Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Is Kirk Cameron An Evangelism Actor?

Do you ever wonder if Kirk Cameron is an evangelist or an actor whose acting career has extended into evangelism videos? Do you wonder if witnessing encounters like this are engineered events far removed from real life? It's a fair question . . .



Reality TV has become an oxymoron. It seems that most things get staged, one way or another, and are rigged in an effort to improve ratings or gain publicity. Kirk Cameron is someone who learnt to thrive in this environment. He grew up in "Tinsel Town" and became very successful at Hollywood's game of succeeding at pretending to be someone else. In the late 80's and early 90's Kirk won adoration in living rooms all over America as a fictional character called Mike Seaver. Mike Seaver might be long gone but Kirk Cameron soldiers on as a co-host of the TV series The Way Of The Master. This time around he's kept his real name but you may be left wondering if the character is still fictional. Does he revert back to an insecure celebrity in an ivory tower once the cameras stop rolling? Is the evangelism captured on film a thin veneer for a man who likes to live in isolation from the general public? Well I know the answer!

I got to scratch through that veneer and guess what I found - more veneer! To put it more accurately I found out that there was no veneer. What I found was a humble man (almost as humble as I am) who is keen to share the Gospel with strangers and hungers to learn how to better represent Christ on this planet. What you see on film is "reality reality television". It's how he really is!

Recently, when visiting Atlanta for the Deeper Conference, I had the great fortune of eating at a restaurant with a group of people, one of whom had an uncanny resemblance with Mike Seaver. Kirk, not being a local in Atlanta, asked his hosts if the restaurant had been "sufficiently tracted" (that's Raycomfortese for making sure all staff have received Gospel tracts). When he found out that it hadn't been "sufficiently tracted" he then took it upon himself to hand out tracts to each of the staff and then proceeded to preach the Gospel to them. Kirk is definitely the real deal. It was me who walked out of the restaurant feeling like an actor that night!

1 comment:

Esly Carrero said...

LOL @ the "sufficiently tracted" comment. ;D