pilgrims.
And I retraced their escape route out of England to Holland, where they spent all those years with their pastor before coming over on the Mayflower.
And so it wasn't ever like I felt that people's disagreements with my faith or my values was inhibiting my career.
I I felt like my clearer direction of where I wanted to go was lining up with the doors that were opening.
And here I am looking in the rearview mirror saying, this has been awesome.
So how did you not get screwed up?
I mean, I know a lot of kids who are child actors.
My cousin, actually, was a child star, Mara Wilson.
She was in Matilda and Miracle on 34th Street and all that.
Very sweet person.
Haven't talked to her in a while, though.
But a lot of other people who start off as child actors have serious problems in their lives.
And you see these horror stories all over the media all the time.
So why didn't that happen to you?
Well, Ben, you've got to remember, as far as me not being all screwed up, I'm an actor.
I could be faking this whole thing.
And so I could really be a mess on the inside and break down after we turn off the cameras.
I have friends, contemporaries, people that I worked with growing up that have had things happen to them that didn't happen to me.
I'm fortunate in some ways.
They've made choices that are different than the choices that I've made.
But in the end, I think I was surrounded by some good people.
The cast of Growing Pains was great.
Alan and Joanna and Tracy and Jeremy and Leonardo DiCaprio.
It was like we were really like a family, even to the point where, you know, People didn't want to smoke on the set.
People didn't want to be cussing on the set because there was kids there.
And that combined, I think, with my mom and dad just really just being there.
My dad's a schoolteacher.
He taught physical education and mathematics for 30, 35 years.
And my mom was just always there with us.
And I think those things sort of laid a foundation.
But being a teenager in Hollywood is a pretty dicey road to take.
And I think that's where faith in God kicked in and pointed me in a different direction.
And I took the road less traveled, so to speak.
But, again, I think...
That sense of, wow, I'm really blessed to have this life and I want to live it in a way that honors the one who gave it to me.
And I think that kept me on track more than anything.
Do you still keep in touch with people who you're on the show with?
Oh yeah.
Yeah, Jeremy comes over and cooks every once in a while.
He's a chef.
He's awesome.
And I see Tracy and Jeremy probably the most of them.
As you know, Alan Thicke passed away.
Joanna's up in Santa Barbara.
But we're still friends.
We love seeing each other when we do have the chance.
So you've been making Christian content and conservative content or at least traditionally oriented family content for a while.
Why do you think it is that it's been left to sort of non-mainstream outlets in Hollywood to do all of that?
It's been a constant source of frustration for a lot of conservatives that I know that the studios will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on movies that have an incredibly select audience of apparently very Yeah.
blue people living in very blue areas, and they just ignore an entire swath of people who believe in religious faith, and that's left to sort of smaller studios to distribute.
Fireproof is, of course, the best example of this, a movie that was made on a shoestring budget and then goes on to do $30 million at the box office because Hollywood completely ignores this entire segment of the American population.
It's perplexing, isn't it?
I I travel all around the country teaching on the subject of marriage and parenting because I think family is so important.
I think when the family crumbles, the nation crumbles.
And what I find everywhere that I go is that there are people of faith, I call it the family of faith, everywhere who believe In the kinds of values and think that character and virtue is essentially important, more so than politics, more so than the economy, more so than these other things.
I don't know why there aren't more projects like this, but I think that there are becoming more and more of these things.
More with technology being the way that it is, you don't have to depend on a studio distribution system, you don't have to depend on studio funding, you can grab a camera and you can have a YouTube channel and you can start making stuff.
More independent movies are coming around this way.
I would think, actually I would love to ask you that, why you think, I wonder if there aren't political reasonings behind all of that.
I mean, I certainly think that I wrote a book in 2014 about the TV industry called Primetime Propaganda.
And I went and interviewed probably a hundred different executives and producers and creators on TV shows.
And many of them would say openly that they had legitimate scorn for people in the middle of the country with whom they disagreed on these sorts of areas.
They felt that the real issues that were perplexing people were not issues of faith.
Those weren't the people they were speaking to.
And a lot of that was because I think the artistic endeavor, from where I sit, very much seems to be, from people I was talking to, reflective of the people who surround you.
So when I talk to some of the creators of Friends, which is a lifestyle completely foreign to my own, and foreign to a lot of people in the middle of the country, people who are in their early 30s acting like they're 17 years old living in an apartment together, all single, they have a kid at one point out of wedlock.
The kid disappears for several years, the kid sort of shows up randomly several seasons later, and that's treated as perfectly normal.
They even make a joke of it in the show.
And I remember talking to Myra Kaufman, who is one of the creators of Friends, and she said, right, but those are the people who I'm surrounded by.
And so, in other words, the bubble that you live in really defines the people who you're speaking to.
And so because the creative industry is drawn so much from LA, New York, San Francisco, and so little from So what seems like there's such fertile ground for so many of these projects with this underserved market and that's what I'm trying to do.
there's this broad kind of gap in the market.
So what seems like there's such fertile ground for so many of these projects with this underserved market, and that's what I'm trying to do.
I would love to be a part of more movies, more television shows, documentaries, live events.
I love being in front of people.
So I love traveling.
