Is Kirk Cameron Santa’s Best Friend?

Kirk Cameron charges to the forefront of the promotional poster for his latest film, Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas like a yuletide, jean-clad Rambo, armed with a menacing candy cane and glowing nativity snow globe, focused on one target — bringing back the delight and meaning of Christmas. By the look on his face, we realize he means business.

Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas is the actor’s determined effort to circumvent political and social issues, such as public display of nativity scenes, while methodically detailing the basis for Christmas traditions and negating the influence of pagan customs on those traditions. Cameron himself has been self-promoting the film with various videos on YouTube including one which details the life of the real Santa Claus. It is Cameron’s defense of Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, which is causing ripples of discontent in the evangelical community. Cameron claims Saint Nicholas was a Christian, a defender of the faith, but evangelical Christians are concerned with his lack of distinction between what they see as a fundamental separation between Christianity and Roman Catholicism.

Cameron released a YouTube video last week titled “Do You Love Santa Claus?” in which he asserts “maybe someone like Santa Claus is on our team.” In a follow-up video, Cameron details the history of Saint Nicholas who was actually the Roman Catholic Bishop Nicholas of Myra, Turkey under Pope Sylvester I. After being left with a large sum of money, after his parent’s deaths, Nicholas became renowned for helping the poor and giving gifts to children. Saint Nicholas was also a participant in the Council of Nicaea from which many Christian churches today derive their Nicene Creed, which is a profession of their Christian faith.

However, Cameron’s assertions are being attacked by leading voices in the evangelical Christian community. Mike Gendron, a former Roman Catholic and head of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries, finds Cameron’s melding of Roman Catholic and Christian traditions disturbing and dangerous. Gendron addressed this in a recent blog on the PTG website.

“The two faiths are diametrically opposed to one another. I strongly disagree with Kirk Cameron and would encourage him to avoid celebrating anything that has to do with the pagan practices of the apostate Roman Catholic Church,” he said.

In an interview with Christian News Network, Gendron stated, “The fact that the RCC ‘made’ Nicholas a saint should be a red flag to anyone who knows only God can convert sinners to saints by the sovereign work of His Spirit… It is no wonder that Satan has influenced the world to blend paganism with the worship of God. Satan (which contains the same letters as Santa) has been diverting minds and hearts from a pure devotion to God and Christ since the Garden of Eden (2 Cor. 11:4).”

Cameron is no stranger to opposition to his faith and he staunchly defends his views, which he believes are supported by church history. In a recent speech, before students of the evangelical Christian-based Liberty University, Cameron made his case for supporting the jolly old elf.

“So the guy that many of us think is distracting from the birth of the Christ child, is really the defender of the faith you and I want to be,” he asserted. “So now that you know who the real Santa Claus is, you want to take a picture with him at the mall this Christmas? I do.”

Will the controversy over Santa Claus propel ticket sales for Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas? Maybe Cameron could put it on his Christmas list.