November 27, 2020 Show with Dr. James R. White on “Should Christians Adopt the Leftist COVID-19 Protocol? (A Christian Response to Mask Hysteria)” AND John L. Cooper on “Awake & Alive to Truth”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this day after Thanksgiving, November 27, 2020, and I'm so thrilled to have both a regular guest who has been on this program many times, in fact, he was my very first guest on the very first program, very first episode of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio back in 2005, and he was also the very first guest when we relaunched in 2015.

His name is Dr. James R. White, and he is the director of Alpha Omega Ministries, and during the first hour, we are going to be discussing should

Christians adopt the leftist COVID -19 protocol, a Christian response to mask hysteria, and then the second hour, we're going to have a first -time guest, it happens to be a friend, a very good friend of Dr.

James R. White's, John L. Cooper, who is lead vocalist, bassist, songwriter, and producer for the two -time

Grammy Award -nominated, 12 -time platinum band, Skillet, and he's going to be discussing his new book,

Awake and Alive to Truth, but first, it's great to have you back on the program, my dear friend,

Dr. James R. White. Well, first of all, Chris, you sound much better once you got started. You sound like you're a good, professional radio voice man now, that's good to hear.

Yeah, James was worried that I was nasally before we went on the air, so... That's right, that's right, but it could just be, you know, being from New York, that contributes to that.

But you probably, if you think back to our first dinner in Baldwin, before that first debate, and then take a look at John Cooper, who's become such a good friend of mine, you'd go, no,

I don't, no, no, that's straight -laced, boring, couldn't get a joke, joke to be tried and true.

He's a reformed Baptist, he's friends with a rocker, and yeah, yeah, that's true, but I think you're going to have fun with John, and obviously,

I've read his book, he had me read through it before he finished it off, and I really, really enjoyed it, so, yeah, you're going to have a good time with him, and you could fill in more time if he had it, but he's been pretty busy recently,

I'm sure, with the book, but man, some of the stories behind some of the songs are really, really fascinating, they really are, so, anyway, you'll have fun.

Well, I can imagine, during that first debate at the

Coral House in Baldwin, I can imagine that if John Cooper was in the audience, that you would somehow try to get my attention, wave me over and say,

I think you better get security, there's a strange -looking guy in here, you better get him out of here, making me nervous.

Well, there were a few people there that were making me nervous, but for no particular reason.

Yeah, right, I remember. In fact, I think there were always people at every single event they arranged for you that were making you nervous for some reason.

But we are discussing today something that is dividing the

Body of Christ. In fact, it has actually split a church that is not far from where I am sitting.

People are leaving churches because of this issue, people are getting very nasty in social media with each other, and people are vilifying and accusing one another for being careless with the lives of others, but I will repeat the theme, should

Christians adopt the leftist COVID -19 protocol, a

Christian response to mask hysteria? Now, I know that you happen to be, and anybody that watches

The Dividing Line knows that you are very opposed to mask mandates, and in fact,

I heard your description of your Thanksgiving celebration before it occurred, and you said, if you are invited over my home, you better not be wearing a mask because the first thing that's going to be ripped off your face by me when you walk through the door is your mask.

I don't remember being quite that straightforward.

Yeah, you might want to ask Rich about that or watch the broadcast again. I'm not sure that I really trust

Rich about that either. We're starting to get old enough that there's a lot of plausible deniability just on the memory issue.

I don't remember saying that, but I did say that there would not be any masks at our get -together, and there weren't.

At Apologia Church, I would guess probably on average, and we've been having,

I don't know, four, four -fifty, five -hundred people max, which really means we've nearly doubled in size since March.

But I would say that, well, there's so many people looking for a church that was still open and still preaching and still worshipping and things like that.

But I would say on average we might have two people in a service that wear masks during the service, and we don't have any problem with that.

That's perfectly fine if they want to do that. But obviously we do not have any mandates in that sense, because we are convinced and I am convinced by the fact that I was a department fellow in anatomy and physiology, so I have the ability to read scientific literature that the vast majority of the evidence that is published in actual reputable journals demonstrates that these mandates have purposes other than our health and safety.

So there's multiple levels that we have to consider this on, and unfortunately when you read online, and who reads newspapers anymore, but when you read online, when you watch the media, there is an amazing level of bias and prejudice in the coverage and in the materials that are allowed to be presented.

I have noticed that articles that are scientific articles, that are good articles, they will disappear from the internet.

You end up having to get them in archive sources, or there is one study that I have been quoting for a long time that Dr.

Rand Paul, Senator Rand Paul, tweeted out about a month and a half, two months after I started promoting it, he started promoting it as well, and what you'll find is though it's still there, but now there's been a statement from the authors added to it, not changing their conclusions, but there's this pressure to give in to the narrative and to say, well, despite what our studies found, and despite the fact that we found a 97 % permeability factor in cotton masks, and despite the fact that the people who wore cotton masks had a 40 % increase in infections over the control group, and that's not even including the

N95 respirator type masks, which are much better, but nobody wears them, and nobody wears them right, even when they do, you know, despite all of that stuff, we have this narrative that just simply has to be maintained.

And I don't know if you saw it, Chris, but just yesterday, another study started hitting the sources that are trying to do journalism, studying the numbers, the specific mortality numbers, which if you remember, and I know you listen to the

Dividing Line fairly regularly, the first thing that I was emphasizing, and hence brought into the discussions at my church, was the reality of the standard mortality numbers.

And these are things that I've been looking at quite literally for years. This isn't just something

I started doing in March of 2020. This may sound weird, but I've had a fascination with or an interest in mortality numbers, and how many people actually die each day around the world, primarily for theological reasons, primarily because in our day, there is such a, there was, it's changed now, but not in a good way, there was such a complete ignoring of the fundamental realities of mortality.

We just sort of think that Dr. House is going to save all of us from whatever it is that ails us, and it just doesn't work that way.

We all have a limited time span, and so in light of Psalm 90, and presenting a heart of wisdom to God, I had always been aware of the types of numbers that we have dying daily in the

United States and in the world, and so when this stuff hit, I'm like, hey, they're not giving any context whatsoever to what they're talking about.

All you've got on the screen is one disease. They're not talking about heart disease. They're not talking about cancer.

They're not talking about tuberculosis. They're not talking about meningitis. They're not talking about the other forms of influenza.

They're just talking about this one thing. It's like it cured everything else.

You don't die of anything else anymore. It's like, this is, where is this coming from?

What is the purpose of all of this? And so a study came out just a couple days ago and immediately disappeared from the

Johns Hopkins website once it became known, and it's available only on the archive website now, archive .org,

where analysis was done of the mortality numbers for 2017 through 2020, and it was demonstrating that there has been no increased numbers of deaths, that we continue to follow the same patterns that we had before.

But what's strange is, all of a sudden, at least according to what's being reported, there are sudden drops in deaths due to cardiac issues, heart health issues.

And I'm like, okay, let's just all sit back and think about this one for a second. We've been locked up in our houses, not so much out here in Arizona.

I will admit, thankfully, we have a mainly Republican governor, and yeah, there's been a lot of, you know,

I haven't been able to visit my favorite little Italian spot for months now, and I won't.

Would that be at Domino's? Hey, I can tell the audience some of the guys you dragged me to.

But the Italian places were never dives. You always enjoyed those. No, in fact, my favorite place was that little place right near the church.

But as you will admit, the pizza you would buy there was like getting an oil change every time you ate it.