I love getting on stage.
I love performing.
I think probably because I was on Growing Pains all those years.
But I find that people are looking for things to... Nobody wants to fail at family, right?
Nobody goes to the altar thinking, hey, if this whole thing blows up, I'm okay with it.
We want marriage to work.
We want parenting to work.
And parenting is hard.
My wife and I have six children.
Four of them are adopted.
And so we have a very diverse group of people in our home.
I think people want and appreciate things that help them live life in a way that just causes people to flourish, families to flourish, and the nation to flourish.
So I'm going to ask you about the family and parenting stuff, which is really where you're putting most of your time these days.
But first, you've heard about cryptocurrency and you thought, that sounds weird.
Crypto and currency, why are they in the same word?
Well, the reason they're in the same word is because, effectively speaking, what cryptocurrency is, it is a digital way for you to protect your assets.
Why?
What is it?
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So, you've been married for, what, you said 29 years?
29 years.
Okay, and you met your wife on the set.
Yeah, I met my wife on the set.
She actually played Mike Seaver's girlfriend.
I like to say that I stole Mike Seaver's girlfriend away from him.
You know, he had excellent taste.
And we've been married for 29 years.
She's from New York, I'm from Los Angeles, East Coast, West Coast, so it's sort of like a meeting of two worlds.
But when I met her, I found that she was not only beautiful on the outside, she was just beautiful on the inside.
She loved God, she loved kids, she loved family, and we hit it off, and within a year, we were married.
So how old were you when you guys got married?
Well, I was 20 when I got married, so I engaged, proposed, I think it was 19.
Wow.
Yeah, so I was just like, if I don't ask this girl to marry me, somebody else will.
And So I cannot lose her.
Oh yeah, that by the way, folks, this is where we, I mean we agree on a lot of stuff, but this is one area where we totally agree.
If you ever find the girl who you think you're going to marry, just propose like right then.
How long did you guys date before you were proposing?
Well, I think it was probably maybe six to nine months.
It wasn't all that long, but I just knew that I'm not ever, ever going to do better than this.
Exactly.
You took your time.
I proposed to my wife three months in.
Three months in?
Way to go!
That's the way it's done.
Twelve years coming up in July.
Congratulations.
It's so funny.
When we got engaged, I had told her I love you a month before she said I love you back to me.
So it was a real awkward month, right?
I would finish every conversation, I'd say, I love you, and she'd say, OK, thank you.
And the reason was because as soon as she said I love you back, she knew that this was going to be a serious thing.
Exactly.
So she said I love you back.
And naturally, the first words out of my mouth were, so let's get married.
So let's get married.
And she said, no, let's take our time.
It'll be fun.
I said, you understand, this is not fun.
Okay, like the fun part is like when we get married.
That's the fun part because now we're committed.
Now I don't have to worry about everything falling apart.
Right now, this is extremely nerve-wracking.
So if we can just get this thing off the table, that would be great.
I mean, I've never understood the desire to sort of delay marriage once you've found the person who you think you want to be with.
Yeah, yeah.
This is a little random, but one of my son's friends came home from college, and his girlfriend had come home from college, and over Christmas I was saying to them, hey, how's things going?
They're great.
We want to get engaged, we want to get married next year, and we're both going to take our next semester of school in Europe.
And I was like, Wait a minute, you're gonna get married a year from now, but you're going to Europe, like, next semester?
I'm like, there's a way too romantic of a place to not go while you're married!
Like, come on!
And so, he actually made the plans, and I married them, like, a week later.
Wow.
Like, no joke.
Before Christmas vacation was over.
And I'm not even a minister!
When I got ordained, we went to the presidential library, and it was drizzling rain outside, but we just walked up with some flowers, and I pronounced you man and wife, and poof, off they went to Paris.
That is awesome.
So you've been married for almost three decades.
So what are your keys to marriage, to making a marriage last?
Because obviously you've operated in the Hollywood world, where marriages last, on average, about 13 weeks.
So what exactly are the keys here?
I know, I say it all the time.
I've been married 29 years, which is like 290 in Hollywood years.
Right.
And it's mostly because I have a very forgiving wife.
I have an angel wife.
She truly is amazing.
Ask anybody who knows her.
But, you know, I think it's the thing we all know.
At the end of the day, we can see selfishness in our spouse much easier than we can see it in ourself.
And when I'm focusing on me and my needs and my wants and all that stuff, that's the perfect conditions for a rebellion.
But I think when I say, you know what?
It's you before me.
How can I serve you?
If I can do that, and I need God's help to do that, because I'm selfish by nature, then I promote a revival in my marriage.
That's what I want.
And so, with this marriage and parenting conference that I'm hosting, those are the kinds of things we talk about.
Forgiveness, how do you cherish your spouse, you know, me, misery, others, joy.
Those are the kinds of things that are hard because it goes against the selfish nature within us.
I deserve this.
What have you done for me?
I deserve better than that.
But at the end of the day, I know that I'm still a work in progress.
I'm not finished.
Don't put the inspection sticker on me yet.
I don't want to do that to you either.
What's been the most common problem that you've encountered from people at your seminars talking to you about marriage?
Most common problem?
Selfishness.
