Monumental

[PrisonerOfHope]

Monumental Confusion

A Review of Kirk Cameron's Documentary: Monumental


By Vince and Lori Williams
Authors of Falsified: The Danger of False Conversions

"My premise as I start out this film is to approach this subject not as an actor or as a politician or not even as a Christian but to approach it as a father." (emphasis ours) This is how Kirk Cameron defined his documentary in a recent interview to a secular radio host and this is exactly what the film delivered having just watched it at the live screening.

Before we even get into the review, it needs to be noted one of the most shocking parts of the live event was a very welcomed live feed from Glenn Beck on the set of GBTV studio. On the pre-show before Monumental starts, Kirk talks to the audience of viewers and introduces Beck as "one of our biggest supporters of the film and a friend." Beck then comes on the screen very excited to be partaking in this live event and says, "I am honored to be called your friend", and then goes on to say, "You were in Left Behind while I was reading it." He goes on to address the audience with statements on the topic of how God is giving us an alarm, and if you don't have freedom you can't be who you are.

Beck states "He (talking about God) is telling us to do these things." Beck also says, "There's no way out", then goes on to say that God has really confirmed to him "why would I be telling you to gather if I'm a God that wants to torture you. He is a loving God. We have to return to Him." Kirk then says, "We are ready to answer the call" and graciously thanks Glenn and pleasantries are exchanged.

Kirk then introduces some others involved with the film, in particular of note was his conversation with his current pastor Rex Holt of Conejo Church, www.conejochurch.com/

They have a conversation together talking about this being a spiritual journey and Holt speaks about John Robinson the pastor to the Puritans that were on this voyage.

The film opens up with the trailer many of us have seen with Cameron blasting away at how the world is supposedly going to hell in a hand basket and we have to somehow stop it from spiraling downward before we hand it off to the next generation.

The film is portrayed with Kirk's narration back and forth of what he is learning along the way as he goes from point to point along the pilgrim's escape route from England.

The portrayal of what the pilgrims were trying to accomplish according to the film is quite extraordinary. If what the film says of their journey is true, they were seeking to accomplish the goal of living out what the Bible teaches. They were printing Bibles in English to get the Gospel out…. this is where we hoped the film would lead; however it takes a different path.

It diverts from the pilgrims simply trying to get out from under King James's rule and tyranny to, "we as Americans now have to reclaim what they did in order to regain liberty and freedom." That is where it starts getting really messy. The film brings you to where Kirk and Marshall Foster meet up and Kirk is asking, how do we get back to that, I wish they would of left us a recipe. Foster is quick to tell him they did leave one, and its just over the hill they happen to be standing on.

The Monument then flashes on the screen and its magnitude is highlighted by aerial shots and larger than life footage of this granite statue. Kirk is awe of what he sees and what Foster then delivers to him in exposition of the parts of the monument. We are not told how Foster knows all of this information; he just starts explaining all the symbols of it.

Here is the following of how he broke down the description of the monument:

--Faith: She is pointing to God because her faith is in the God of the Bible, Jesus Christ. She has the Geneva Bible and the pages are opened up because that meant they were reading it. The star is for wisdom, how to live, and without faith it all falls apart.

--Morality: Internal morality, the woman has no eyes, she's looking internal to the heart first, and then external. She has the scroll of Revelation in her right hand and the Ten Commandments in the left. (Again he is not telling us how he knows that is what she is holding, you can't see that from the film that it's inscribed with those verbiages on it). You have to change hearts and minds first. The side statues give meaning of Evangelism, the writing down of the Gospel because "He came to set us free" he states. Law meant civil law, if you want order then you must have the Law-the principles of God are related into civil law, and the mercy that He's having.

---Justice: She's holding scales of justice and in terms of equity there should be equality.

--Mercy: It's built upon the idea that He offers us mercy and grace.

