Ah, the chill in the air, the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree, the cookies and candy canes, stringing popcorn… Who doesn’t love Christmas? Still, I think we all know that different camps have very strong opinions about how and why Christmas is celebrated. So, which “Christmas” is it that you love?
Some know the truth of Christmas, while others reconstruct the holiday into myths and man made traditions, but maybe, just maybe, some of that can intersect and co-exist. It may just mean looking at some of the images of Christmas and it’s customs in a new and deeper way. Saving Christmas, a new film starring Kirk Cameron wants to assist you in doing just that.
This Christmas, have your family join with Kirk’s family and dive headfirst into all the dancing, celebration, feasting, imagination, and traditions that glorify the true “reason for the season.” Kirk provides a biblical basis for our celebrations, and the inspiration to stand strongly against a culture that wants to trivialize and eliminate the faith elements of this holy season.
Watch the trailer:
Saving Christmas shows you how to take in the majesty of the Christmas story. So gather your family and friends, and head to your local theater to see Saving Christmas. Let’s put Christ back in Christmas!
Kirk Cameron had some very insightful things to share about his new film with the Sonoma Christian Home audience.
SCH: Kirk, you say in the opening of Saving Christmas that you LOVE everything about Christmas. Was that Kirk the actor talking or “Real Kirk”?
KC: In Saving Christmas I am playing a character, I am not playing myself, but this character does reflect how I feel. I love everything about Christmas. I love the decorations, the nativity, the Christmas cookies, the stockings, the tree and the carols. I love Bing Crosby’s music. I love the way that people are more compassionate, more giving at Christmas time.
SCH: Is your love for Christmas the reason you made this film; to encourage others to love and be engaged in the season?
KC: Most people that I know really love Christmas. They love some aspect of it. The gift giving, holiday cheer and Christians especially love that this is the season for celebrating the birth of Christ. Because of people’s love for Christmas, it makes me so sad to see how some forces are stealing our joy. If you let someone steal your joy it wearies you, zaps your strength. God tells us that the joy of the Lord will be our strength, so I really wanted to have people think through all the different aspects of Christmas.
I don’t want people to be hoodwinked by those who say it is offensive to have a nativity sign up, or it is offensive to say “Merry Christmas”, or ungodly to have a Christmas tree inside your house. My vote is to have people maximize joy this Christmas season and have an uproarious celebration inside your house.
SCH: I love what you say in Saving Christmas about how Christmas makes you feel like something really big happened, and everything is going to be ok. How wonderfully reassuring and profoundly true! Do you think people who are not Christ followers get a sense of that and that it can draw them to Christ?
Kirk speaking at Liberty University; Photo Courtesy of Liberty University.
KC: Well, that’s a good question and we can attack that a couple of different ways. We have a very loud mouthed media today and so you can turn on the news, or TV and you can get a very different perception about Christmas, about Easter and other types of things and what is really going on. I think that in general, that America has Christmas running through its blood. It’s in our American veins because our country was founded on Christian principles and people will argue that all day long and cherry pick the historical evidence.
Patrick Henry said that our country was not founded by “religionists” but Christians, and that can’t be said too often or more loudly. And the heartbeat of Christianity is the Christmas message that “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and the government will rest upon his shoulders and of his peace there will be no end”. This is the hope of Christianity; this is the hope of the founding of America, that we would be a nation that lives out the gospel. So, when I say that Christmas is a time that people know something big happens, I think it is very true.
The prince of peace landed on the planet; that’s what we sing, “Joy to the World, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king.” Whether people know it or not, the spirit of that truth is powerful. Also, let’s not forget that there are many things embedded in our culture that speaks to what happened the night Christ was born. Every time you write a check, you write 2014, you are testifying to the fact that time itself is marked by the birth of Jesus Christ. He split time in two, Before Christ “BC” and After Death “AD” divide at Christmas.
Kirk Cameron in a scene from “Fireproof”, another famous Christian film; Photo Courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films.
SCH: In this world of tolerance, do you really think that the true story of Christmas bothers people? Do you think God likes how we celebrate as Christians, in particular, when some of the body mixes the world’s version with God’s truth?
KC: Christmas should bother people, it should absolutely bother people because it is not just a spiritual declaration, but it is also a political declaration of sovereignty over every square inch of the planet. That should be a terrible bother to anyone who is for “socialism”, “communism” and any type of king or dictator or any other supreme being outside of Christ.
That is why King Herod got so upset, right? He did not respond, “oh it’s a cute little baby, let’s send a rattle and a blanket”. This was not just a baby, this was our King, who would be King over King Herod, so he didn’t send a baby gift; he sent a sword. Christmas is the atomic bomb over all other world authorities. It says that the King of the world, the King of all, has come and all other authorities are subject to him whether they like it or not.