Infidelity.
You know, I mean, that's just such a hard one, right?
You know, when something as sacred and intimate as a marriage relationship gets violated in that kind of a way, it's so hard to put the pieces back.
It's so hard to trust again.
You get wounded and injured.
The walls go up.
And those are often, I think, the most difficult things.
Obviously, communication and money issues are big ones.
But it's interesting.
Often when we're dating our spouse or our girlfriend or our boyfriend, if we don't have any money and we're just sitting on the floor of an empty apartment eating pizza out of a box with no money to buy anything better, we're good.
That's fine.
We don't have money problems.
We can look at each other and gaze into one another's eyes for hours without saying a word, and we got no communication problems.
But when selfishness creeps in, and it's like when you're spending the money that I made, All of a sudden, communication's a problem, intimacy's a problem, money's a problem, and so I think it's the selfishness thing, it's the me monster, always ends up being the culprit.
Yeah, not to give a Hebrew biblical scriptural analysis, but the word for love in Hebrew is ahava, and the root of that word is hav, which is the same as to give, so the root of love is to give.
I've always felt that when people call into my show and ask about this sort of thing, the first thing that I always say is, if you have all the expectations of yourself but none of your spouse, you'll have a good marriage.
And if you married the right person, then that won't ruin the marriage.
People seem to think that if you expect a lot of yourself and nothing from your spouse, your spouse is going to go like eat Cheetos in the corner and let everything go.
But if you married the right person, they're thinking the same thing, that the expectation is on them and they don't expect Yeah, that's such a good point.
And that's one of the messages that came out of that movie, Fireproof, was even if you haven't married the right person, if I can try to get my part right, maybe I will be used as sort of a vessel to bring about change in my spouse over time.
a good point.
And that's one of the messages that came out of that movie Fireproof was even if you haven't married the right person, if I can try to get my part right, maybe I will be used as sort of a vessel to bring about change in my spouse over time.
I can't force it, but maybe I can lead by example and that'll bring some sort of transformation to my relationship if I'm patient.
I mean, this is going to sound kind of sexist, but it's not meant to be.
I firmly believe, my wife believes this too, so it's not that sexist, that the strength of a good marriage really relies on the man, meaning that women tend to be more attuned to what it takes to make a good marriage.
Men tend to be less attuned to that, and so the marriage is only going to be as good as the man is toward the woman.
He's the weak link.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, and so if he's strong, then you can have a strong marriage.
Exactly.
So, you have six kids, which is unthinkable to me.
I have two right now.
I am full up, and we have a third coming in March, so we're not quite full up, but that's going to be interesting, and hopefully we'll have more after that.
But you have six, and they're all within, you said, a six-year span?
A seven-year span?
Yeah, they're all about one year apart.
So when they were little, just think of this.
So, you know, my wife's got the double stroller, the front pack, the backpack while I'm traveling at work.
So one's six, one's five, four, three, two, and a newborn.
This is the kind of amazing wife that I'm married to.
And now- Do you have any help?
I mean, I just have to ask.
You know, I mean, my mom would come over sometimes, but we never, actually, we never had a nanny, and really, we could've used some help, but I think Chelsea was just always so all in that it was like, that's what she wanted her hands full of all the time, and she still does.
She thinks that that's like the most beautiful, wonderful thing in the whole world.
How could I ask for anything more than being a mom?
And to be there for all those little moments is just something she treasured, which I'm thankful for.
And as they've gotten older, I'm just warning you, it doesn't really get easier.
It's different.
You're not up feeding them bottles.
You're up worrying that they're gonna get home alive at night.
So now our kids are 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, and 17.
So one's married, some have moved out, they're driving, you have boyfriends.
It's a whole new world.
You said four of those kids are adopted.
So how did you guys make the decision to adopt?
Well, my wife is actually an adopted child herself.
And so that was always a beautiful part of her story.
And when we had been married for about six years, we talked about having a family.
And we were working a lot when we first got married.
And then we said, well, what about adoption?
Why don't we look into adoption?
And I thought that was a great idea.
I thought, I don't need to be the DNA donor.
There's kids who need a dad and a mom.
So we got in touch with an agency, and we adopted our son Jack, and it was such a great experience for us and for them that they said there's another little girl that is needing a home.
And so Bella was adopted, and then a year later it was Anna, and then it was Luke.
And so we had four, and then all of a sudden, Chelsea says to me, hey, I think the kitchen, the bathroom sink is broken.
Would you go look at it?
And so that was my chance to strap on my tool belt and score some husband points.
Walk in there and I looked at the sink.
I couldn't tell what was wrong.
I look underneath the sink.
I couldn't see what's wrong.
I go up to the faucets and I see this little like popsicle stick shaped test and it says positive.
And I'm like, What are you trying to say?
She's like, I'm pregnant!
And so then Olivia was born, and then a year later, the sink broke again, and James was born.
So then we have six.
We said, okay, all right, we gotta think about what's going on here, why this is happening, and we need to make a decision.
I mean, you could have 20 people moving at that rate.
Exactly.
But we stopped at a half dozen.
So what are some of the lessons in parenting?
This one I definitely need to take from you.