It really was. That's what made it so good. It was awesome, but it wasn't healthy.

And so the point is, is someone really going to argue that as we've been locked down in our houses, and everybody and their uncles talking about how much weight they've gained during the course of lockdown, and we're having, you know, fast food delivered to our front doorsteps by masked people, that this somehow has lowered the prevalence of cardiac disease?

That we're getting healthier by sitting on the couch eating our potato chips? No way. That ain't happening.

And so the issue in the study was it seems like a lot of other kinds of deaths are being reported as COVID deaths, and we know why.

We know that there's something called money involved, and when you have a COVID death, you get more money from the government than if you have other kinds of deaths.

And so this kind of stuff, this kind of literature is out there. It'll never be covered by the

MSM, but it's there if you know how to find it. And so looking at all this stuff, looking at the

Marine study especially, I love this one. You have to have read this one, where the

Marines did a quarantine. They did a test using

Marine drill sergeants to be the enforcers of the study.

So we're talking the military, double masking, cleaning everything in sight, just doing everything that you and I both know would never, ever, ever happen in the general population.

I mean, properly fitted, double the masks, the whole nine yards. When they did that, they ended up with a slightly higher infection rate in the people quarantining than the control group that didn't.

So if the military basically came back and said, well, that really doesn't work, there's a reason for that.

And it's because those masks don't do anything. And it feels as well, but it's like when you're talking and you've got liquids coming out of your mouth, that's what actually spreads it and stuff like that.

Most of the studies have pointed out that it takes about 15 minutes' worth of meaningful exposure, which is why when

I'm out running or riding my bike and I go by people also on a bike wearing a mask,

I want to scream. Because they're probably truly afraid, but what they're doing is bad for them.

It is not good to exercise while wearing a mask unless you're training to do something at high altitude, which most people are not training to do in the first place.

And they're afraid. And it's based upon mythology rather than upon any type of serious science.

And so looking at all of these studies, and more of them are coming out, you heard about the

Danish Mask Study, etc., etc., etc. The large preponderance of the studies that are out there have pointed to the exact same conclusion, which interestingly enough was what everybody at the

CDC and the WHO was saying up until April. During March and February, they were all like, nah, nah, nah, come on, that's silly, there's no reason for people to be doing that, blah, blah, blah.

Well, then all of a sudden they changed their minds. And it wasn't because a bunch of studies came out that said, oh, this is highly effective.

No. If any studies came out, it was this is highly effective at teaching people how to submit to government mandates because what's going to come next will be the vaccines.

And you've heard me, you can verify this. I called this back in April. That's when we started building our studio.

I started getting money to build our studio because I realized I'm not going to be able to travel in the future unless I submit to this, unless I roll up my sleeves and start taking the regular injections.

And it won't be a one -time thing. I mean, this first one is two to start with and probably boosters annually after that.

And that's not where it's going to end. I'm sad to have to tell you, but I'm pretty certain there will be a

COVID -21 mutation that will come along. At least that's what certain people are already planning on.

And so the major airlines, Qantas, they already had a meeting at Heathrow where a bunch of British Airways, everything was involved.

You're going to have to have a health passport. You're going to have to have a passport that basically says

I'm going to submit to this regular series of inoculations and that's the only way you're going to be able to travel in the future.

I may never get to see many of my dear friends around the world or even in the

United States in the not -too -distant future. I mean, I understand that they were talking about setting up roadblocks to check people who were going in and out of the

New York area around the holidays. It's like, what on earth is going on? You put all this stuff together and there is good reason to question the people who are going, well, you're just a conspiracy theorist.

Look, I was calling this stuff months before it happened and everybody was going, you're a conspiracy theorist.

Now it's happening. And it had nothing to do with conspiracies because this stuff had been published and people were talking about exactly how you're supposed to handle and use a pandemic to bring about social change for years before this.

We just weren't paying any attention to them because we thought they were all a bunch of kooks. Well, those kooks have billions of dollars and they're accomplishing their intentions right now.

And so, as I look at the situation, I am convinced by the evidence not only of the ineffectiveness of masks but the danger of masks.

You probably know I have a condition that makes mask wearing dangerous for me.

I had cardiac ablation back in 2011 and any kind of interruption of airflow or any kind of interruption of the stasis of my body, like I had a kidney stone removed about four years ago right at four years ago and I had a little stent that had to be put in for a while after that and they took that out.

As long as that little teeny tiny stent which I couldn't even feel was in my body,

I had incredible heart rhythms. When I say heart rhythms, when I'm exercising well over 200 beats per minute.

In fact, back in 2011 I hit over 255 beats per minute a couple of times with some of those episodes and I take regular drugs for that.

That's how I continue to ride, run do all the stuff that I'm able to do but no one cares about that anymore

When these mask mandates first started it always said, now of course we recognize there are people who can't do this asthmatics and da da da and if you have a medical reason that's all fallen away.

Basically if you have a medical reason well then get delivery, just stay in your house we don't care about you that's in essence what is going on in our society now and so you put together not only the ineffectiveness but then the danger to asthmatics

I bet you anything if there was a real honest inquiry into this stuff that you will see a tremendous increase in respiratory diseases bacterial infections, etc.

especially amongst poor kids the very kids that aren't even affected by COVID -19 are now being forced to wear masks when they go to school and I bet you anything that you're going to see a huge increase if anyone dares to question the narrative enough to even take a look at doing it so you put those two things together and now you come to the theological aspect and I realize you haven't gotten a word in edgewise but that's pretty normal when you and I do an interview like this

I just get going on the theological level the big thing we heard at the start of all of this was love your neighbor shut down your church shut down your church to love your neighbor shut down your church to flatten the curve and this is how we show the world that we love our neighbors and isn't this wonderful and most people accepted that idea as appropriate and obviously if this was

Ebola if this was something to kill 75 % of the people that contract it then you could make a pretty good argument that we should all be hiding in our houses

I get it but the best numbers that I've come across especially blood serum studies said that for people under the age of 70 there is a 99 .95

% chance of survival of this and that actually makes it less virulent under 70 and less deadly than H1N1 which was the pandemic that hit us as I recall in 1969 and 1971 when we went to the moon that was going on as Apollo 11 went to the moon so you look at that kind of information and the questions start becoming what do you mean love your neighbor so for example

Karen Swallow Pryor just yesterday put a number of tweets up where basically she paralleled being pro -life with being pro -mask so if you're pro -life, if you believe that abortion is the murder of unborn human beings then you should be the first person pushing for mask mandates assuming a number of things assuming that the current numbers being reported of deaths per day are accurate and of course that's the other thing is a lot of people struggle with the idea of comorbidity and the idea that death is rarely due to a single reason if somebody at age 20 in perfect health gets shot on the street by a random person driving by, it's pretty easy to identify cause of death and there's no comorbidity factors but the vast majority of people who die from disease have multiple factors involved a dear friend of mine, his church just got ravaged by COVID recently and it went through everybody and they lost two people one person was 86 years of age and the other was 60 years of age but minimally diabetes and some other issues along with it and so you have these comorbidity factors that come in and a lot of studies have demonstrated that COVID is only responsible for about 9 % of the deaths that it has been credited with by itself, in other words not with in tandem with or working together with all these other comorbidity factors in fact we're going to have to pick up where you left off there cause we have to go to our first break so just remember the comorbidity factors will pick you up right there, if anybody else wants to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com chrisarnson at gmail dot com don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors

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In Psalm 139, verse 14, the psalmist offers praise to the

Lord like this. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made and wondrous are your works that my soul knows very well.