This is why Stephen was stoned, why Peter was martyred, why the apostles were run out of town, why Jesus Christ was crucified. Jesus was not making a warm and fuzzy statement when he said he was Lord. Christ was supplanting Caesar and saying that every king, sultan, president, world leader and person will bow to him and confess that Jesus is Lord.
See the music video for Building 429’s “Saving Christmas”:
SCH: Do you think some people believe there is a war on Christmas?
KC: I do think some people believe that and let me give you an example. Two days after our website for Saving Christmas went up it was hijacked by an anti Christian, anti Jewish group of Cyber attackers from Turkey, of all places.
They replaced our home page with the page of a Turkish Sultan wielding bows, arrows and machetes with arrogant messages that their Turkish Sultan, their religion, their message and their weapons will rise again. There is an absolute animosity towards Christmas for those who don’t know Christ. And there are some are just neutral, and couldn’t care less.
Christmas is massive. It is the foundation of everything, because if God really did become a man and he defied every other method of conception, and was born of a virgin, grew up and died and then rose from the dead, then the world is no longer the same. Then, there is a cosmic shift in the universe and you either want to bow down to this baby in the manger or you want to kill him. That’s why Herod and the political authorities wanted to get rid of him and it’s the same reason some people want to get rid of him today.
SCH: You also tell us in Saving Christmas to look at the Christmas tree, the swaddling clothes and Santa in a new and different way. Did you research this or is it a personal viewpoint?
No one loves Christmas more than Kirk’s sister! Photo Courtesy of CamFam Films.
KC: Some of this is my personal private interpretation. I did read some books, “There Really Is A Santa Claus” by William Federer and “God Rest you Merry” by Pastor Douglas Wilson. I consulted these books because they had a fresh perspective on Christmas and Santa Claus.
SCH: The wise men brought two gifts that are also used in burial, Frankincense and Myrrh. Why do you think they brought those gifts?
KC: When you see types in the Bible and then you see their fulfillment later, things in the Old Testament that point to Christ, things like Jacob being a “type” of Christ, or the Ark being a “type” of Christ, or the Flood being a “type” of baptism, you can see those things, although when you are at the flood or in the ark, you don’t know what that fulfillment is going to be until it gets here, right?
So when you are reading the story of Jesus and the preparation of his body for burial, in the burial clothes not unlike the swaddling clothes, and the use of the frankincense and myrrh, then you see the parallel and the similarity. I believe personally that God knows the beginning from the end, and he wrote all of that on purpose.
Watch the Opening Scene:
SCH: How do you think God looks at the way we celebrate Christmas?
KC: Santa Claus can absolutely become a distraction to the way we celebrate Christmas, but so can your gingerbread cookies or Mary and Joseph and the donkey. Some people will take Mary and make her the center of interest and worship her. Mary can become a distraction, although she is an integral part of the story and an amazing woman.
Santa Claus can become a true distraction, or who he truly was, which was St. Nicholas, also known as Bishop of Myra, a real defender of the faith. His vigorous actions on behalf of his people and in defense of the Christian faith reveal a man who lived his convictions who we should honor because of his contribution to our faith.
SCH: This was a CAMFAM film. Do you have other family projects that you want on the big screen?
KC: Yes, I actually have a three-picture deal with Provident Films; Saving Christmas is one of them. The next one is called Kill The Dragon, Save the Girl which is a family action adventure movie. That is one that we hope will turn out to be a trilogy.
SCH: Please permit me to go in different direction for a second here…you had a birthday recently. What was the highlight?
The film urges us to “put Christ back into Christmas”! Photo Courtesy of CamFam Films.
KC: Honestly, my highlight was having dinner with my bride and my kids. With such busy schedules being with my family is where I want to be.
SCH: I heard that you also spent your birthday with some special folk from Monroe, Louisiana?
KC: Oh, yes, Duck Dynasty! I did actually also celebrate my birthday at Phil and Kay Robertson’s house. Kay cooked me dinner. I had my two sons with me and we were on a hunting trip with the Robertson’s and we had such a blast.
SCH: In closing Kirk, if you could offer any words of wisdom or truth from a spiritual standpoint to not only our readers, but also the world, what would you say?
KC: Well, I would share what Phil Robertson said to me when I was visiting with them, he said “Kirk,” well actually, he called me Cameron. Phil said “Cameron, you know Jesus came down from Heaven to earth and changed everything and he died on the cross, he was buried in a tomb, he rose from the grave, he defeated death, he went up to sit with his father and he is coming again, and he did all of that so that our sins could be forgiven and we could have eternal life. If you have got anything else that can offer me forgiveness of my sins and raise me from the dead, then I want to hear about it Cameron; I’m all ears. But I haven’t heard an offer like that anywhere else.” So, that is what I would say.
“SAVING CHRISTMAS” opens in theatres November 14th. Find out more by visiting www.savingchristmas.com
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