So right now, as I say, I have a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and one who has yet to be born.
And it's, as you say, it gets more complicated.
It's different.
It's easier in some ways because you don't worry so much the kids are going to stick a fork in the electric socket.
But at the same time, they have new problems.
They have new issues.
They're propping up all the time.
Well, thank you for asking.
I'm certainly not an expert in this, but one of the things, the three keys that Chelsea and I have always come back to when we're up at night going, oh, I'm a horrible parent, you know, have I done this right?
for parents as the kids start to get older?
Well, thank you for asking.
I'm certainly not an expert in this, but one of the things that the three keys that Chelsea and I have always come back to when we're up at night going, oh, I'm a horrible parent.
You know, have I done this right?
We come back to these three things.
And one is I want to strive to be the kind of person I want my More is caught than taught.
Kids naturally play follow the leader.
So your son, your daughter are going to be looking at you going, what does daddy do?
What does mom do?
And they like to copy us.
You know, that's why he likes to walk around in your shoes or likes to pick up your briefcase.
And so if I want my kids to be joyful, if I want my kids to be compassionate, if I want my kids to trust God in difficult circumstances, model it for them.
Show them what it looks like so that they don't have to figure it out.
Or imagine it.
They can say, oh, yeah, that's what my dad did.
That's what my mom did.
And when I mess up, ask them for forgiveness.
Some people think that would be weak, to ask forgiveness from your kids.
But that's actually modeling for them the strength that you need to be humble when you make a mistake.
Those are the kinds of things, along with keeping their heart, understanding that relationship is the most important thing.
Sometimes a house can easily turn into a correctional facility, you know?
And it's just, you know, say please, say thank you, sit down, don't do that.
When really, while those are important, at the end of the day, we're all going to make mistakes.
And if I lose the heart of my child, I've lost the battle.
They're going to ice me out.
They're not going to listen.
They're going to go somewhere else where they feel like somebody listens, cares for them.
And so keeping that relationship strong through the good times, through the difficult times, I think is paramount.
And then point them to truth.
You know, I mean, the kids get inundated with so much error, with so much, you know, right is wrong, wrong is right.
And for me, I go to God's Word, those principles, those ancient truths that I can always go to.
You know, you talked about the Hebrew Scriptures and the Book of Proverbs.
How amazing is the Book of Proverbs to go back in there and say, What are the time-tested principles that always produce blessing and good things and protection?
I want my kids to learn those things and know that truth is not relative when it comes to morality and things like that.
Truth is something that they can build their life on.
I mean, this seems to be one of the areas where our society has really gone off the rails, is this belief that we should raise our kids in sort of Rousseauian fashion, just let them free in the wilderness and then they can discover their own values.
I've noticed that society, particularly these days, wants to do this with Everything related to boys and girls.
They want to suggest that kids are going to basically form their own values in every particular way.
But it's not just that.
It's pretty much with everything.
They find their own religious values.
And that if you inculcate any sort of values in your kids, you're actually acting as a tyrant.
That what you actually should be doing is allowing their brains that are unformed to just experience the world, take in those perceptions, and then form their own value systems.
It seems to be not working particularly well for the society at large.
So what are some values that you want to make sure kids see?
I mean, yeah, I mean, that doesn't work for any other discipline, right?
Like, if you're going to go into law, do you just say, hey, figure it all out?
I know you're going to go to law school, you're going to learn, understand the principles.
You know, people are going to go to war, you're going to train them on the principles of how to use, you know, the weapons and things like that, not just figuring it out on their own.
So, the values that I want to teach my kids, I think, are values like trusting in God, Virtue and character, and considering other people more important than yourself.
I think those are the values that not only make human beings flourish individually, make them pleasant people, but it makes families flourish, it makes marriages flourish, and I think it's what makes a nation flourish.
I think these are the principles that our country was built on, and every time that we get away from those things, we suffer.
We go the wrong direction and we can tell by the consequences, the law of cause and effect, that this isn't working well.
So I want to teach my kids those ancient truths and those Judeo-Christian principles and that worldview that led to the freest, most blessed and prosperous nation the world's ever known.
So in a second I want to ask you about the biggest mistake you think you've made as a parent.
Okay.
That's kind of a rough question.
I'll ask you that in one second.
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- Let's talk about the biggest mistakes that you've made as a parent.
So for me, one of the things that I've been noticing is the scariest thing in the world is that my kid's taken everything I do.
It's terrifying to me.
This is only beginning to dawn on me now because before there were two and four, one and three, and they weren't really taking everything in.
Now, if I let a curse word slip, the chances that it will be in the next sentence by my child are at least 127%.
And so I've been noticing that every bad thing that I do immediately comes back to me.
And so it highlights all the worst parts of you.
You don't actually get to see the best parts of you so much.
You get to see all the worst things that you do immediately mirrored back at you.
And it's scaring the living out of me, to be honest with you.
Isn't that hilarious?
So you've been a parent a lot longer than I have.
So what have been some of the things that you wish you hadn't done?
I feel like I've done a lot of bad things.
I've made a lot of mistakes.
See, you need to ask this question to my wife.
She could tell you, or my son.
James, he's sitting right over here.
