If Kirk Cameron still lives in your memory as troublemaker Mike Seaver, you may have been surprised to hear the former Growing Pains star call homosexuality “unnatural, detrimental and destructive” on Piers Morgan Tonight. In reality, however, the remarks are nothing new for Cameron, who has become a leading light in the world of evangelical Christian pop culture and activism.
His later days on the family-friendly sitcom featured some acrimony behind the scenes, as a born again Cameron refused to participate in scenes that had coarse language or had even the faintest hint of pre-marital sex for his playboy character. Following the series’ end, he had his own sitcom on the WB, Kirk, which ran for two years, and appeared in a number of TV movies. Then, in 2000, he featured in both a Growing Pains reunion TV movie, and the first of what would become a long list of Christian-themed films.
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Cameron starred in Left Behind: The Movie, playing a journalist Buck Williams crusading for the truth behind a massive United Nations conspiracy that would bring on the end days. Based on a popular book series, the first film earned over $4 million at the box office and led to two sequels, 2002’s Left Behind: Tribulation Force and 2005’s Left Behind: World at War, both of which went direct-to-DVD.
While making those films, Cameron co-founded The Way of the Master, a ministry that works to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ; he hosts a TV show for the ministry.
In 2008, Cameron starred in Fireproof, a critically maligned but fiscally successful Christian film, playing a philandering fireman who must work to save his marriage and becomes religious in the process. The picture took in over $33 million and represented a major success for evangelical filmmaking. In 2009, he gave out copies of Charles Darwin‘s Origin of the Species, which contained a long preface that made the case of intelligent design, a theory he backs ardently.
This month, Cameron is releasing Monumental, a documentary in which he roams Washington DC, looking for the true intent of the founding fathers, which he believes was to create a religious nation.
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