He sums that up by saying you have to have morality, a moral system of law and one that shows grace to people. You have a freedom and a civility and how you can educate your children.

From there he goes to the Education statue saying she is educating her children and sitting in victory. It's how to carry on truth to kids and through their youth.

The one thing we did agree with, if its in fact true that the statue represents all of that on education was Foster's comment that, it is the parent's responsibility to do this (educate) their children because their worldview was different from the government. He said it was our responsibility to teach our children, not the government's because they will not learn the proper things if left up to them.

---Wisdom: In the left hand it's pointing to the Ten Commandments and an open Bible. This man is older and wiser, he is teaching the children how the world works from a biblical perspective and passing on liberty. Again, we are never told how Foster knows all of this; he just starts interpreting all of these symbols.

--Liberty Man…the big climax and focus of the documentary and one that Kirk is fascinated with. Liberty Man is the fruit of it all. That is what he represents. Foster says the Liberty Man is "the result of obeying the matrix of liberty," (the matrix of liberty being the rest of the monument.) He has defeated tyranny and is holding it down.

The summation of all this description from Foster in referring to Kirk's desperate desire for an answer to all of it…"This is that recipe."

So Kirk now has his answers of how to reclaim America and his children's future…. by following the mandates of this Monument.

He then wants to know if our founding fathers were as on target with Christianity as our forefathers were.

He heads to Texas where he states, "home of David Barton, the leading expert" on the topic.

Barton and Cameron have an exchange around Barton's elaborate collection of supposedly historical documents. Barton states that Congress and the founding fathers printed the first English Bible, so if they were so atheistic, agnostic, deistic, then why would they want the Bible in schools.

Simply put to Barton…they would, that is why they were getting it out there. Kirk says after seeing all of this, "the founding fathers did not ditch the faith." Barton says there are many out there that are deliberately and denying the truth of the founding fathers. They are repeating it ignorantly when they say that the founding fathers weren't Christians. He takes a great time showing Cameron the book, The Godless Constitution, and uses one page from the bibliography as his basis of how people do not document their sources when they say the founding fathers weren't Christians.

How does it all end? Kirk tells us in his own words, "The solution to the crisis? It's not to blame, the responsibility to secure freedom for my family is in my hands. Join me we will secure a Monumental future for our children."

We walked away from this gospel-less film, done by a guy that is known as an evangelist for the Christian faith, with utter confusion and one big looming question…why did Kirk not go to the scriptures to seek out his Monumental question?


The answers are there. We will not reclaim America, but rather Jesus Christ will restore creation when He returns. That is a much better solution than what we as humans or monuments could come up with. His word is Truth!

www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=8123

Brannon Howse also has several excellent radio programs about this film on his website - www.worldviewweekend.com. He invided Kirk Cameron to speak on the program several times, but got no response.

[wateredseeds]

Huh.....yeah i was afraid that it would be like that. Kirk is a great person, and a good evangelist too. I fear that he is too much like some people i know...who desperately want to see our nation as being a christian nation, and will ignore the truth in order to convince themselves of it.

[PrisonerOfHope]

From what I see from the Tea Party, there are a lot of people - Christians - who was to see our country restored and are uniting with non-Christians (like Beck) to try and accomplish that goal. It's not going to happen; America isn't mentioned in Bible prophecy for a reason.

Time is so short; I've given up on politics, and would rather use the time I once spent on that working to further the Kingdom.

[wateredseeds]

POH,

I disagree that america isn't mentioned in bible prophecy. I think we are there.....just not in a good way.

[PrisonerOfHope]

America isn't mentioned specifically, but Jimmy DeYoung said that the only place he can see America in the Bible is as one of the countries who comes against the Lord at Armageddon. I tend to agree with him.

[wateredseeds]

I see us in several places. I see us in Ezekiel 38 as part of the "little lions". I also see us as being a major candidate for "mystery babylon". Patrick Heron makes a bold case for New York City being the mystery city, and i tend to agree. The geography, UN headquarters...there's a lot there to suggest that we might be that mighty fallen nation. There are some other places too, but i haven't looked at them in awhile.