He could probably tell you the biggest mistakes I've made.
But I'm so gun shy to really talk about mistakes that I've made on the worldwide web because everyone loves to exploit those things.
You slip up with one thing and it's just like, look at how horrible that, so I think I need a little bit more time.
Yeah, no worries.
I mean, I hear that.
It is a very censorious culture right now.
I won't put pictures of my kids up.
I was talking this morning on social media about how my kids have finally gotten into Star Wars, which is fun, because now we can share that.
And so we've been having lightsaber battles, me and my five-year-old, and we have it all on video.
And it's adorable, but I can't put that up on social Yeah.
because people are horrible and they will go after your kids and it really is terrible.
So you're somebody who's been in the public eye a lot longer than I have.
And how are you able to maintain protection?
I mean, this is really an advice question.
How are you able to maintain protection of your kids being in the public eye as much as you are? - Somehow we were able to really just not have pictures of our kids or anything on the internet for the longest time.
Now, once our kids had phones and they've got their own Instagram account, you know, they're wanting to post as much as they can.
And now that our kids are older, it's a bit different.
But yeah, we're very similar to the way that you and your wife feel about that.
We wanted to protect our kids.
I'm like, if someone's gonna get upset with me, get upset with me.
If someone wants to show up at, you know, and have a conversation with me.
Like, I don't want you to know where I live and actually have my kids answer the door or have you come after my kids or say mean things about them.
So we just kept that real quiet and I was really diligent about it.
And I think it turned out okay.
So I think when people look at religious people, I'm a person of faith, you're a person of faith, but when people look at religious people, they tend to think, at least in the secular community, look at that happy idiot, look at that guy.
He's just so happy all the time.
Doesn't he understand that we are all going to suffer, that we are all going to die, that things are bad in the world?
Haven't they ever struggled with faith?
And it's a point of high irritation for me as a person of faith because I've yet to meet a person who's actually religious who's never struggled at all with faith.
So what are some of the ways in which you've struggled with your own faith over the years?
In the ways that I've struggled with my faith over the years, you know, I've never wanted to be someone who believed in fairy tales or be accused of being someone who believes in fairy tales.
And coming from an atheistic background or just a sort of like secular humanist background, I wanted to really make sure, and so I felt like, have I really examined all the evidence?
How can there be someone like Sam Harris, or how can I have these other people who are so intelligent?
Clearly, they've got a size 10 brain, and mine's not that size, but I believe that if I sincerely Do the best that I can, if I have faith, if I believe and I ask God, I believe He's kind enough to reveal Himself to me.
And so, I have struggled with the intellect and the reason versus the faith, and I don't think that they're pitted against one another by any means.
In fact, I think they go very well together, but sometimes I get into pitting them against one another and wondering, you know, is there some stone I've not yet uncovered to unravel everything that I believe?
And the more and more that I examine those things and I ask those deep questions, the more and more I believe that my faith in God has been well placed.
And when it comes to your kids, are all of your kids people of faith as well?
Yes, I would say so.
They certainly grew up with a lot of faith in our home, but that's something that's so personal that I can say we go to church or we don't go to church or this or that, but in terms of a living, vibrant relationship with God where I talk to God, I believe that God directs me, that's something that's so personal that I think it's sort of on a
You know, it's something that's in seed form with some of our kids, and it's something that's maturing and bearing fruit with others.
So you talked a little bit earlier about the values that undergird the country.
When we look at the state of the country right now, it's so divisive.
Everybody seems to be at each other's throats.
What do you think is the biggest problem facing the country in terms of the country coming—it feels like it's coming apart?
Wow.
I want to ask you that question.
You're more positioned to answer that.
And I feel like maybe my role in the public square, you know, sometimes I wonder, why does anybody care what Mike Seaver has to say after all of these years?
Why am I sitting here with you?
And I think that I've been given a platform.
And perhaps my role is to continue to point people not toward the specific details of what's getting everybody fighting with one another, but point them higher to the larger principles at play that historically have given us a country where we can debate about these things.
And we can have respectful conversations and discourse about these things without killing each other over it.
And we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion and we have these things that we all love.
And so, I'm not sure if I could point to one particular issue, but I can point to the principles that will solve that issue, and I think that's why I'm trying to focus my energy not on everything that interests me or fascinates me, but on the areas where I think I'm uniquely positioned to make a difference.
And that's why I made a documentary called Monumental, or a movie like Fireproof, and I'm doing these marriage and parenting things.
You still have a lot of friends in Hollywood, obviously.
I know there are some conservatives in Hollywood.
Are there any religious people?
Would people be shocked to learn how many religious people or would they be shocked to learn how few religious people there are in Hollywood?
That's a good question.
I mean, it's amazing to me when you grow up in Los Angeles, you have this impression that there are not very many people of faith.
Not just in Los Angeles, but around the world, like atheism is dominating the world, and that's just not true.
The statistics that I've read are that well over 90% of the world is very religious, different religions, but people are people of faith.
Here in Hollywood, I think that there are more people of faith than you would think, or that people would think, but many of them are very cautious about expressing that faith.
Many people think that like what I've done, like talking about my faith would be sort of suicide for a career.
