The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Pride Comes Before the Fall with Kirk Cameron

watch and get involved in. And I just think it's really cool what you've done and how your story has inspired so many people because you left Hollywood behind, found faith, you're raising six kids. Kirk Cameron, thank you so much for being on today. We really appreciate it.

school and that faith base. But she's doing this at a time where there is a lot of focus on pride, and I mean, this is Pride month, right, So that message of pride is really pushed on kids that pride is important, and I think that we as parents, as Christian parents, kind of go, Okay, that's a hard concept to discuss because I'll say to my girls, I'm so proud of you for doing this, and they're like, but Mom,

isn't that a bad thing? And I explained to them, you know, being excited for your success and cheering you on is different from what it means to not be a prideful person. So how to tell us a little bit about how this book explains the dangers of becoming prideful?

We see at Jesus' baptism, the voice from God, the Father saying, this is my son whom I love, and in him I am well pleased. Listen to him. There's a father who's the buttons of pride are popping off, you know, his chest. But that's the kind of gratitude and cheering on that we want to pour into. But pride, properly understood, is a self centered thing. It's where I judge other people because I think I'm better than them. Pride is the root of racism. Pride is the root

of misogyny, of all violations of human rights. Jesus said, Pride is what caused him to see Satan fall from heaven like lightning, because full of pride, Satan wants to steal the glory of God. And that's what pride does. Pride makes us think that we're God, that we don't need God. We can create reality, We can create and define morality, reality, gender, and anything else that we want.

So good for you. I'm trying to teach kids the lesson through this book that I wrote called Pride Comes Before the Fall, and it's the story of a tiger named Valor who has to partner up with a rookie elephant named Kevin in a boat race and he learns the important lesson that arrogance and anger all stem from pride and that the path forward to win in life is to consider others above yourselves and learn to be humble.

received by public libraries. But your last book reading was pretty impressive, wasn't it.

We want them to be. Do you want your kids to be full of pride? Do you want your kids? Hey, honey, I want you to go to school today and I want you to learn how to be a proud person, how to be full of pride.

freedom of religion and all kinds of things. And so we told them that we would be prepared to assert our constitutional rights in court if they kept it up. They caved. We went to the Indianapolis Library and over two thy five hundred parents and kids overwhelmed six floors of the library. They were out the door down the street.

But then there's other libraries like Seattle Public Library, which welcomed us, although there's protesters coming in holding boards about something about hate and something about me growing into a real pain. So you got to applaud him for right creative. That's right, he's creative. And then we were in Louden County Public Library yesterday across the hall from a leftist leaning group called Teach Truth. And in fact, that's ironic

because they're teaching lies in the name of truth. And that's why we have to be educated and why we need to teach these things to our kids, because they see something that has the skin of all of the truth, but it's stuffed with the lie. So we come into something called Pride Months, and kids think it's about being proud of yourself. But listen, even rightly understood, if you were to say, well, I'm proud of you, or I'm faithful, or I'm grateful for who God's made me, Pride Month

isn't about that. Weirdly, it's about wanting the rest of the world to celebrate other people's sex life. I mean think about that, I mean, really get down to it. I mean I can love my enemies, I can love being a man. I can love being an American and you can too, and we can be into different things politically and hobbies and sports and look different. But if you're part of the pride thing, it's really about who you like to have sex with or who you like to have sex as, and we want to be pushing

that into our children. That's wildly inappropriate and abuse We've.

I think that's the thing that is so important and so key when you see these manipulative people come in with signs that say this is hate. No, no, there is nothing hateful about this. You are not You are not putting anyone down. You are not prideful. You're not coming out and saying we're better. You're saying there is an opportunity to live in a joyful and hopeful way. And I think that's something that's so key right now in crisis, because we have so many kids in crisis,

families and crisis. It's just a tough time. And honestly, I was telling you about my daughter graduating in my friend of ours, who is not in a Christian school, said it was shocking to me to see the kids had just lost a classmate and on ax expectedly, and she said the ease with which they were able to talk about the joy of her life in this time was amazing to me because they had faith and think there is a there is a reason that we are asked to spread the good.

blessed nation in the history of the world. And if you want to check out not only my book, but books that were written by many different authors, go to Brave books dot com and they've got books that have pro God pro America values all day, every day that teach the fruit of the spirit and worn against things like well, one book is called The Island of Free ice Cream, warning children about the dangers of socialism that.

integrity into the next generation. Okay, Now, Noah Webster, one of our founding fathers, had a great quote, and this is so important for us to understand. I'm not trying to push religion on anybody. I'm not trying to force some people to believe something that they don't want to believe. In fact, that goes against my religion. But Webster said it so well. He was not only founding father, but

father of American education. He gave us Webster's Dictionary, and Noah Webster said, every government is built on some philosophy or religion, and the education of a nation will propagate that religion. In the United States of America, that foundational religion was Christianity, and it was sown into the hearts and minds of children for generations through the home, through private and public education. And it was root that produced the fruit of success and liberty and freedom in America.

