Dominion - An Interview with John Cooper (Special Edition) - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 64

God Questions podcast.

This episode is going to be different than any ones we've had before, in that we're actually spotlighting a Christian artist, a Christian

musician that I've been a huge fan of.

We have today John Cooper, the lead singer of Skillet.

So John, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

It's great to be with you today, man.

So let me tell you a funny story.

So I came to Faith in Christ in my late teens.

I looked you up and we're actually almost the exact same age.

So you grew up at the same timeframe I did.

The youth pastor, he started discipling me.

One of the first things he confronted me about was my choice in music.

And he looked through my music collection, saw Metallica, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison.

It's all this hard rock, heavy metal type of music.

And it's like, Shay, this is not the sort of thing you need to be filling your brain with.

So one of the first steps you need to take as a new believer is you need to get rid of all this stuff.

And listen to him.

It pained me greatly to see all of those going into the trash.

And to replace them, he gave me a Petra cassette and

a DC Talk.

I believe it was their Free At Last album.

Now, don't get me wrong.

I love me some Toby Mac and Tate, but at the time, based on the music I was listening to

before, those were not exactly adequate replacements.

So my question for you is, where was Skillet in 1992 when I needed.

You guys?

I was listening to those same records that you're talking about.

Man, 1992, there actually were a bunch of

great Christian metal bands at that time, but they were just

so unknown.

Like you said, if you liked Metallica and Megadeth and your youth pastor said,

don't listen to that stuff.

To them, DC Talk, who is awesome, of course, which you just said, DC Talk is awesome.

Toby is an iconic Christian artist.

But if what you like is Metallica and Megadeth, DC Talk is nothing like that.

It's a totally different genre.

But there were these great Christian metal bands, White Cross, Baron Cross, and even

really heavy like Deliverance and Tourniquet.

They were some great metal bands, but there just wasn't the platform.

I always like to brag on Christian music, because there'd be no Skillet

had these bands.

Guardian, I love Guardian.

They did what they did, and there wasn't much of a platform for it.

It kept building and building.

Now people like me get to have the fruits of all that work they did.

So.

I'm appreciative to them.

Striper, of course.

Yeah.

Some of the ones you just mentioned are the ones that I thankfully eventually discovered to scratch that hard rock heavy metal that I

still had.

So Skillet has a new album coming out soon called Dominion.

So tell me about the album.

What was your inspiration or motivation for this album as opposed to some of the previous ones?

Well, yes, Dominion.

I'm so very excited.

I love the name Dominion.

Since we're doing a cool podcast here, you probably don't mind if I give you some of the deeper

meanings.

Sometimes when you do these rock interviews, you just got to say something really quick.

It's great.

Is this?

And you're on to the next question.

But there are some really deep concepts in Dominion that I feel really passionate about it.

But I'll just say it like this.

We're in a time where there are a lot of forces, a lot of forces

trying to control your life.

That could be, of course, inward.

And of course, good theology.

We know what those forces are.

We're talking about the flesh.

We're talking about Satan himself, his disciples.

We're talking about all those kind of things.

And then with this pandemic and all of the polarization from politics and

not just it's not actually really about politics.

It's really about how much our philosophical underpinnings of the entire world, not just America,

have shifted so drastically that now there's all this information in our heads.

People are really confused about the way we view truth.

Is there such thing as truth?

Is there such thing as actual history?

Or is history also subjective?

We're faced with it every day is what I'm saying.

Then we have externalities.

We have pandemics, vaccines.

We have mandates.

We have people yelling about this.

We have protests for racial justice.

There's so much happening.

And I believe we're in a time, namely, that there's this incredible overreach from the government

reaching into our lives in a way that it not only is unlawful according to American law, but it is

unlawful according to biblical law, in my opinion.

Government reaching into my life, John, saying, John, you do not have the right to go to church

to sing a song to Christ during a pandemic or because of this.

I don't believe the government has the right to do that.

All of that stuff is written in this record.

It's called dominion, because what it means is this.

Under the authority of Christ, Christ has dominion over all the earth, right?

In the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar actually says it.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion.

That's what the title of the record really is about.

But under God's authority, that means that I have a certain amount of dominion over my

life under the dominion of Christ, of course.

And this album is sort of a, I hope, a voice, maybe even

prophetic voice, you might want to say, a rebuke.

It's a rebuke to the power of the state and philosophy.

You call it statism, right?

That the state is the all -powerful, the state is the God, trying to act like the God.

It's a rebuke to the state.

You do not have the right.

It's a rebuke to fear.

I've never seen Christians living in this much fear or people in general just about the pandemic and

what's going to happen with their life and triple mask.

And I'm just like, I mean, talk about being ruled by fear.

It's also a rebuke to living under that fear.

If you were in Christ, you don't live according to fear.

The Bible says, for I did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound

mind.