Yeah, but I have faith in a faithful God who's opened up doors so that I can continue doing what I love, and I think it's really helping people.
And so I think more and more people of faith you'll see be coming out of the closet.
And not just in Hollywood, but all around the country and the world, people are making projects where faith is at the center because it does well at the box office.
And so I think that's encouraging and drawing people out rather than being afraid of the faithless in Hollywood.
I mean, this is one of the questions that I've gotten a lot from conservative friends of mine in Hollywood is, how quiet should I keep this?
Should I come out of the closet and just be conservative?
And honestly, I've had to say, it really is a question for you to answer because only you know the risk factors involved with your career and losing an income and with your kids and all of this.
But I mean, you do see the social sanctions that are brought to bear on people.
Just for going to a particular church.
I remember Chris Pratt going to a church that was considered pro-traditional marriage.
Suddenly he was getting all sorts of flack, even though he never made a statement on the issue one way or another.
And so the idea of people in Hollywood just beginning to come out and say, yes, I'm a person of faith.
I go to church regularly.
I'm a Bible believer.
It seems like the social sanctions are incredibly strong.
So what would your advice be to people who haven't done what you've done and just come out and said, listen, here's who I am and here's what I believe and deal with it?
Personally?
You only live once, right?
You only live once, and I would say go with your convictions.
I don't want to look back and go, ah, I wish I could do that over again.
I wish I had some courage, and I wish I didn't care so much about what other people thought.
I care about people, which is why I want to try to speak the truth and live the truth in a compassionate way.
And if I don't do that, I'm really not loving people.
I'm really just sort of protecting myself and my career, which is selfish.
So I say, go with your convictions.
You only live once.
Do what you believe you're here to do.
So, I don't mean to sound selfish, but you brought me a gift.
I've heard that there is a gift awaiting me.
Yes, I did.
I'm very eager to give it to you.
Okay, excellent.
That is amazing and also large.
That is incredible and large.
What is this?
I'll tell you what this is.
I made a documentary several years ago called Monumental, in which I retraced the escape route of the Pilgrims.
The reason I made it was not for political reasons, but as a dad, I'm going, our country seems to be going down the tubes.
What do we need to do?
Well, the left blames the right.
The right blames the left.
The poor blame the rich.
The rich blame the poor.
I'm thinking, why can't we just go back to what made this country so unique in the first place?
So I went and retraced the escape route of the Pilgrims to figure out who they were.
What did they do?
Why did they come here?
And I learned that these were the free thinking, out of the box, Faithful people who came here to do something that in their minds had not been tried successfully for 3,000 years since the ancient Hebrew Republic under the leadership of Moses.
They felt that the ancient Hebrews were given the divine constitution in the Torah and they wanted to import those principles of liberty and justice to the New World.
Our pilgrim forefathers and foremothers left us what I call the secret sauce recipe for how to build a free and just society under the word of God.
And they left it for us in the form of this monument, which the real one is 81 feet tall.
It's 180 tons of solid granite.
It's the largest granite monument in America and it's invisible.
Nobody knows it's there.
It's hidden behind a forest of trees in Plymouth, Massachusetts today.
And it spells out all the principles that you and I love.
And this is a replica of it so that people can see it.
You've probably never heard of it.
It's called the National Monument to the Forefathers, and I hired the Weta Workshop, who does all the sculpting for the rings, to capture all of the detail.
If I can, I'd love to just explain it to you.
Please, I would love that.
All right, this is awesome.
I can't wait to explain this to you.
So, history tells us that our forefathers and foremothers believed this, that to have a functioning society that was free, you had to start with, what's it say right here?
Faith.
And faith is the largest of all of these figures, and she's pointing to heaven, and she's got a book in her hand.
It happens to be the Bible.
That was the Geneva Bible brought over by the pilgrims on the Mayflower.
Her feet are on a rock, and that's Plymouth Rock.
And she has a star on her forehead representing wisdom.
And so they would reason from the scriptures to create their society.
Now check this out.
Faith is then expressed in these four key ways.
Number one, it's first expressed through morality.
And morality is depicted as a woman here holding the Ten Commandments in her left hand and the Scroll of Revelation in her right hand.
That represents both the Old and the New Testament.
But they believe that morality was not something that could be imposed externally by a king or a tyrant.
So on the left, it says evangelist.
And they believe that God's Word needed to be proclaimed so that there was a transformation of the heart, that the grace of God would change you on the inside, so then you loved the standard on the outside.
Once you had good morality, then you could make good laws in your nation.
And there's the judge, he's sitting on his chair, and he's holding the book of law, and his book is directly beneath the book in faith's hand, which is the scriptures, signifying that man's laws must line up under God's laws, or they're not good laws.
And on his right, it's justice, on his left is mercy.
So there had to be a balance between justice and mercy.
Once you have civility in your society, then you can educate your kids.
And there's a mother there, or a parent, who's wearing the wreath of victory, holding the book of knowledge, and on her right, it goes right back to the book of Proverbs, there's the youth, because they believe that if you train up your child in the way they should go, When they're old, and here's the old man with a long white beard.
He's holding a globe and a Bible.
When he's old, he'll not depart from it.
And his name is Wisdom.