He saw God's goodness and mercy, kindness, and the beauty in what

God has designed, and he has erupted into praise. In any crisis or problem, brothers and sisters, our only fallback position is to trust

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Thank you. Welcome back, and I'm not sure if you know this,

Dr. James R. White, but that voice that you just heard, my client, Dr.

Banu Gadi, who is a pharmacist in New York, he is a fellow elder, along with your very dear friend,

Doug McMasters, at New Hyde Park Baptist Church. And he has rescued, that is

Banu Gadi has rescued people that had all of the factors that made coronavirus serious, you know, overweight, diabetic, elderly.

He has actually rescued some of these people off of their deathbeds in the hospital just through vitamin

D3. And it's amazing to me that the media hardly said anything at all about vitamin

D3. They would mention it in passing, speaking perhaps of sunlight or something like that, but they would never really delve into that issue, even in the conservative media.

So it's just quite disturbing. But before the break, you were talking about how they elevate the actual numbers of COVID related deaths in hospitals so that they can get extra government funding when these deaths, the person may have had

COVID, but it really wasn't the cause of their death. And if you could pick up where you left off there. Yeah, well, people started talking about that a long time ago.

Of course, they would talk about it with a certain level of humor because, you know, they would find examples of a guy who died in a motorcycle accident on the list of COVID deaths because, you know, a month later, the autopsy stuff comes back and, oh, look, he had

COVID. So there's part of your 260 ,000 COVID deaths. The Canadian doctor who two weeks ago was on that, recorded on that phone call,

I'm sure you heard it, who was just railing at the fact that we don't treat any other disease this way at all.

And in case anyone's wondering, we don't have immunizations for the vast majority of coronaviruses.

We never have. And so we don't treat any other disease this way.

This has been absolutely unique in an absolutely unique period of time. And if people would just step back a few feet and go, wow, we have swung so far to the left so fast because of this.

I wonder if there might be a connection, then people might see what's going on.

So back to the theological aspect of all these things. The argument was you're loving your neighbor.

And as I was saying, if this was Ebola and if I actually was in serious danger of passing a disease that kills three out of four people it infects to someone else, okay,

I get it. That's true. But if you're going to be consistent here, then we should have been masking the entirety of the 20th century.

And we should be masking forever for everything. Because a person with the comorbidity factors already in place can lose their life due to an infection of the common cold, any form of the flu, any form of tuberculosis or meningitis or any number of communicable diseases.

We should shut down society and all hide in holes. And we know we can't do that, but if we were consistent that would be the only way to quote -unquote love neighbor.

I don't believe that the factual information is there to say that I'm actually loving neighbor by decreasing my own health, first of all.

There is no parallel, as Karen Swallow prior attempted to argue, that there is a parallel between abortion and wearing a mask.

The differences are vast. And I think we're starting to see, as we see people losing their freedoms, their homes, their businesses, their health, that loving neighbor is a little bit more complex than do everything you can possibly do to keep your neighbor from getting one of at least 20 different infectious diseases.

But don't worry about the rest of them. This is the only one that you need to worry about. That's not loving your neighbor. That is being a willing part, maybe out of fear, maybe out of ignorance, but a willing part of a fundamentally political process that, as we can all see,

I hope we can now all see, has fundamental impacts upon the freedom of the proclamation of the

Gospel. Because we are seeing a movement toward a system of government that connects the coronavirus together with what's called the

Great Reset, which has to do with transgenderism and homosexuality and everything else in the process.

It is all a part of one movement. They are connected together.

They cannot be disconnected from one another. And that does explain why coronavirus is being treated in a completely different fashion than anything else in our society.

And that is not conspiracy theory. All you've got to do is go and buy

Klaus Schwab's book. It came out this summer. He's the head of the World Economic Forum, WEF.

And it's called Coronavirus and the Great Reset. I didn't make it up. The head of the

World Economic Forum did. They put the book out. They said, we must use this as an opportunity to fundamentally remake the economic situation of the entire world.

And that includes a massive decrease in the human population.

A massive decrease in the human population. So believe it or not, I am firmly convinced, and I have yet to have anyone talk me out of this, no matter how hard they try, that this is all connected together with, for example, the transgender craze.

I don't know if you've had an opportunity, Chris, to read Abigail Schreier's book, Irreversible Damage.

Are you familiar with the book? I'm familiar with it only through the Dividing Line. Oh, okay.

She's not a Christian. She has a Jewish background. It is any father who has a daughter or granddaughters, as I do, and maybe another one coming actually right now, will be absolutely, not flabbergasted, but moved to deep personal anger by reading that book and the destruction that is being wreaked upon young girls, ages 9 and upwards, seriously that young, 9 and upwards, by the transgender craze.

And what it intends to do is to destroy these women's ability to ever reproduce again, to ever have a normal life again.

And it is amazing what you'll find on the web promoting this kind of stuff.

What better way to help slow and reverse the human population than to destroy young women so they can never have children?

I mean, they are making testosterone injections the greatest thing to ever happen to a girl, most empowering thing to ever happen to a girl.

You do that for only a short number of months, and you can completely finish a girl's opportunity, especially if you use

Lupron, the puberty blocker, which is what they use on adults to castrate men.

You use that as well, and that's it. It's done. So you connect that together with the promotion of a form of marriage that can never produce children, together with an economic system.

Did you see the subway and bus stop things that were up in certain cities in the

East, and I think overseas? The greatest way you can show your love for your kid is to only have one of them.

Wow. That's out there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, we're talking in public. This is not hidden in some places.

This is not a conspiracy. This is a part of the Great Reset, and the people behind it, like Bill Gates, the

World Economic Forum, Prince Charles, this stuff has been in print, on YouTube, out in the open for years, and they are accomplishing it.

They are doing it with our blessing and our cooperation, and yet if you dare go, hey, do you notice this video from like five years ago where all these pinheads are sitting around saying what we need is a pandemic?

What we need is people being in fear so that they will give up their life savings.

They will give up their home. They will give up their jobs for the promise of safety.

This is what we need. This was years ago, and voila. Where are we?

That's exactly what's happening. It's all connected together, and it's right out there in the open, and we don't consider that loving your neighbor to have to basically walk with him into servitude because the idea in the long run,

I'll just put it straight out here, the idea in the long run is to slam the economy so badly that nobody can pay their bills, and then what you do is you offer them complete debt forgiveness in return for giving up all of their personal assets to the government.

Sounds like Joseph, doesn't it? Joseph in Egypt. All their personal assets go to the government, and you have to sign up for the government's immunization plan in perpetuum for the rest of your life, and then everything that you have after that is just rented from the government.

I mean, it's really Joseph in Egypt, but being done in the 21st century, and that way the

Great Reset takes place. You get rid of the biggest problem in the way of the

Great Reset was the United States of America. There's a bunch of people who own their own property here. How dare they? A person who owns his own property is a person who is going to have a concern about the future of his country and freedom and liberty, so you've got to get rid of that so that we can have what?

Perfect equity. In other words, we all get to have the same level of poverty, global technocratic socialism, and I'm not making this stuff up.

You can go read the books from the people that are doing it, but you know why it's being so successful?

There is no free press anymore. The press is full on board.

They're not doing their duty. They're not digging into stuff, and the few people that are have been marginalized to the fringes of the

Internet, and who knows how long that will last before full -on total censorship takes place.

