There’s a new movie coming out this year, scheduled for release early next year, an election year, when America will be a major crossroads. I hope many will plan to attend the film during its opening weekend, as that can often make or break a film.
         Before I go any further, I must have full disclosure. I was interviewed for the movie in DC by the Washington Monument.
        The star of the movie is Kirk Cameron, and it’s not a drama or sitcom. It’s a documentary being made for select theatres (hopefully, many select theatres).
        The overall theme of the movie is to retrace America’s true history---especially at the beginning, with a great emphasis on the Pilgrims.
         Recently, I spoke with Kirk Cameron (who I met when he interviewed me for the movie and when I interviewed him to help promote the movie). He’s a very nice guy, very personable. What you see is what you get.
        Kirk told me, “I decided to go on a journey and retrace the journey of the Pilgrims, separatists from England to Holland all the way over to Plymouth and connect the dots to understand who they were and why they came here and what were the principles that they used as a blueprint to build the foundation for the richest, freest, most prosperous nation that the world has ever known. So that we can get back to those principles, so that we can right the ship and get her back on course before it’s too late.”
        The film is called Monumental, and I’ll explain why in a moment.
        It’s a film in the same genre as a documentary to be shown as a movie-move. I hate to give him any more publicity, but Michael Moore has succeeded in that genre---getting a glorified documentary to be shown in movie theatres.
        I asked Kirk why he has been making the movie in the first place.
        He said it’s personal. It’s because of his six children. He told me, “I’m concerned about their future and our country, because it seems to me there’s something very sick in the soul of America. It’s heading in a direction that doesn’t look good in every respect, financially, morally, spiritually.”
        Realizing the nation has taken a wrong turn somewhere, Kirk decided to play the part of “Everyman.” He chose to embark on a quest to learn from the Pilgrims, one of the key groups of early settlers.
        In the movie, Kirk interviews some of the leading figures on this material. Including David Barton, Paul Jehle, Herb Titus, Stephen McDowell, Os Guinness, and Marshall Foster, key advisor to Kirk. These are all people I’ve had the privilege of interviewing through the years. The script-writer is Kevin Miller, chief script-writer for the Ben Stein’s great movie, Expelled (2008).
         Monumental is named after an obscure granite statue in Plymouth, Massachusetts that was unveiled in 1889 in honor of the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers.
         I know the statue well because my long-time employer and pastor, the late Dr. D. James Kennedy, had the privilege of speaking at the 100th anniversary of the unveiling of the statue.
         I was there. I was part of a TV crew that captured that classic speech on the amazing contributions of the Pilgrims, and we have aired it a few times since.
         The Pilgrims were an amazing people who helped set a spiritual tone to the nation-to-be. They extolled the virtues of freedom of religion, of free enterprise, of peace with the Indians, and so on. They deserve the attention they will be receiving in Kirk’s movie.
         I think a strong case can be made that in their agreement for self-government under God, the Mayflower Compact (1620), the Pilgrims helped lay the cornerstone of our two key founding documents to come about 150 years later---the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
        *Winston Churchill called that charter “one of the remarkable documents in history.”
        *British historian Paul Johnson said the Mayflower Compact was “the single most important formative event in early American history, which would ultimately have an important bearing on the crisis of the American Republic.”
        *America’s first great historian, George Bancroft, asserted: “In the cabin of the Mayflower humanity recovered its rights, and instituted government on the basis of ‘equal laws’ enacted by all the people for ‘the general good.’”
        I know I’m biased, but I wish the movie great success. I predict it will do better than expected---as the word gets out.