And if we want to continue with our success and our freedom, it depends on instilling into the children of America the principles of Christianity. That's not somebody's opinion. That's the fact from the people who understood the blueprint of the nation that has been unique in its successes throughout all of history. It's the ability to self govern because you love God and you love other people.

But even in the conservative circles. One of my very first meetings, I was talking to the woman and she was asking me why I was running, and I, you know, I went through and all I said about my faith was as a family, we prayed about the decision before we came to it, and then we talked and talked in at the end of it, she looked at me and she said, let me give you one bit of advice. Don't ever tell anybody about your faith because you will

turn so many people off. It is something that people make the mistake up all the time, and you should never do it. And then just a few weeks ago, I spoke with one of my supporters and he said the same thing. You need to make sure that the people around you never speak of Christianity. And it struck me, and you know that it's one of those things that when you're out there. You live in a world where

you're told not to offend people. And I've thought about that so much in the past few weeks, right, But think about that they are allowed to say to me something that you I mean, it is some It's the first thing, you know, that's the first part of me. It is what guides me. It is what helps me to make my decisions. It is what guides me and

my parenting choices. And that is something that in the country that was found on Christianity, we are now told that if you are running for office, you should never bring that up. And like I said, I'm not trying to same as you. I'm not telling you you should be a Christian. I am telling you this is what guides me. That is my north star. You should know what is telling me what direction I should go, and you should know that about me. But we are told to hide that. Isn't that shocking?

There's so much that we could talk about here. I mean, just the very idea that someone tells you that you should never talk about your faith because it would be offensive. That statement in itself is offensive to millions of people like you and me in the United States. And I so want to respond to people like that by saying,

your hatred and your bigotry are showing. You might want to cover those up because you're going to lose all of your friends when they recognize that you have a religion of your own that you're trying to shove down our road. And it's called secular humanism, which has no room for Christians like me. That's the height of arrogance and pride, and it's the opposite of inclusivity and diversity. You want to rid your land of people like me.

And it's actually the people from my clan who actually love God and the principle of Christianity that make room for atheist Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and everyone else to be part of selecting leadership in the country through the voting process. That's only the result of the principles that I adhere to and those are the principles of christian.

kids are adopted. That is so beautiful. Explain to us, like what led you to that choice to adopt, and how have you seen your faith grow those children in all different ways, because I know as a mom of four, every one of them has a different personality and they are all very unique and exciting.

and the value of life in the womb. I can't imagine where my life would be right now without the most important people that are in it, my wife and my children. And if it weren't for valuing life in the womb and recognizing adoption as a beautiful method of bringing families together, I wouldn't have my wife. I wouldn't have my four kids. And if my wife hadn't been born, if she'd been lost through an abortion, say, then my

two natural born children wouldn't be here either. So adoption is very important to me and to my wife, to our family, and to millions of Americans. And that's why it's always going to be at the heart of the things that I do.

to adopt children. There are more parents out there who either can't have children or want to have children but are un unable to, who want to adopt kids, And so we just need to do it. If we can just adopt those kids and adopt the orphans, we can make a huge difference. And just think Jesus himself was adopted by Joseph when he found out his wife or he is, the woman he's betrothed to be married to,

is pregnant. Think of that. Think of Moses himself, the great law giver of the Ten Commandments, was adopted when his mother had to put him in a basket, floated him down a river, and the pharaoh's daughter comes and adopts him and sees him as her own. Adoption is a beautiful thing where God brings people from different backgrounds together and makes them into a family, just like he does with us. I was an atheist. Now I'm his

son and a member of his family. He adopted me when I came to him by faith.

So I think, but I know because of that, I also know how it is easy to hold religious discussions at bay because you're not there yet. So explain what it was like to have that transformation.

of faith to be an atheist. Nobody times nothing equals everything, that nothing made everything. And then somebody took me to church and I heard the message of the Gospel from the Bible. And I never understood that book. I just thought it was filled with these and thows and rules

to ruin my life. And then I understood that one day I will die and I will meet the creator of the sun and the moon and the stars, the one who forms babies in their mother's wounds, the one who causes roses and strawberries and peaches and grapes to come up out of brown colorless sorry, not colorless, but but you know dirt that doesn't smell or and it isn't sweet, and outcomes cherries and watermelons and beautiful painted sunrises and sunsets in the sky with water and light.