Well, full -on total censorship is taking place right now. It's just not to the point that it eventually will be, and so you look at all of that, and loving your neighbor is actually giving them warning and helping them to protect their children because for me especially,

I don't know when you first heard me start saying it, but homeschooling is going to be one of the first things on the agenda of a

Biden -Harris administration if that happens. It's going to be one of the very first things that's going to be a part of the application and the institution of the

Great Reset here is you've got to get those kids out of the home and into the state schools as it is in Germany.

When you see what's going on in Germany right now, that's what's going on in Germany. They got rid of homeschooling many, many, many years ago.

You cannot homeschool in Germany. So Christian parents in Germany have to try to do worldview education and repair every night with their children.

It's a completely state -centered, state -sponsored type of situation, and that's what they want here.

That's what they're going for. So how do you love your neighbor? You tell them the truth, and you protect their freedoms and liberty, and you don't succumb to a wild, strange theory that says this one disease more than all other diseases is the worst thing we've ever encountered.

What you do, if you've had anybody talk about, and I think you have, the

Great Barrington Statement, is you put your resources into protecting those immunocompromised people, and you do not lock down the rest of the society.

You do not take everyone else's freedoms and liberties away. But that's exactly what we're experiencing.

Well, we do have a listener in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Harrison. Yes.

In fact, that's where you were born, right? No, you lived there. I was born in Minneapolis. That's right. Yeah, we lived in Mechanicsburg for a couple of years.

That's where you were baptized, in Mechanicsburg. Yeah, because I lived in Camp Hill and Mechanicsburg.

I think Bible Baptist was in Mechanicsburg. It's actually in Charlemontown. It's in Charlemontown, which is right next to Mechanicsburg.

Charlemontown, right. Charlemontown and Camp Hill, those are the two cities we lived in. Okay. Well, Harrison says,

I want you to keep in mind that I am not saying this, but how do you respond to people who would say,

Dr. White, you're a brilliant theologian. You are a New Testament Greek scholar.

You know so much that can be of such great benefit to the body of Christ. Don't you think that you should not be preoccupying your time with things outside of the gospel, theology, and doctrine?

Yeah. Well, a lot of people have said that, and if you have the idea that there is no application of the

Christian worldview to such issues as this, then you're going to come to that conclusion. I am reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the struggles he went through in facing the

Nazi scourge and what he finally chose to do in standing against evil, and he lost his life as a result.

These are things I'm having to struggle with, because I was not raised, Chris, with the idea that there was that application.

I was raised with the idea that basically we are almost sort of the

Westminster, California, Radical II Kingdom idea, that there's this huge gulf between these two things, and they never are to be crossed.

And as you know, that's not the perspective of Jeff Durbin or Apology at Church and Abortion Now and the things associated therewith, and so I have been challenged to give serious thought to what it means if you recognize the worldview implications of secularism, and that secularism is a fundamentally anti -human worldview.

And we know, because I not only teach New Testament, but I also taught church history, and so I have a deep interest in history and a fairly decent knowledge of it, certainly not like someone who works in the field constantly, but it's certainly something that I'm well aware of.

And I know what secularism did to the world in the 20th century, and the number is around 120 to 125 million people lost their lives in gruesome fashion because of communism, socialism, and the entire secular worldview that is associated with it.

Give people technology that we have now, that the Soviets did not have.

Give them the technology that we have now, and the numbers they could rack up will be significantly higher than they were in the 20th century if we are foolish enough to once again walk down this road.

So, how do I apply my

New Testament knowledge to seek to save the lives of my granddaughters?

Do I just simply say, oh, that's a totally different thing. So, I'm not ready to say that the

Christian worldview is only relevant during periods of ease and in heaven.

I don't think that's the case at all. And so, I have sought to be balanced, but I also recognize that this is an issue of not bowing the knee to Caesar, and that Caesar is constantly trying to find ways to make

Christians offer that pinch of incense on the altar. And if you'll listen to both sides, and you will weigh things fairly,

I will leave it to you to make your decision. But I think it is more than appropriate to warn people and to warn people clearly regarding what's coming, and I honestly hope that I'm wrong.

I honestly hope we have more time. But so far, sadly,

I've been pretty accurate in what I saw coming down the road, and it's not because I'm a prophet or a son of a prophet.

It's just, if you apply Romans 1 to secularists and then hand them a massive amount of technology, this is what they're going to do.

And not only that, like I said, they've published entire books saying this is what we want to do. I'm just taking them at their word and going, yep,

I think that's exactly where you're going to go. And we have to go to our midway break. I know that you were going to stick around for a little bit longer when we have

John Cooper on during the second hour, who is the lead singer, bassist, producer of Skillet, an award -winning rock band who has also written a new book that we are going to be addressing today, and I am looking forward to it, especially after hearing

Dr. White's glowing commendation of it, Awake and Alive to Truth, Finding Truth in the

Chaos of a Relativistic World, but we'll be right back after these messages. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends upon the financial support of fine

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Call 1 -800 -669 -4878. And I think that I may have been just recently joined by John L.

Cooper who is, as I said before, the lead singer, bassist, songwriter and producer for the two -time

Grammy Award nominated and 12 -time platinum band Skillet. Am I right as John joined us?

I am. How's it going? It's great to have you on the program for the very first time, brother. And I know that you're probably very pleased to know that our friend

James White is still on the line with us so he'll be with us for a part of the program anyway. I am.

How you doing, John? What's up? Hey, bud. How's it going? Hey, I don't know.

Should we actually tell the whole world that we're supposed to actually meet for the first time next week? Yeah, it's pretty cool, actually.

I don't know if it's going to be something that the whole world needs to know. Yeah, well, tell them to tell us that they're going to get some pictures taken.

Yeah, well, hopefully my wife and I are going to get a chance to meet with John and Corey next week.

I'm really looking forward to that. If the weather holds and the little Cessna 172 are going to be flying in makes it all the way up there.

But no, I don't want to take up too much of John's time because I know he has these long pre -memorized speeches that he gives for his book.

No, he doesn't. Oh, man. I'm getting beat up now.

If I remember correctly, that's sort of like what Chris Christie said about Mark Rubio, if I remember correctly.

Yeah, but no, I got to finish up reading

John's book while I was doing something called Everesting, which means

I was climbing on bikes for hours on end at high altitudes. So I'm not sure if that made it better or worse, honestly, the oxygen deprivation and stuff like that.

But I really, really enjoyed it because John is, look, he and I being friends is evidence that the body of Christ is a very, very diverse thing, obviously, because we do sort of have similar childhoods as far as we were both converted at a very young age and a little bit of the background there.

Obviously, I was joking, John, you didn't hear it, but Chris will tell you that when

Chris first met me years ago when he sponsored and organized the first of the great debate series we did on Long Island, we did it for ten years,

I was a straight -laced, unfunny, I wouldn't tell a joke, very serious

Reformed Baptist -type guy that Chris was really worried about. He really was.

So I said, the idea that John and I would be buds probably would never have crossed

Chris's mind at that first dinner we had, but I've certainly relaxed a good bit over the years.

To give you an idea, John, Jerry Lewis once called James White a nerd. That just kind of gives you an idea.