So he has a biblical worldview.
Once you have that to the second and third generation, they believe you come up with the result, which is liberty.
And that was both liberty internally from sin, pride, arrogance, selfishness, and liberty externally from tyrants and bad government.
And if you look, the chains on his ankles and his wrists are broken.
Tyranny has been overthrown.
And his wife is here next to him.
Her name is Peace, and she's holding a basket full of good things for her friends, her family, and her community.
So this was the secret sauce recipe, and it's there for everybody to see.
And these are the kinds of values that I love and I want to point people to.
When was this built?
This was actually completed in 1859, I believe.
It took 50 years to build, and it was actually interrupted by a little thing called the Civil War.
It was interesting because Abraham Lincoln was one of the very first contributors to the building of this monument.
There was an architect, Hammett Billings, who actually did the drawings for Uncle Tom's cabin.
It was an amazing time that this was built.
It is still the largest granite monument in America, and it's invisible.
Nobody's ever heard of it.
And you can't find it unless I tell you where to go.
That's unbelievable.
So, what is it about our culture that gets all this so wrong?
I mean, now every Thanksgiving there's a big fuss over the pilgrims and how the pilgrims were actually oppressors and how this civilization coming to this hemisphere was a bad thing.
Where are we missing the boat here?
I'm not sure exactly, Ben.
I'm not exactly sure.
But I think that if...
Often people find what they're looking for, you know?
And if I'm looking for these kinds of principles, I can find them.
I can find them particularly in history.
And when I go back and I look at cultures and nations that abide by these kinds of principles and values, good things result.
Every time we get away from them, bad things result.
So, you know, if faith is in God and liberty is the result, boy, If we put our faith in the state or faith in the government or faith in something other than the kindest, most benevolent person in the universe, I think what happens is it changes your morality.
It changes the laws that you pass in your nation.
You teach those things to your kids and you don't end up with Liberty Man as the result.
You end up with the Lion of Tyranny and Liberty Man's leg hanging out of the lion's mouth.
And I fear that so many nations have gone that way and that we may go the same if we don't get back to what works.
Well, I'm going to spend a moment figuring out where to put this in my house.
I'm thinking my wife's nightstand.
I don't know.
She wakes up in the morning, she looks right over and there it is.
So I actually have a smaller one for you.
Oh, I appreciate it.
This is the Mondo gigantic one.
I have one that's half this size.
And this one, I want to give this one to the president.
I want to give one to the vice president, to all politicians, presidents of universities, ministers, and parents who want to teach these things to their kids.
What if I use it as sort of an imposing intimidation factor for my children?
So they sit one day, they do something wrong, and they just wake up, and it's right next to them.
It's right next to them.
They open their eyes in the morning and there's faith just looking directly at them.
I see you.
Correct.
It might work.
In a second, I want to ask you about the kind of old conservative question whether culture is upstream of politics or politics is upstream of culture.
I'm going to ask you about that in just one second.
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Okay, so I want to ask you, because you're so engaged in the culture, whether you think that, at this point, the future of America rests in a change to culture or a change to politics?
And this is really sort of a raging debate, even within the right, in recent days.
One of my old mentors, Andrew Breitbart, used to say, culture is upstream of politics, that you've got to work first on changing the culture.
That's what Hollywood did so successfully.
They changed the way that we think about the world, and then politics necessarily followed how we thought about the world.
And then there are a lot of people who believe No, the culture's been largely lost and the only way to restore the culture is by grabbing the high reins of politics and then trying to almost cram down your viewpoint or instill your viewpoint through the education system.
What do you think?
Do you think that if you're a conservative and you have a hundred bucks to spend, you're going to give it away this year, should you be trying to put it into sort of politics or should you be trying to put it into either your church on the one hand or into like actual cultural pursuits that are not necessarily just your church?
So being a guy who's in the entertainment industry, I'm not saying this just because I work in this space, but I really do think that Instagram and Facebook is influencing my children more than just about anything else that I can think of in the political world.
I think that politics is downstream of culture, as you've mentioned.
I think that the hearts and minds of young people are being formed and then they vote accordingly.
They pull those people in and then they pass those laws accordingly.
That's why I think that we need good people in the entertainment industry.
in the places where stories are being told that are capturing the hearts and minds of people.
So while people may say like, hey, let's get out of Hollywood, right?
That's a dark place.
That's a dirty place that, you know, they generate a lot of filth.
Well, I think it's kind of like politics.
You know, if you don't like it, change it.
So come on in and we need people who are going to assume positions of leadership in the entertainment industry, in the storytelling world, because that's what our kids are listening to, the music and movies and television and the arts.
And then they seem to want to...
You know, bring those values to bear in the legal world and the political world.
So when it comes to your own parenting, how did you engage your kids in entertainment?
How did you decide what you were OK with your kids watching and what you weren't OK with your kids watching?
Well, when our kids were little, we never wanted them to feel like they had celebrity parents.
And so while there would be an occasional, hey, can I have your autograph?
We really didn't bring our kids into that world.
Accordingly, there wasn't a box set of Growing Pains episodes in our house that we watched.
It was I Love Lucy.
It was The Brady Bunch.