[PrisonerOfHope]

Interesting take on Monumental from a non-Christian...who MIGHT have become a Christian had the movie really been about the GOSPEL instead of a masonic statue

12 Things I Learned from Kirk Cameron's Bonkers New Movie

Kirk and his monument.Kirk and his monument.Last night Kirk Cameron's docu-evangelical movie Monumental opened for one night only in select theaters nationwide, so I went. During his tenure on Growing Pains, Mike Seaver learned a lot of valuable lessons (never date a Madonna look alike, never bet on horses and never ever ride a dirt bike with Boner). Last night, it was my turn.

Monumental follows Kirk's pilgrimage through the history of America's first puritan settlers. He goes from his the backyard to England, Holland and eventually Plymouth Rock and Washington D.C. in search of what he calls a "game plan" for rebuilding our country, which he worries is about to spontaneously combust. Why? Teen pregnancy, tolerance of sexual diversity and self-expression, lack of religion in schools and kids with dyed hair and piercings. That's not all Kirk's movie taught me. I also learned...

1. A lot of New Yorkers that went to see Monumental were reporters.
Despite the movie being open to the public, it felt more like a press screening with hipster journalists holding recorders and interviewing the wrong people (me and my fellow reporter friends) about the movie. In no big surprise, Kirk's audience on the isle of Manhattan is largely people who want to see if he's going to say something weird.

2. Kirk throws quite the party
Before the movie even started, Kirk broadcast a live-stream cocktail-free cocktail party from his living room. Sitting on the couch in his den (dappled in Pier 1 candles and a coffee table book on dogs), were some supporters of the film, including pro-life activist Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr., who's made controversial comments in the past about how her uncle would share her beliefs, despite very, very strong evidence to the contrary. Also in Kirk's living room was musician Warren Barfield who played a song about staying married on his guitar, and caused Kirk to bite his lower-lip and squint his eyes in "rockin' out" face. This was a sign of things to come: the movie was 75 percent close-ups of Kirk's face.

3. Kirk doesn't get out much
He opens the film with a bold statement: he's going to retrace the steps of the puritans, by going where no man has gone before. England! That's right, the place you can fly to direct, where people speak the same language. After he meets with a very animated puritan historian across the pond he has another announcement: he's taking a ferry to Holland! Both announcements are enhanced with the sound effect of a boulder being dropped. He saves the announcement that he's heading to Boston to spice up the movie's half-way point.

4. It's easy to blow Kirk's mind
If you've ever read about the first pilgrims on Plymouth rock, you know times were tough for them. Kirk apparently didn't. When it's explained by a historian that they were stuck on boat called the Mayflower (with some TMI details about the excessive "barfing" on the ship) Kirk is alarmed. "Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute, what?" The movie would be about 45 minutes if you took out the constant processing Kirk needs to do with some fairly general knowledge.

5. When Kirk's mind is blown he makes this face
Wait so you're saying their boat didn't have a motor?

Picture won't copy; see link.


6. Kirk thinks Pilgrims, not Native Americans, have been shafted in history class.
Kirk's elementary school must have been the most progressive institution in America. By his account native Americans got plenty of airtime in class, but pilgrims were generally a side-bar where they were described as meek and scrawny. In Monumental it's a very different story. Native Americans and their relationship with the first settlers are addressed in about 2 minutes flat ("not perfect"). The first mention of their presence in the movie is predicated with the adjective "hostile." In contrast, puritans, Kirk learns, are superheroes. He discovers this when he spends about a third of the movie looking at a statue at Plymouth rock that portrays the early settlers as Hercules. "This guy is a stud!" Kirk enthuses. Twice.