So dominion is the title.

I'm glad I'm doing a Christian podcast because I can actually go on deep concept.

All of this is about that.

It is about saying this world belongs to Christ.

This world does not belong to the devil, does not belong to some sort of pagan deity called history,

which is one of the things we hear all the time now.

It doesn't belong to fear.

It doesn't belong to politicians.

And it's also based on the last thing I'll say this, in biblical theology, we

call it the culture mandate, don't we?

It's to go into all the earth, to rule and subdue, to bring dominion to the

earth under the lordship of Christ.

That's what we are supposed to do as the church.

So all those messages are on this record.

And I hope that it's fun to listen to.

Yeah, for sure.

So tell me about musically, how is dominion different than previous

skillet albums?

I had the opportunity to listen to a preview of it before it was released.

That was great.

Love the album, love the sound.

It sounds like skillet, but it doesn't sound exactly the same.

So how would you describe musically this album being different from.

Previous skillet albums?

Well, I do think it is.

It is different.

And I think that you even hear that really long explanation of what dominion is about.

You probably pick up on the fact that I've got a little bit of attitude these days.

I've got a little bit of gusto, a little bit of, hey, we have to stand up for what we believe right now.

There's a lot.

There's a lot riding, I believe, on what the church is going to do.

And it's not just going to affect Christians, it's going to, I believe, affect everybody.

If the church doesn't do our job and stand up for truth, it's going to be bad for everybody involved.

And so because of that, I think that the record is quite, it's just quite aggressive.

It's big.

It's a little heavier.

I think it's a little hard.

It reminds me of our Awake album, which I know you mentioned earlier.

It kind of reminds me of that record in that the aggression of the music has to

match the aggression of the lyrics.

It has to match that theme, like the first single we released was called Surviving the Game.

I mean, the first line of the chorus, I can be unstoppable, going to walk through hell, going to

shake the walls.

You've got to have something heavy for that.

You can't be doing Amy Grant to that.

Not a diss on Amy Grant, just saying, we've got to have something heavy.

So the record is very modern.

A lot of digital instruments, digital guitars.

Not all the guitars are digital, by the way, but a lot of them are.

And I think that that just made it, it sort of updated the sound of Awake, in

my opinion, to where it's kind of heavy.

And we tried some new stuff.

There's a little bit of screaming on the record, which is a little bit

new for Skillet.

A little bit of what I would call screaming, and even a little bit of, I don't want to say rap, but there's a few

rap -like, you know, there's more of a hip -hop influence, but with heavy guitars.

So that's kind of being.

Shown in the record in a new way.

Yeah, for sure.

So again, love the album.

I definitely recommend people to get it.

And it kind of leads into my next question.

So two of my favorite bands are Skillet and Switchfoot, which aren't,

say musically, both rock bands, but very different sounds.

And what I love is that a Christian can listen to a Skillet album or a Switchfoot album and get

deep spiritual meaning from the songs.

But people who are not a believer can listen to it and not even really know

that the lyrics have a spiritual meaning.

So how do you balance that as a believer of wanting to produce something that's spiritually meaningful, that points to

the truth, while also not turning off people who aren't really looking for that in

the music they.

Listen to?

Yeah, I think that that's actually a great question.

And lots of people are going to have very different opinions on this.

And I'm always very, I think I'm pretty gracious towards people that disagree with me about this, all right, because

I think this is a matter of conscience.

But I think that art, in my personal opinion, the best art

is art that I can watch a film or listen to a song or look at a

painting, and I can sort of interpret, you know, the undertones of what they were trying to say.

For instance, maybe, I love the book 1984.

That's a good example.

1984 is just a really fantastic story.

You don't have to understand anything about communism or tyranny and

totalitarian regimes.

You don't have to know anything about that just to read the book and say, that was really cool, you know.

And I think the art is done well like that.

And I think there's a place for Christian music that is overt

and could be more like the way we sing hymns at church, you know what I mean?

The hymns at church or worship songs have a distinct purpose, and that

purpose should be to glorify God as he is.

It should be to sing about his attributes, right, and the things he's done for us.

And that should be very theologically rigid, I would say.

When I get into Christian music, I see Christian music as art.

And I'm not saying that it's okay to say things that are wrong, but I like to write songs that

could mean something different to you than it means to someone that is not a Christian.

You know, we have a song called Hero from the Awake album.

All around the world, I was in Russia, because during the time Hero was becoming a

pretty big, you know, radio hit at the time.

And in Russia, in an interview, and he says, so this song Hero, who is your hero?

And at that time, I had only ever answered that question in America.

And so to a lot of people in America, if you say Jesus, they feel like you're not answering the question, because

they assume that Jesus is your ultimate hero.

But what they mean is who are your other heroes?

Why do they assume that?

They assume it because we used to live in a very Christian culture.