Oh, wow. Wow, okay. Yeah, thanks a lot,

Chris. So anyway, I'm the one that tracked John down because I saw the comments he made that were recorded at CBN about apostasy and biblical theology, and I was so impressed by what he had to say that we got in touch with each other, and ever since then we've had a great time talking about God's Word and theology, and I've just been trying to be a resource for him, and of course

I've become what's called a panhead. I ran one of my fastest 10Ks a few days ago listening to Skillet, so I do recommend that to anyone.

If you want a high -paced workout, listen to Skillet. You'll be pushed along really, really well in the process.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to this book coming out because John speaks with a real level -headed,

I guess I just have to say, common sense. I mean, I think that's really what

I love about it, is it's very, very much common sense. It is, let's talk about the truth and let's not get lost in the woods, which sometimes people like me, we can sort of get lost in the woods, but John comes along and says,

So what you're saying is this, right? Yeah. Okay, then why didn't you say that? That's hysterical.

That's very nice. That's cool. Yeah, it's been fun, you know, getting to talk to James, and we are an unlikely duo, but you're right.

We do have a lot of interesting things, you know, in common in terms of our backgrounds, getting saved early ages, and both in families that were very serious about the

Bible, and that's, you know, pretty cool. And, you know, also, you know,

I do really love, I love the Bible, and I love the Word of God. I'm not necessarily,

I'm not the one that's going to teach it necessarily very well, but I do kind of like to be told no nonsense.

Like, so what are you telling me I need to do? Like, do the right thing, and, you know, even a child, even a child is known by his doings, whether it's working pure or right, right?

I mean, we ought to be able to tell people what it means to live for Jesus and the things that please

God and the things that displease God, and I do think that we've, our culture has gotten so far away from that that I hope to do my little part in helping young people especially or people from outside of the church or maybe on the fringe of Christianity do my little part to say, hey, it doesn't need to be that complicated.

Let's do what pleases God. And if we could, for our listeners who may be totally unfamiliar with skillet, and by the way, since you're on my program today, we're going to have to rename it

Iron Skillet for Iron Sharpens Iron, but tell us about skillet and what our listeners should know about that.

I know that there are Christian musicians that are recording artists, and their recordings are not necessarily

Christian, even though they are Christian. They're not explicitly biblical lyrics and so on, although they would not be if they were obviously a true disciple of Christ.

They wouldn't be anti -scriptural, anti -God, or they wouldn't be perverse or anything that would be displeasing of God, but nonetheless they are still secular artists.

And then they have, obviously, there is a huge world of Christian recording artists who make sure that all of their lyrics are specifically things that are gospel -oriented and so on.

So where would skillet fall into the wide spectrum of music that exists that Christians are involved in?

Well, you just laid it out pretty good. I guess the first thing I would say is this, from your

Iron Skillet joke, I can now see that you and James do have the same sense of humor.

We're kind of offended by that. No, you laid it out very well.

I guess what I would say about myself is, I don't know. How's that?

I think what my passion for skillet was always, and funny enough, this is also a similarity that me and James have.

I've always loved Christian music because it encouraged me and it helped me in my faith.

Even when the songs weren't necessarily overtly religious, I just enjoyed listening to the music.

But I did listen to a lot of like Petra and Michael W. Smith and those like older Christian musicians, and I learned so much about the

Bible from old Petra albums. And the guitar player, Bob Hartman, he wrote all the

Petra songs. And I've interviewed Pete Orta, by the way. Fascinating interview.

Oh, really? He was one of the guitar players for Petra over the years, and he actually admitted on my program for the first time that he was not even a born -again believer when he was with Petra.

He became a Christian later on in his life. Wow, that is just fascinating.

Well, I mean, Bob Hartman, you know, the founding guitar player that wrote all those songs, he clearly, clearly knows the

Bible. And now, even now, when I go back and listen to those songs, I go, wow, I can't believe that Bob Hartman managed to fit in the word justification and democy into rock and roll songs.

But I learned a lot from the Bible for that. So I just kind of felt if I could have a chance to write rock music that I could sing about my faith and maybe spread some seed for the gospel, maybe encourage people in their faith, maybe just be a good influence to the world in terms of a rock band that does not sing about sex and drugs, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and, you know, not live that rock and roll lifestyle, but live a redeemed lifestyle,

I just may be able to reach some people for Christ. And that is how

Skillet started. So Skillet is kind of a band that I would say walks the line. We are a

Christian band. Not all of our songs are overtly religious, but we are very much a band that lives probably 70 percent of our touring lives in the secular rock world, and God has really given us a lot of inroads to help spread the gospel.

And if you could, we have a tradition here on the program, and we have a first -time guest. We have that guest give a summary of their testimony, their salvation testimony, what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, they were raised in, and what providential circumstances our sovereign

Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. And James already hinted at it a little bit before, but if you could give us a little bit more detail on your upbringing, and obviously not every child in a

Christian home is a Christian from the womb, and so tell us something about your own story.

Sure. Well, I was so blessed to be raised in a

Christian family. My mom was a Jesus fanatic, and I mean that in all the best ways.

My mom taught me about the Bible. You know, I'm one of those kids that I don't remember not being taught about the

Bible. And my mom had these—sometimes I tell these stories because I hope that parents are listening, because I want parents to know how important your role in your child's life is.

And my mom would do these, like, there's a book we had of ABCs, but every, you know,

A started, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned each one to his own. Every letter would be another

Bible scripture, and we had to memorize A through Z. That's some of my first memories of my whole life, actually.

So my mom taught me about the Lord, and I gave my life to Christ when I was a kid, alone in my room, actually.

And I'm just so thankful to God. I don't have—I never had that backsliding period or that—you know, a lot of times people get older, and they go, well,

I never really understood what I was doing when I was a kid, and now

I really want to give my life to Christ. That wasn't my testimony. I just am so—honestly,

God's grace in my life has been amazing, to know Him since I was a kid. But I always tell that because it's really important that parents know that it matters that you teach your kids about a great

God, and it matters that you teach your kids an everyday lesson that all of this world exists for the glory of God.

That's the reason you're here, and my mom always taught me that ever since I was a kid, and I'm just so thankful for that.

So anyway, I got baptized after that when I was about five years old, and I guess that's my testimony.

And how did you get involved in the hard rock music world? Oh, yeah.

Oh, actually, you know what? That's actually a pretty funny thing about my testimony. My mom was hardcore against rock music.

My mom was a piano teacher and a voice teacher and a flute teacher, and I began singing—I think

I sang my first solo in church when I was four years old. So it was one of those kind of like, you know, my mom made me take piano.

She made me take voice lessons. So when I was about five years old, I was at a friend's house, and he goes, you've got to hear this, and he turned on MTV.

And I was like, what is MTV? He's like, it's music videos, and I didn't know what he meant. So he turned on this thing, and I fell in love with this song called

Beat It from Michael Jackson. And I came home, and I was like, Mom, you know,

I heard music. I know you love music. And I started singing Beat It to my mom. And my mom gave me the holiest

Bill Gothard booty stinking award. For singing the devil's music.

And that went on. So I didn't listen to rock music until I was sixth or seventh grade, and all of my friends were beginning to listen to metal.

It was the 80s. So it was Metallica and Bon Jovi, and I would go to like the workout room with my buddies at school before basketball practice, and they'd be listening to Motley Crue.

And I was complaining that my parents wouldn't let me listen to rock music. And one of my friends says,

Well, you know there's such thing as Christian rock music. So he let me borrow a Petra tape. And I brought this tape home to my mom, excited.