My kids really grew up on I Love Lucy.
Their sense of humor is Lucy.
She was just hilarious.
And then, interestingly, none of my kids have really shown a strong interest in getting involved in the entertainment industry.
So my son James, I don't know, the jury's still out.
He still may be interested.
He's pretty much of an entertainer and a ham, so he might follow in my footsteps.
But we never really embraced the The Hollywood lifestyle and the Hollywood circles of friends, we kind of lived on the outskirts.
We kind of lived in more of a rural area for Los Angeles, and we spent our time outside in the mountains, hiking, going to the beach, you know, playing in the mud with our kids, much more so than really being part of that entertainment industry scene.
Well, one of the interesting debates that's broken out on the right is also a debate about sort of what is OK to watch, as a religious person or as a conservative.
So I have friends like David French, and David is very religious.
He was a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, and he's filed lawsuits on behalf of religious freedom all over the country.
He served in Iraq.
Really good dude.
And David, on the one hand, will be like, yeah, I'll watch Game of Thrones, and I'll try and take a good message out of Game of Thrones.
And then we obviously employ Matt Walsh here, and Matt Walsh says that we should all burn our television sets.
So where do you come down?
Where do you come down on sort of what do you think it's appropriate for religious people to watch or how do you think religious people should engage with entertainment?
Yeah, that's a great question.
Obviously, you're not going to open up the Bible and it's going to tell you what shows you should and shouldn't watch.
I think that there's principles.
I want to have integrity, and I think integrity means who I am in public is the same as who I am in private, that I don't have dual personalities.
When I'm watching television or I'm listening to music, I want to be the same person that I'm going to be even when I'm in front of my kids.
I want my whole life to On and Got, the whole thing.
I want it all to be there.
So for us, actually the television is just rarely on in our house, so for us we're watching The Voice or a basketball game or a football game and we're watching, you know, Chopped, because we like to cook.
But those are sort of the staples in our house.
Not so much the sitcoms or the one-hour dramas.
Or Lord of the Rings.
We've probably seen all of those a million times over.
So, given your sort of entertainment taste, what do you guys do in your off hours?
It's funny, I rarely see movies.
I don't even really like to go see movies.
I'll go see a movie if my friend's in it or it's something that's important, I'll go see it.
But in our off hours, It's really kind of boring.
We like being home.
We just like being with each other.
I travel quite a bit, and so when I'm home, like this month has just been awesome.
I've been home for a whole month, and so I'm putting up Christmas lights.
I'm weeding in the garden.
I'm like scoring so many husband points by cooking for my wife.
She's an amazing cook, but I'm just like, honey, just let me go in the kitchen for a month, and I'm just making fantastic things.
This Bobby Flay burger that I came across is awesome.
You gotta make it for your wife.
She'll love it.
Okay, well, first of all, I could definitely use to score some of those points, so that sounds perfect.
I'll definitely hit you up for that recipe.
Okay, I'll give you the app that I use.
It's great.
So you've been watching sort of the era of Me Too, and one of the things that's been interesting to watch has been how Hollywood has dealt with Me Too, because obviously Me Too started in Hollywood, and then Hollywood has immediately decided that it's Hollywood's place to lecture the rest of America on Me Too, which has been Quite amusing.
The same people who held up Harvey Weinstein as a moral hero for decades have now decided that they get to, at the Oscars, explain to the rest of America exactly how terrible it is to mistreat women, which some of us already actually knew.
You've had this rule for quite a while that you won't kiss any woman who is not your wife, on screen or off.
So when did you decide to implement that rule, given the fact you're an actor?
Yeah.
I think it was when I got married.
I think it was just husband 101.
For me, it was pretty simple.
I made a promise to my wife at the altar, and I figured like, you know, other than being an actor, guys don't have this understanding with their wives that they get to go to work and kiss other women that they're not married to.
But sort of like everybody gets a free pass in my business, and I was like, no, my wife's not into that.
That's not a good idea.
I want a great marriage.
Has that ever come up?
Have you ever been reading a script and all of a sudden there was something where you had to kiss another?
It's not.
Yeah.
And so not often, but if it has, and yeah, there's been other times I'm like, you can get so many more people to go do this scene.
I mean, and it's usually not just kissing, right?
It's like you're in bed with somebody, right?
I mean, and so, but you know, it's something that's paid great dividends in my marriage, you know?
And believe me, I'm so thankful to have a wife who still loves me after 29 years.
I want to do everything that I can to honor her.
And you know what?
I think everybody would like to have the confidence and the trust in their spouse that even when they're not around, that they're That they are who they think they are.
And that's really what I'm striving to be.
So I want to ask you about this amazing new pro-life movie that you're coming out with.
You were telling me a little bit about it before the show, and it sounds incredible.
But if you want to hear about it, you have to go over to dailywire.com slash subscribe, give us your money, and you can hear the end of our conversation over there.
Kirk, thank you so much for coming by.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Great to talk with you.
Thank you.
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
Associate producer, Colton Haas.
Our guests are booked by Caitlin Maynard.
Post-production is supervised by Alex Zingara.
Editing by Donovan Fowler.
Audio is mixed by Mike Peromino.
Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
Title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.
The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.