Well, all of a sudden, I'm in Russia.

And I said, my hero is Jesus.

And he said, Jesus who?

And I was like, oh, oh.

And so we started having a talk about who Jesus was.

And he says to me, he says, are you saying, John, are you

saying that you believe that Jesus of Nazareth, who died on the cross,

are you saying that you believe that he is also God?

And that's when I was like, oh, we're not in Kansas anymore.

You know, in America, everybody has these assumptions.

And I was in Russia.

I was like, oh, yes, that is what I'm saying.

Jesus is also God.

And so what I'm saying is, is that it's cool.

My song got big in other countries.

And Hero, their hero could be something completely antithetical to what I would believe.

I think it's a great way to evangelize.

It's a great asset for the church to use in order as a supplement.

But my only warning for that is just when Christian music becomes a way of

teaching people doctrine, that's when I get really nervous.

I think Christian music should be a supplemental thing in your life.

But we should be looking at doctrine according to.

Historical sources and orthodoxy.

Yeah.

No, that's an excellent segue to the next question.

You've spoken a lot about, I mean, it was a couple of years ago, I think, where it became big, where several Christian artists

deconstructed their faith or whatever.

And for some Christians who really looked up to those artists, it was devastating to hear of their

decision to depart from the faith.

And Steve, not just Christian artists, but some prominent Christian leaders were doing the same.

So as a Christian artist, Skillet's been a very popular band for a while

now.

I'm sure you get the fangirl and the fanboy treatment on occasion.

How do you respond to that?

And how do you explain to people that as a Christian artist, you should not be a role model, at least not in the

doctrinal sense, or don't look to me as your spiritual authority or end -all be -all for all things related

to the faith.

That should be other people.

So just tell our listeners briefly, how do you respond when something like that happens?

Yeah, I think that that's a really great question.

I kind of like how you said at the end, which was, don't look to me to be your spiritual authority,

I think is a great way to say it.

Definitely don't look to me to be your spiritual authority.

I think that I would separate a couple of things here, because I have said a lot of things on this subject and you

have limited time.

Separate a couple of issues.

Number one, in terms of Christian musicians being role models, a lot of people

mean different things with that language.

I would say this, a biblical precedent for all of us, whether you're a school

teacher, a rock star, or a plumber, I think is what Paul says, imitate

me as I imitate Christ.

We should all be living a life worthy of imitation.

So there can be an idea in our culture to where we put preachers or

pastors up on some sort of pedestal, meaning that they are more spiritual

than us, so their lives should have more lordship than we do, something of that nature.

Does that make sense?

In other words, they should be really serious about sin.

I need to be 80 % as serious about sin and so on and so forth.

Obviously, if you are a Christian leader, you are under a different standard in terms of what God calls you to,

but you're not under a different standard in terms of God's holy law and God's holy word.

We are all under the same standard.

So if you're a plumber, you should be living a life worthy of imitation as well.

So I always accept that responsibility as a role model, if you will, in that sense.

Yes, that's okay.

Young people, you can look to me as a role model in that sense, as I'm doing my very best

to live for Christ.

But I would not say look to me as a role model in terms of I'm where you go for your

doctrine.

I'm where you go for your spiritual authority.

I am supplemental.

But I think this is part of a larger issue, if I may.

This isn't just in the church.

This is in the secular world too.

I mean, this is really just the sort of culture, what do I want to say, philosophical

shift that's happened since, I think mainly since the 60s, really.

And it has become so popular that even in the world, secular, academia,

it's just very popular to not look back at any historical wisdom.

It's kind of a progressive way to look at knowledge.

It's 2021.

So even a teenager now has more knowledge than the ancient wisdom traditions or something

like that.

That is not helpful because what you have now is a whole generation of people that they know a lot of

facts about things, but they don't understand wisdom because they have intentionally ignored the wisdom of

the past.

And we see that with American historical revisionism.

You see it in everything.

And we're seeing that in the church too.

So what happens is that a lot of young people, especially, don't really understand the Bible.

They're not really plugged into a church.

They don't have a relationship with any church leaders.

They don't know what their pastor's talking about.

Maybe their preacher isn't even really preaching the truth of God.

Maybe they're just telling stories.

Maybe church has become self -help.

I don't know their situation.

But what they do is they look to influencers to tell them how to live.

And those influencers, when they deconstruct or when they fall away, it's just devastation.

And so I'm splitting that up into a bunch of things there.

And the main thing I would say is this.

We have to train people to remember the wisdom, the

wisdom of all those who came before us, the incredible 2 ,000 years of church history we have

that we should be building upon in our lives, upon the foundation of the absolute truth of the Word

of God, of the Bible.

And if we do that, I think we'll be all right.

Yeah.

So I've heard you talk several times about your fondness for reading old dead guys.

So what are some Christian books you've read recently that you found

beneficial, edifying,.