I was like, Mom, guess what? There's Christian rock music. And I'll tell you, man, it was even worse.

I mean, I would have been better off bringing home Iron Maiden, because Petra was like wolves in sheep's clothing.

It's even worse than a secular rock band. So that began a big struggle at my house.

That's kind of my kind of humorous story of how I fell in love with rock music.

And my mom was sick with cancer. She got sick with cancer when I was in sixth grade. And so we fought about rock music literally for three straight years.

And she actually passed away when I was 14 from cancer. But before she passed away,

Petra was coming in concert. And all of my friends were going, and my parents wouldn't let me go. And I think my mom was having that realization of like,

If I don't let John go to the show and I die, this is going to be the hill to die on.

So my mom made a deal with me. She said, All right, you can't go with your friends. I'll buy tickets, and we will all go.

And when, she didn't say if, she said when, when Petra starts praying to the devil or if they sacrifice an animal to the devil, then you'll know that it's satanic.

It will go, This is a true story. A true story.

So my mom ends up taking me to the Petra concerts. And after the concert, we got in the car, and my mom said,

I can actually tell that those boys love Jesus. And so from that moment on,

Petra was okay. No one else was okay, but Petra was. I have my own Petra story.

I was dating a girl when I was a brand new Christian. And it wasn't really a very serious relationship, but we would date off and on.

And I purchased tickets to a Petra concert for the both of us. And I hadn't spoken to her for maybe a month or so.

And I got a call one day, and she said, Chris, I've got some news. I'm engaged to be married now, but my second thing

I wanted to say is, can I still go to the Petra concert with you? That's so brutal.

That's the most brutal thing I've heard in a long time. By the way,

I don't know if James is familiar with Jerry Marcellino.

He's a very well -known Reformed Baptist, pastor of Audubon Drive Bible Church in Laurel, Mississippi.

You know him, James? Yeah. Well, his father was the producer for many

Michael Jackson albums and other very, very popular groups back in the day. So that just occurred to me when you had mentioned that one of your first experiences listening to music in that genre was

Michael Jackson. Did you say it was Thriller, or was it Beat It, right? Beat It. Yeah, Beat It.

Yeah. Oh, it's a good album. Now, how on earth, other than the providence of God, how did you and James even get into contact with each other,

James White? Yeah, I saw John recorded a video that CBN played.

I've forgotten, John, the name of the guy who had left the faith. Help me out with that. Do you remember?

Well, there was two in a row. It was Joshua Harris, and then it was Marty Sampson. Right, right, right.

And so John had recorded this video that CBN played where he was basically saying, look, we need to get back to basics.

We need to get back to the sufficiency of Scripture. You don't need to be listening to popular people like me.

You need to be listening to pastors and people who have been given the ability by the

Spirit of God to instruct in the Word of God. I'm sitting here going, what on earth? This is a guy

I want to encourage if I possibly can. And I forget exactly how I did get in touch, but I just wanted to say, hey, if you ever need me on Islam or the history of the

Bible or whatever, I'm more than happy to be of assistance. And that's how it started.

It took a little while before we really started talking, but once we started talking, it's been pretty consistent since then.

And by the way, John, I did not know, did you ever study flute?

I was about to say, I'd like to make it clear that I did not study flute.

Because I'm sitting here trying to think of a single skillet song that would have a flute solo in it.

I think that would be epic. I really, really think that would be awesomely epic. No, no, that would be like a single

James White church service that would have keto -baptism. Now, why did that even come up,

James? Is this some kind of inside joke, the flute thing? I actually heard a,

I interviewed a pastor years ago who actually thought that playing the flute was a sign of an effeminate man.

Well, I don't know how exactly that came up, but I know John and I have discussed that subject, and I'm not sure that John is aware of the fact that you moderate the first debate that I did, well, not first, but the first major debate that I did on keto -baptism there on Long Island.

And if he hasn't had a chance to watch it yet, if he ever does, then he'll know, he'll learn everything there is to learn about Chris Arnzen.

Because that's the one where you wandered back to the baptistry because it was a baptistic church, and looked in, and said,

I wonder what they do in there, he was saying. So, it was a lot of fun.

You'll have to watch that one sometime. Yeah, that was 99 % ad lib, all of that. But that was a good debate between two good friends.

Yeah, it was. And who still remain friends, ironically. But very often when people are debating each other, they're not friends, but this is one of the cases that they were and are.

And this, obviously, the paedo -baptist issue, should not be a reason why we cut fellowship off from brothers and sisters in Christ.

But you have written this book, John, that James here,

James White, has raved about, which was one of the compelling factors, actually, that drove me to get into contact with you and to get you on the program,

Alive, or should I say, Awake and Alive to Truth, and the subtitle,

Finding Truth in the Chaos of a Relativistic World. Is this your first book that you've written?

Yes, it is. I never knew if I would write a book, and then

I thought, if I did, would it be more like stories of the road or some of the cool things that have happened, or testimonies, when you meet a fan whose life was changed through the music, or something like that.

But this just felt, I think what James said, the way that me and James connected, after last year, that post that I had written or whatever, and I was on some subsequent radio programs,

TV programs, I guess. I think what happened for me was around 2012, 2013, is when

I first started going, okay, what is happening in the world? It's just confusing, and I'm hearing things

I've never heard before, and everything is chaos. And I began really looking into it.

And at first I had thought it was just your typical, the secular world, of course, is just getting darker.

But then I started going, no, it's not just the secular world. The church is changing, too. I mean,

I've been in church since I was a kid, as we discussed. And after you've been in church for three decades, and you start hearing

Christian pastors say things you've never heard before, you know, you're just like, your ears kind of perk up.

You go, wait a minute, something doesn't quite sound right about this. And I started having conversations with friends and even people in the

Christian music industry, and I started feeling, to be honest, I started feeling very alone around 2014 because we would tour with Christian artists, but so many of the artists

I toured with, sometimes I wouldn't be sure if they were even saved, or maybe they were more like universalists than they were

Christians, or else they just felt like, yeah, they say they believe the same thing, but behind closed doors, they would say something to me that gave me the impression that they are not actually living a

Christian life, and they assume that no one else is actually living a Christian life either. And I don't know how to explain that, but almost like if you were back, and we're going to go on, and we're going to do kind of a

Jesus thing here. You know how it is. But in between, like, you know, geeks, drunkards, if that makes any sense.

But I remember having a conversation with one of the artists, and of course I won't say who it was, but I remember finally saying to this artist,

I said, hey, I don't want to be too blunt, but I'm just a guy that likes to hear things black and white.

Are you saying that you don't believe that anybody in the Christian life is victorious over addiction?

Do you really believe that no one is victorious over addiction, and that we don't even try? And I think he was like, yeah, come on, we're all doing it.

And I said, no, that's actually not the case. The power of sin has been broken over your life, so there is victory in Christ.

And it was just a really depressing time, to be honest. So that is the reason that I got so into the idea of writing about what

I see, and I see these teenagers come to shows, and they're so confused, and they're so anxious, and truth changes for them every single day.

They have to find out from Snapchat or whatever what they're allowed to say, what they're not allowed to say, what's okay to believe now, what's not true, what's maybe true, what's true for you but not true for me.

These kids are so confused. So that was the passion for the book. Great.

And we do have some listener questions lined up. There are folks waiting to have their questions answered by you that have come by email.

And by the way, if anybody else wants to join them, if you want to get in line, our email address again is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And it just so happens that our first question is an anonymous listener, and the listener says,

John, how do you feel about music like yours that you record with skillet being used in a church service?