And I will give an account of my moral choices, and I will need his forgives, and he offers it to us had great cost to himself, and that was the death of his son Jesus on the Cross. That message captured me. I started asking questions and came to the conclusion that it required more faith for me to remain an atheist than it did for me to believe in God. And I went to church, read a Bible, and wanted to become a follower of Jesus Christ. And

it was the best decision that I've ever made. And my pastor told me, Kirk, if anybody ever asked you, how did you find God in Hollywood, I want to remind you he didn't find God. He wasn't lost. You were, and he found you.

continue next on the Tutor Dixon podcast. It's fascinating to me something you said resonated that you said all of those rules will ruin my life, that feeling of if I commit to God, then I have to step away from who I am and what I am, And I think that that goes all back to pride right, because I mean, we started this conversation with pride, and I feel like we can end it on that same note, because I think so many people are afraid to take that leap into even reading the word or go walking

into a church. Today we see that churches are struggling to get young people in. But I think that there is a time right now where that pride is leaving people so empty, and all of the draw of social media and being self important and self care and that life balance and all of those things that sounds so

good are leaving people really empty. And I go back to the story of the kids in my daughter's eighth grade class who just lost a classmate, and one of them, the mom said to me, and this really touches me. The mom said to me, my daughter overheard some of the adults say I can't believe that she's gone. And she came up to me and she said, why did they say that, Because she's not gone. I know where she is. I'm like, that's faith.

something I know about faith. I'm looking at the sky and I believe that the sun is on the other side of this smoke and those clouds, not because I can see the sun, but because the sun allows me to see everything else. Faith in God is similar. I don't believe in God because I can see God. I believe in him because his existence is what allows me to see everything else, to see love clearly, to see truth clearly, to see goodness clearly. Without God, we don't

have the ability to perceive any of those things. And they say, well, atheists, no love. Atheists can tell that there's light, goodness, and truth, right. That's because God exists. But if you take him out of the equation, everything goes dark. And as an atheist I do I make the miss I made the mistake many do today, and

that is atheists steal from the Christian worldview. They steal from our worldview the source of truth, beauty, and goodness, and they hijack those and just assume that they're real. But according to their worldview, without God, none of that can really exist.

Is that even I mean especially, I think there's a lot of parents right now who feel like they've lost their kids in faith that you know, we have a lot of kids that go off to college and they get kind of hold into this concept of being prideful and you know what that looks like and stepping away from Christianity because you know, there's now people that consider

Christianity a hate group. I mean, this is really we're really at this weird point of persecution that Americans never really had to face before because we were just very relaxed and the fact that that was protected, right, we didn't have to be concerned about that. But now it's a choice, and it's a deliberate choice to make. But even in those times when you are not trying to walk with God. He is there and he is showing you,

and He is always there to bring you back. And I think that is the coolest part about being a Christian and being a Christian parent, because there is there are all these outside, these outside influences, and there's never a moment where hope should be lost because He is always there and he is always seeking you. You are out there spreading. This tell us a little bit more about the book and where people can find it and how they can see you reading to kids and libraries.

about to get out of school. We're just in time for summer reading programs and during a month where kids are being taught that pride is a good thing and that they should have lots of it. We want to remind kids of the truth that pride is the base of all great mistakes. In fact, pride is the opposite of love. We see the rainbow colored signs of pride and love, pride and love. But pride is about self and love is about others. So the truest expression of

love is not pride, it's humility. And we just have had a president Joe Biden this weekend raised the pride flag front and center on the White House. But did you know that George Washington raised the humility flag. He did that under his authority as the Commander in chief of the Continental Army in seventeen seventy five, proving that the United States of America was built on humility, not

on pride. So I made a phone call to the White House this morning, Tutor, and I suggested that if we really want to be known for love in America, we should replace the pride flag with the humility flag.

be getting these books, parents can be reading along. And I think the thing that I love in the most about this message that I feel like we need to get across is that this is just a lesson in how you can you can feel peace and you, I mean, I really do believe that your soul is at much more peace when you are living in a way accordance with what God is asking you to how God is asking you to live. And it's not controversial. It is

just filled with love and filled with hope. And that's what you're out there teaching.

all the great work that you're doing. And if anyone would like to find out more about this original humility flag that was raised by George Washington, or you want to find out more about my book Pride Comes Before the Fall, go to Brave books dot com and even consider signing up for the Book of the Month Club. It's awesome because they send a new book every single month to your front door for your kids, grandkids with a progodpro America value at Brave books dot com.