Encouraging to you?

Oh, there's so many.

I mean, I love the Puritans, and I know that's not very popular.

Well, I guess the Puritans—it's popular in a lot of Reformed theology circles.

But a lot people are like, oh, the Puritans were no fun.

I mean, I read a book called The Mortification of the Flesh.

And all of a sudden, I can't remember who wrote Mortification of the Flesh.

She's a Puritan.

All of a sudden, it's escaping me.

I found it changed.

It just changed my life.

I mean, it was so radical and so amazing.

The Puritans are great.

And Ryle, that's spelled R -Y -L -E.

Yeah.

So J .C. Ryle.

J .C. Ryle, that's right.

J .C. Ryle wrote an amazing book called Holiness, which is also a life changer.

So I really can't get enough of the Puritans.

On the other side of the theological spectrum, you would have A .W. Tozer.

I love Tozer.

And A .W. Tozer's book, The Pursuit of God, was the first real

theology book I ever read when I was in college and just radically changed me.

And so I always have a steady diet of Tozer and the Puritans, and

that'll give people a.

Good place to start.

That's awesome.

So we're about out of time, but so back to the Dominion album.

So I don't know.

Give me a sales pitch.

Why should people want to listen to that album?

Our audience is primarily Christians or people who are interested in building their faith.

And music has been a huge part of my life, as we discussed at the beginning, just

having Christian bands to replace the secular ones I was listening to, to start filling my head with truth and

love instead of, for the most part, garbage I was listening to before.

So who is Dominion for?

Why should people consider acquiring it?

You need to go acquire it, everybody.

Man, I personally love the record.

I think that it's one of our best records we've made.

It gets hard to choose.

It's like choosing a favorite kid because you love the records for the times you made them.

The record is really exciting to listen to.

I have a feeling it is going to energize people in their faith in a way maybe

that because of the time we're in.

In other words, I think there's a lot of Christians because of pandemic, because of, if they feel

the way that I feel, seeing government overreach, seeing that, hey, it could be the case

that your religious freedoms could be taken away.

What would you be willing to do if that were the case?

Would you be go to prison for your faith?

Would you be willing to go to prison to be able to go to church and sing worship songs to Christ?

So on and so forth.

A lot of people are seeing what's happening, and they are also seeing the destruction.

Not that I want to get on a tangent, but they are seeing the destruction of what happens when we

do not believe that God's Word is true.

The destruction of sexual liberation and the moral

revolution from the 60s that now has outworked itself to such a degree that even Christian people,

I know people, I'm just going to say this.

I don't want to say their names.

I don't want to be rude.

People that I know that have served Christ for 20 years, that within the last two years have

fallen away to such a degree that they now are in, it's actually called a

throuple.

That's when you have three people married together.

We now have three people married together that served Christ for 20 years.

Little by little by little, they began to not believe in the Word of God, and now they've gone so far.

Everybody watching this has heard stories like that.

Now when you listen to the album, it's going to mean something different than had it come out five

years ago.

All of a sudden, you're going to hear lyrics like in our first song, Surviving the Game,

that says, I'll give you some lyrics here.

All the liars around me, like the wolves at the walls, they surround me.

Then it says, I come out like a lion.

I was born to be demon defiant.

You're going to hear these lyrics, and you're going to say, oh, that's what this is about.

This is about not giving in to fear, not giving in to the people online that are trying to shut you up because you talk

about Jesus too much, or trying to force you to do something that in your conscience you know that you're not

supposed to do.

It's going to give you that sort of, I hope, faith encouragement to stand up for Jesus,

maybe in a way that you hadn't in the past.

I will leave it at this.

The last song on the record is called White Horse.

We've never made a song like this before.

It's about the book of Revelation.

Jesus comes back on a white horse, coming to judge the earth, coming to wage war upon his

enemies.

I've always wanted to make a song about repent and be born again.

That's what this song is about.

I just think it's going to fire people up.

Go check out Dominion, check out the songs, and take it to the gym, because it will.

Get you pumped up.

Sounds great.

I was just at the gym this morning thinking, I need something heavier to listen to.

The free preview I got for Dominion didn't allow me to actually download it.

I was going to listen to it online.

I hate that.

John, thank you so much for being on the show.

Again, I'm a huge fan of Skillet, and I'm also a huge fan of how you've been speaking out

culturally in the stuff we see going on in the world today.

I'm speaking the truth in love, so keep doing it, man.

I appreciate it.

We need more people like you out there standing up for Christ with some boldness.

Amen.

I love it.

Thanks so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

This has been the God Questions podcast, a little different episode, having a Christian artist rather than discussing

the typical, directly biblical issues, but important topics we talk about.

Again, I love Skillet.

I would highly recommend you to listen to the album and consider acquiring it.

This is the God Questions podcast.

God questions.

Bible has answers.

We'll help you find them.