To be perfectly honest, brother, although I love the genre of music that you are in and listen to it for entertainment purposes and recreation purposes and even to be edified, but at the same time

I don't feel comfortable hearing that kind of music in a worship service. And I have a pastor who believes

I shouldn't be listening to that kind of music at all. I disagree with him on that, but would agree that it's not appropriate for a worship service, and I was wondering how you feel about that.

Right. Well, I can relate to both option one and option two.

I grew up in a family and a church like that. I would agree personally that I would prefer skillet songs not to be sung at church.

For me I would love in general, I would love it if at church we would sing songs about God, and most skillet songs are about me.

You know, they're about the way I feel about God or what He's done in my life. But I definitely,

I really think that we should be singing songs about Him, about His attributes and His perfections and things like that.

In terms of a style, in other words, if we were singing about God, I personally wouldn't mind if it were rock music versus something else, but that's just my,

I don't really get, I don't get hung up about any of that kind of stuff. I'm probably not smart enough to answer, but for me

I definitely do agree, let's sing songs about Christ. Let's sing songs about His perfections.

That's what I'm into. And that's what I, that's just what I prefer. Now I'm not saying that we don't have any songs that could work.

We may have one or two, but if, for instance, we may have one or two, but at my church, we don't sing either one of mine.

If I could just, if I could just, I love the fact that John said that in that CBN interview.

He was saying, he was saying, I've written all sorts of stuff that you shouldn't sing in church. And he recognizes that, and I really deeply appreciated that.

But at the same time, I can think of at least one song that I think would fit in my church, and a lot of different churches, that I only heard for the first time this past,

I think July, if I recall correctly. But as John knows, he's actually done me the honor of calling it my song, because he can tell that I love it so much.

But it's called Terrified the Dark. it's, Oh yeah, I love that song. It would be, yeah, and it would be singable by a congregation.

Firstly, it has to be singable by a congregation. That's obviously necessary in that context. But, but it's, it's, it really contains within it an anthem of the victory of, of the light of Christ over, over darkness.

And so I, I, I think that really would fit. I know exactly what John's saying, because John has written a number of songs where, honestly, a couple of times

I've had to ask him, okay, I could take this in more than one way. Which way did you intend it?

And it's sort of like both. That was, that was the whole, that was the whole idea.

And, you know, behind it, the way that it was written. But something like Terrify the Dark is just, you know,

I think beautifully done, and, and has such a awesome theology behind it, especially with the darkness we're facing these days.

It's a good thing to remember. So, but I, that's, again, you're, you're picking up on some of the things that I, I picked up on, and I was like, wow, this is, this is great.

I'm, I'm so thankful that he's out there. And the other thing to remember is, John, you've been doing this a while.

You, you've got some longevity to you. Yeah, well, yeah, 23 years.

I can't believe it, but it's been 23 years. That's, that's a long time in your, in your industry to still be doing what you set out to do.

Though, I'm sure your goals have matured and changed over 23 years. All of ours have, but still, uh, to survive in an industry like that for nearly,

I hate to put it this way for you, bud, but a quarter century, uh, is, ouch, right?

Oh, no. Is, is pretty amazing. Tell that to the

Rolling Stones, James. I mean, yeah.

In, in keeping with, uh, with Chris's ex -girlfriend, I think I'm ready to say, I don't really want

James on the phone, but I still want to do the interview. Chris?

Well, I was actually going to say, I, I should,

I should step aside and let you guys do the rest of it. I just wanted to comment on that. I thought it was, uh, I thought it was, uh, an interesting, uh, insight and a good question from the, from the listener as well.

So, so I will, stop interrupting. I'll let you guys finish this off on your own. uh, and, uh,

I appreciate it, Chris. And, uh, I really do hope the book does really, really well, and I hope people pick it up.

And I do want to, uh, let our listeners know again that you can get in contact with James White and find out about everything he's doing at AOMIN .org,

AOMIN .org. That's for Alpha and Omega Ministries. And there are a number of questions that we never got to ask you from listeners.

During the first hour, because it went by like a bullet. Uh, but we'll have to have you back,

James, to have our listeners' questions asked that we already received for you. All right.

Hey, thanks, guys. We'll be talking to both of you later. All right. God bless. Thank you, James. Good to talk to you. All right. God bless, guys.

Talk to you soon. God bless. All right. We'll see you. Bye -bye. And, uh, by the way,

Anonymous, uh, you have won a free copy of the book that we are addressing today by, uh,

John Cooper, Awake and Alive to Truth, uh, Finding Truth in the Chaos of a

Relativistic World. And you'll have to give us, obviously, your full name and your address.

And, obviously, since you wanted to remain anonymous, we will not disclose that on the air. So, don't worry about that.

Uh, we have another listener that is asking, actually, a related question.

Uh, we have, uh, Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania. And, uh, Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania.

Who says, I love all kinds of music, but one of the reasons I don't think that hard rock or heavy metal music and other types of music in a similar genre are suitable for worship is because of the driving force behind the instrumentation is clouding the lyrics and making your focus more on the musicians and the performers rather than on Christ.

And I use the term performers for a reason because most people who are playing that kind of music are performing and entertaining.

They're not really doing something that is conducive to worship, in my opinion. I don't mean this at all to be an insult because I actually love the kind of music that you create.

But I'm just saying this, that I don't believe, uh, that the musical style is neutral, or has no moral connection to it because music creates moods.

And if you could respond to that, and I guess there is a, uh, certainly a truth that we could agree upon there that music style does create a mood and sometimes the mood would not be appropriate for a worship service.

Would you agree with that? Yeah, I totally understand that. I mean, I will say to be a hundred percent honest,

I don't feel, in other words, I probably, I just wouldn't ever assume that we would have music like that at church.

So it's not something I feel very passionate about to be honest. But yeah, I can absolutely see that point of view.

Um, and maybe just to take it even a little bit further, which isn't really what's being asked, but I think it's worth mentioning.

I do think it's very important no matter what the genre, to remember when we are in worship, that our focus is not to be on the, as you would say, performers or the instrumentalist or, you know, the orchestra, whatever it is we have going, you know, let our worship become about ourselves and about our own ability.

So I do think that there's something to say no matter what the genre, you're always kind of balancing.

I always tell my pastor, I go, it's really hard when it comes to praise and worship because you have to balance the fact that we are to play skillfully before the

Lord. We are to train. And it's not that the better we are at our instruments, that we give more glory to God, but we do know that being a steward of the talents we have does bring glory to God.

He is the creator. So whatever he endowed upon me, for me to work at and to apply myself and then to present it to him,

I think that that's a pretty cool idea of worship. It's a pretty good idea. But at the same time, we don't want people watching our skills.

We want to funnel all the glory to Christ. So, you know, I don't have any problem with that.

If I never ever heard rock music in a church service, I would be 100 % happy.

Easy. And Joseph, you have also won a free copy of the book.

By the way, folks, the book is not in print yet. So you will have to be patient with us before we actually physically get them.

And when we do, our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com, will ship each of you who have won a copy your book absolutely free of charge.

And we want to thank the folks behind the scenes at Skillet for making these books available to our listeners.

And we are very thrilled. And I'm sure that our listeners are even more thrilled if they have the opportunity to win one.

We have Craig, who I believe is a first -time questioner in Durham, North Carolina.