7. Kirk thinks a statue is more important than the Constitution
The thing that blows Kirk's mind the most is this statue at Plymouth rock. Twenty minutes are devoted to walking around it excitedly with Marshall Foster, director of the Mayflower Institute. From it Kirk extrapolates the following: Christianity is the only way to have a civil society, everyone should be home-schooled, puritans were jacked (see #6), and women should be mothers by the time they're 25.

8. Kirk would not approve of Susan B. Anthony
In Kirk's history lesson of early settlers, women mostly get shipped out on boats by men and get sick. They don't really do any of the strategizing or heavy lifting. That's my first clue that Kirk and Susan wouldn't be besties. Clue number 2 came when Kirk meets with vintage bible collector David Barton, and is excited to learn that some of the country's first leaders weren't all godless heathens. Moving forward he thinks Americans would be better off if our leaders all believed in the exact thing he believes in, okay? Susan B. the woman who helped half of us get to vote, was not religious later in her life. By Kirk's reasoning, that would be a problem.

9. Kirk thinks all men should be treated as equal, as long as those men are Christian and also men
The thesis of the longest movie ever is that we should act exactly like the first puritans who landed on Plymouth rock if we want to save our country. The fact that there were only about 17 people, who were living in extremely dire circumstances is not really a consideration. Neither is the fact that women didn't have a say and everyone was ethnically and literally off the Mayflower.

10. Kirk is doing this whole thing for you, so you will buy his books, DVDs and home-schooling kits
Really. At the end of the movie, Kirk patched in via live-stream and told the audience how they could take what they've just learned and apply it to purchasing things from his website. Then, mid-sentence, the screen went dark.

11. If you ever see Monumental, leave immediately after it ends
After Kirk's technical issue, we all sat in darkness waiting for something else weird to happen until it did. A woman stood up in the back of the theater and began a sermon on how we've all lost our way, what with "teens getting jiggy." Some people in the theater agreed. I saw one guy, a reporter of course, tape recording her speech making that "this is priceless" face. That didn't make me feel any better because as potentially unhinged as this spontaneous preacher was (she also over-shared about being locked in a psych ward) she was having herself a moment.

12. Never get the nachos at a movie, no matter how hungry you are

I did this and I regret it. So does my friend who I spilled nacho cheese on. So does the family next to me who almost slipped on it when they left the theater. I'm sorry.

shine.yahoo.com/work-money/10-things-learned-kirk-camerons-bonkers-movie-220800425.html

[PrisonerOfHope]

Concerns About Kirk Cameron's Movie "Monumental"
Posted by Christine Pack

Former teen actor Kirk Cameron, who famously converted to Christianity a number of years ago, has had an interesting Christian walk, to say the least. Almost 10 years ago, after hearing a sermon by evangelist Ray Comfort that rocked his world, Cameron contacted Comfort to discuss Comfort's powerful sermon, and the two subsequently became friends. Eventually, Cameron and Comfort joined forces with Todd Friel, a former stand-up comedian, also turned born again Christian, and the three began to work together on a satellite radio program called Way of the Master (also known as WOTM, and so named after the witnessing method Comfort had used so powerfully in the sermon that had caught Kirk Cameron's attention). This Christian ministry rapidly grew in popularity, and featured street witnessing segments using the Way of Master method to stir the consciences of lost sinners.

Eventually, Way of the Master split into two distinct separate ministries: Way of the Master (Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort) and Wretched Radio/TV(Todd Friel), even though all of these men continued to work together doing conferences. Kirk Cameron also starred in the 2008 movie Fireproof, a movie that became wildly popular in the Christian community, and which had at its core a very strong and biblical gospel message. So it should come as no surprise that Cameron has come to be known in the last decade for his strong stance on biblical truth and his devotion to the purity of the gospel message. To say that there is tremendous goodwill toward him in the Christian community would be an understatement.

