When Even Kirk Cameron Gets Labeled “Unsafe”
A Field Guide to the Purity Spiral and the God Who Panics When You Think
Before we begin, credit where it is due.
Joe Boyd (The Deconstructed Pastor) wrote a sharp, measured piece called “If Kirk Cameron Isn’t Safe, How Can You Be?” and you should read it first. Joe does the responsible adult thing. He explains the backlash, names the control mechanisms, and calmly shows how fear-based theology eats its own children.
What follows here is not that.
This is what happens when a monk reads Joe’s article, sets the teacup down slowly, and starts laughing into his sleeve.
Because once you see it, you really can’t unsee it.
Breaking News: Kirk Cameron Is Unsafe
Let us begin with the headline nobody had on their 2025 bingo card.
Kirk Cameron.
Declared unsafe.
Not for a scandal.
Not for a moral failure.
Not for secretly dancing to secular music.
But for suggesting that maybe God does not run an eternal cosmic burn pit for the unsaved.
This is not even a progressive take. It’s not edgy. It’s not TikTok theology. It’s one of the oldest debates in Christianity. But that didn’t matter. The alarms went off anyway.
This Was Never About Hell
Why?
Because fundamentalist systems don’t run on doctrine. They run on containment.
Hell is not a belief. Hell is a pressure valve.
And when someone like Kirk Cameron gently loosens the screws, the whole machine starts wheezing like a haunted accordion.
Watch how fast the script appeared.
“Scripture is abundantly clear.”
Which is Christianese for: stop thinking immediately.
“This view is dangerous.”
Meaning: someone might sleep tonight without existential terror.
“Hell must be horrific.”
Translation: if God isn’t terrifying, why would anyone listen to us?
Fear Is the Fuel, Certainty Is the Sacrament
Joe already names this, but let’s say it out loud with incense and sarcasm.
A system that requires eternal torture to stay credible is not protecting truth. It is protecting leverage.
This is why annihilationism is irrelevant to the outrage. The content of the belief doesn’t matter. What matters is that a trusted insider broke the spell of unquestioned certainty.
Once that happens, everyone gets nervous.
Because if Kirk Cameron can question hell, then the next person might question why women aren’t allowed to teach. Or why abuse keeps getting covered up. Or why God’s love always seems to expire the moment you ask the wrong question.
The danger is not false doctrine.
The danger is curiosity.
The Purity Spiral Always Turns Inward
And curiosity is contagious.
This is where fundamentalism always eats itself. The purity spiral tightens until nobody is pure enough to remain safe, including the people who built the fence.
Joe puts it plainly: everyone becomes the heretic eventually.
Virgin Monk Boy would like to add: usually by accident.
You don’t wake up rebellious. You wake up honest. You say one thing out loud that you were never supposed to say, and suddenly the warmth disappears from the room.
Friends go quiet.
Leaders tense up.
The word “unsafe” floats into the air like a passive-aggressive ghost.
How People Learn to Disappear
What’s actually happening is simple. You reminded the system that belief is not as tidy as it pretends. And the system cannot survive reminders.
So it tightens control. It shames. It warns others. It performs outrage so the rest will learn to self-police.
And most do.
They stay quiet. They swallow the question. They keep performing certainty long after it has died inside them.
Not because they’re weak.
Because they’ve been trained.
This is why Joe’s article matters. And this is why the Kirk Cameron moment is bigger than Kirk Cameron.
It’s a reminder that safety in fundamentalism is temporary, conditional, and revocable at any moment.
If even the banana apologetics guy can get excommunicated for softening hell, there is no finish line where you finally relax and get to be human.
The Most Liberating Heresy
Which leads to the most liberating heresy of all.
Maybe the problem isn’t that people are questioning too much.
Maybe the problem is that a god who panics when questioned was never worthy of worship.
So if you feel that familiar pressure to stay quiet, to keep the thought hidden, to not rock the boat, hear this.
You are not unsafe because you are wrong.
You are unsafe because you are awake.
If Kirk Cameron Isn’t Safe, Nobody Is
And awakening people always outgrow cages, even gilded ones.
Which means, paradoxically, everyone finally is.
Blessed be the curious.
Blessed be the exiles.
Blessed be the ones who asked one honest question too many and discovered freedom hiding underneath the fear.
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My novel, Caught Up (available to read here on Substack for free) was referred to as “Modern Christian literature as it should be." Unfortunately, Christians under the influence of fundamental dogma, won’t make it through the first chapter. I spent my 30s on staff at a right wing evangelical Church as a 9 through 12 English teacher. If stake burning was still a thing I’d be a burnt up marshmallow by now.
Joe's article was great. Both of you are right that in a cult or controlled fundamentalist religion, you are never safe as they eat their own. This is very similar to political regimes.
I love your reference to them be afraid that God will be upset if you think for yourself. Always thought that they should take that issue up with God as a brain is standard equipment installed by God.