Intolerance of evil is an “essential Christian virtue,” says actor
Kirk Cameron has some thoughts on what it really means to “turn the other cheek.”
The actor said that intolerance, at least when it comes to evil and tyranny, is actually a “very essential Christian virtue,” one to which, he added, the fathers America’s founders married.
During a February 21 appearance on “Timcast IRL” podcast With Tim Pool, Cameron discussed a number of topics, including his fight against “discrimination based on religious views” in public libraries and Noah Webster’s Christian influence on education.
But this was in response to Pool’s apparent reference to a History of the Christian Post earlier this month over his comments about conservative Christians playing a role in America’s decline by being “tolerant and accepting,” which led to a heated conversation between Pool and Cameron.
Credit a 2023 speech by entrepreneur Patrick Bet David for his comments, Pool summarized David’s speech as essentially: “Christians in this country are good people who continue to say OK to these people, are tolerant and allow them to live as they wish it.
“But what’s happening is they’re getting more into institutions, they’re introducing dangerous and bad ideas, they’re starting to target kids, and now we’re where we are Today.”
Cameron responded by saying that “turning the other cheek” and “loving your neighbor” were never intended to enable tolerance of evil.
“…I see so many who just tolerate evil and don’t love their neighbor,” he said. “Ultimately, the two great commandments of Christianity are to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength, and the second is similar, to love your neighbor as yourself -even.
“If you “tolerate” the kinds of things that bring misery to your neighbors and ultimately deprive them of their freedoms, you don’t love them. »
As an example, he cited Just War Theoryfollowed by most Christians for over a thousand years, which states that if you believe your enemy is preparing to attack, you have the right to defend your own people by attacking first.
Cameron said the Constitution is another way to mitigate the excesses of tyrants.
“We do not tolerate tyranny, neither from without nor from within, and it is an essential Christian virtue not to tolerate this kind of thing,” he added.
He contrasted the act of Christian charity and forgiveness with a biblical notion of justice.
“If you insult me and steal my coat, I might still love you and give you my shirt too,” he said. “And in doing that, people say – their conscience convinces them and they come back and say, ‘Why are you doing this?’ Why do you live like this?
“But are you going after my children, or are you starting to take away my freedoms, or are you making my neighbors live in poverty and misery so that you can go live on Epstein Island? No, I think we should not tolerate this.
As the conversation turned to the subject of various tenets of Christianity, Pool offered a frank assessment of his own religious views.
After sharing an exchange he had with Seventh-day Adventist evangelists walking through his neighborhood, Pool said, “I’m not Christian, I believe in God, I grew up Catholic, I’m not really a religion organized… but I love the history of this country.
“I like understanding the Bill of Rights. I like to understand why the Founding Fathers decided to consecrate the things that they did and why, and… it’s a historical fact, they were concepts of biblical teaching.
He compared the Genesis 18 account of Abraham negotiating with God over the fate of the righteous in Sodom with The Blackstone ratiolegal theory according to which it is better for 10 guilty people to escape than for one innocent person to suffer.
Pool said that, like Blackstone’s ratio, the morality of America’s founders was “rooted in Christian teaching.”
“The founding fathers just didn’t read the Bible and say, ‘Let’s do what the Bible says,'” he said. “They actually thought about what it would mean to create a government that opposed these teachings. »
Ian M. Giatti is a journalist at the Christian Post and author of BACKWARDS DAD: a children’s book for adults. He can be reached at: ian.giatti@christianpost.com.
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