Having said all that, Cameron's latest movie, Monumental, has proved to be a monumental letdown, in that it apparently does not give a clear gospel message. The movie, which has been promoted by Wretched, also contains factual inaccuracies as well as conflicting messages as a result of Kirk's close association with Mormon Glenn Beck and Reconstructionist David Barton. During the live feed at the premier of the movie, right before showing the film, Cameron introduces Glenn Beck, calling him "one of our biggest supporters of the film and a friend." Rather concerning, given that Glenn Beck is a very outspoken Mormon (with New Age tendencies, no less), and Kirk's close friend Todd Friel is well aware of this. In fact, Todd has exposed Beck's beliefs a number of times (see below), and yet until recently, the Wretched Facebook wall was heavily promoting this movie.

Since the opening of the movie last night, a number of articles have already been written: John Chisham of Wittenburg Church Door weighs in here, authors Vince and Lori Williams weigh in here, and Dr. Warren Throckmorton weighs in here.

I want to state for the record that I have myself benefited tremendously from the Wretched/WOTM radio program (of which Kirk was a founding member), and it was there that I was first introduced to excellent Bible teaching from John MacArthur, Bob DeWaay, Phil Johnson, R.C. Sproul, Mark Dever, Al Mohler, Dan Phillips, Brannon Howse, Justin Peters, Mike Gendron, Ken Ham, etc. It was through such wonderful, biblical, balanced teaching that my own thinking became, by God's grace, more and more aligned with God's word. I thank God for Wretched/WOTM and how those programs helped me grow in discernment. Host Todd Friel has a masterful way of using his humor and his intellect to make his points.

So I will close this post by pointing out that Wretched Radio has a highly discerning audience. Todd Friel has taught his listeners and viewers extremely well when it comes to training them in discernment. In an eight minute clip from Wretched TV (August 2011) that can be viewed below, you can watch as Friel dismantles Glenn Beck and his New Age/Mormon beliefs. I therefore cannot imagine that a moralistic movie with no gospel message, even starring someone as well-liked and well-intended as Cameron appears to be, is going to get past the radar of most Wretched followers......especially when it has been enthusiastically endorsed by a New Age Mormon. But we'll have to see how this all plays out, won't we? We're living in curious times.


www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=8127

[wateredseeds]

Let me say this. As far as politically, the evangelical christian has no greater allies than catholics and mormons. Overwhelmingly mormons are conservative and pro-life. Catholics are overwhelmingly pro-life. In working with these groups who have common ground with us particular ISSUES, it can be greatly beneficial. Where we have a problem is when we try to create a "common ground" worldview for our political affiliation. When christians start compromising on some things in order to appease others politically that is VERY DANGEROUS. I have several political allies that are catholic and mormon. The reason that they are allies of mine and full throatedly, is because politically they agree with ME on issues. I try very hard in my political affilations to make sure that i'm ISSUE oriented, and so as long as someone can be trusted and demonstrates REAL conservative principles, they can be on my "team".....but if they ever deviate from that, they aren't going to be at the front of my mind on things.

So here comes the biggest problem. One of the places we try to have common ground is in the thoughts of our founding fathers. I think that is dangerous because there is so much deception about all of those things. I would rather take the approach that i'm sticking to the constitution, and anyone that wants to find common ground with me politically should stick to the constitution as well. Don't try to find common ground with me by saying "thomas jefferson said". I'm well aware of what Jefferson said, but that's not going to have any impact on the constitutionality of a particular thing in my mind. It's an easy way to be deceived. It's ecumenicism not very well cloaked.

[PrisonerOfHope]

Well, the Bible is clear: We're not to be unequally yoked, nor is light to have fellowship with darkness.

[wateredseeds]

Exactly. The only way that christians can get anything done in politics and still stay "right" is to convince non-christians to vote "christian".....and not compromise. This doesn't mean "fellowshipping" with non-christians. It means saying "i agree with you on this issue" and hoping that they support that same thing with their vote. Of course in a wicked world, it's almost impossible to make it work.