And I hope that James White is listening right now because he has a question that involves our mutual friend

James White. He says, what was your first impression of James White?

What did you think about him reaching out to you? How influential has he been in your life?

And then he says, Dr. White, please do not interrupt. We want to hear from John. Just kidding.

But really, let him speak, please. Oh my gosh.

Let's see. Well, I mean, to be 100 % honest, I've said this on my own.

I have my own little podcast that I do. And in various interviews, I've said this. But I really do mean it with all my heart.

It actually says a lot about James's character that he would pay any attention to somebody like me.

And I don't mean that in false humility or like I'm a nobody. But obviously, we are two very different kinds of people.

And let's just face it. James is a bit of a genius. I'm funny.

He's smart and I'm funny. But the amount of time that he has given me is actually really insane.

But I think a lot of people, once they get to a certain level of intelligence, sometimes they can just tend to not...

I mean, why would they want to spend time training up a rock and roll singer in the

Bible? It's just pretty cool. So I have to say, I very much respect James.

And I'm always amazed that he gives me the time that he does. But all of that to say,

I don't know how I first heard of James. But a friend of mine emailed me and said,

Hey, James mentioned you on this podcast because of what you had said in this interview, so on and so forth.

And I don't know how that happened. It was a friend of a friend of a friend. And I went on to listen to James.

At that time, I actually didn't know James was. And I was unaware that there were so many great people online that were beginning to speak up and had various podcasts.

I had never heard of Dividing Line at that point. So that was my first impression of James. And I remember thinking, the first time

I listened to James, I remember thinking, I just don't know what he's talking about.

It's true. He's so smart. He was making assumptions that everybody knows what he's talking about.

He'll be like, Well, it's like in the Hypothetic Union. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Man, I need a dictionary.

And then I look it up. And I go, Oh, okay. I do know that. I just didn't know that's what it was called. So that's kind of my relationship with James.

And the reason he says I'm common sense is because I'll ask him something and he talks and he's so smart.

And I go, I think I know what you mean. And then I'll say something really, in my mind, you know, not common sense.

Just like, Oh, are you saying blah, blah, blah? And he's like, Yeah. And it's always kind of a joke.

And so now I've read I've read two of James' books on my third right now.

And he's been very influential to me. And I'm a regular listener to The Dividing Line.

So I listen to, I would say I've listened to in the last year

I've probably listened to half of The Dividing Line. And I'm learning a lot as I go.

So I've appreciated that. Well, I hope you start becoming a regular listener to Iron Sharpens Iron.

That's right, baby. Now I've got another one to listen to. And does James now have some kind of a more official capacity with you as far as I thought

I heard him say something like the new theologian in residence with Skillet or something like that.

Yeah, I mean, yes. He said that he was the Skillet's official theologian

I believe is how he said it. No, nothing official. But I definitely hit him with a lot of questions.

I'm like, what do you think about this and this and this? And it's just an amazing resource.

And that is also why he's the only person that's read my book outside of my wife and my management team.

I couldn't believe he said he would. I said it to my pastor. I have a local church that I love and I'm very close to my pastor.

But I said it to my pastor and then one of the teachers at my church and James was like,

I'll be happy to read it. Because honest to God, what I was most nervous about is that I'm just saying heresy.

Like I'm saying something that's just not true. And I'm like, will you please make sure

I don't say something dumb? James was the only person to finish the book.

My pastor never finished it but James gave me a few notes. But it's always really good because I'm a lay person and I know what

I mean when I say something. But then James would say, you want to be careful not to use that word revelation.

You should use the word illumination. And then I'm like, oh that's right because revelation could sound like divinely inspired.

Yes, new divinely inspired revelation. And what I meant was, I just understood what the scriptures mean on a deeper level.

And then James says, that's actually illumination. And that's an incredible thing to have so that you're not confusing people and you're clear about the word of God.

And Craig signs off by saying, a long time Dividing Line fan and now a huge Skillet fan and a

Cooper stuff fan. Oh that's so nice. Thank you so much.

And Craig, make sure we have your full mailing address in Durham, North Carolina because you have also won a free copy of John Cooper's book that we are addressing,

Awake and Alive to Truth. And that will be sent out to you as soon as we have it physically.

It will be sent out to you by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service CVBBS .com CVBBS .com

So look for a package in the mail that has that in the return section on the package.

And we thank CVBBS .com for always mailing out our winners in the audience, the free

Bibles and books and other things. And by the way Craig, since you're a first time questioner, you're not only going to be receiving

John L. Cooper's book, you're also going to be receiving a free New American Standard Bible.

The publishers of the NASB have been longtime sponsors, very key primary sponsors of this broadcast and they provide free copies for first time questioners, so you'll be getting that in your delivery as well.

Let's see here, we do have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania and Susan Margaret says

I heard about an article that you have written that I have not yet read that is on the theme of Make Pastors Uncool Again.

Can you please explain the contents of that article because I'm intrigued by the title. Right, right, sure.

I think that the idea was you know, we've had a lot of we've had a lot of bad situations with,

I don't know, what's the right way you want to call it? We have a tendency in America for pastors to become celebrities.

I think that's what I'm trying to say. And one of the things I feel really passionate about as we discussed earlier is that I don't think that worship leaders or people like myself,

I'm not a worship leader I'm a rock and roll singer I don't think that we should be teaching the word of God.

Worship leaders should not be in charge of our theology and you know, the Christian celebrities and people like that.

At the same time I think that having pastors when they when really what they seem like they want to do is just get along with the world.

You know it just kind of bothers me and one of the things that bothers me about it is that when pastors want to get along with the world too much they can end up being weak on the word of God because they don't want to offend people.

And that's really what I was referring to. My point is like, we need pastors to not get along with the world we need pastors and preachers and teachers to teach the word of God even though the world is going to hate them for it.

Because what ended up happening is that Christian lay people especially young people, especially the millennial generation the millennial generation is completely confused about what the

Bible even means and I think that that's been a real problem and so sometimes

I don't think that millennial, what's the right way to say this? It's not that I think that they want to be weak about the

Bible, they don't know they're being weak about the Bible because they don't know the Bible and I think that that's kind of part of what's bothering me so I'm kind of looking for preachers and pastors to go, hey this isn't about my celebrity this isn't about making people like me this isn't about one of the things

I really can't stand is when politicians or preachers or people like that how they always dance around what they want to say, like it's almost like they want to say it so nicely you don't really know what they mean and I just,

I'm just kind of like ready for people to tell me what they mean and so that's kind of what that's what that article was about tell me what you mean man

Great, well Susan Margaret you've also won a free copy of the book we are discussing by our guest today,

John L. Cooper and that is going to be sent out to you by CVBBS .com,

Awake and Alive to Truth and please make sure that we have your full mailing address in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania let's see here we have excuse me, we have

RJ in Westchester, New York and RJ says, do you have any evangelistic opportunities that you have taken advantage of with the lost who are in other bands that you have contact with Yeah I've had amazing opportunities on the road and one of my ever since I was a kid as we mentioned an hour ago

I got saved as a young kind of a young child but from the age of five my real passion was evangelism

I wanted to tell people about this amazing God I mean being of going to bed as a five and six year old and talking to God and talking to God throughout the day about how

I was feeling or what have you and my mom reading the Bible to me it was always so real to me and I always wanted people to know that so evangelism

I would say has been the driving force of my life really since I was a kid so yeah

I'm always looking for these opportunities and we've had incredible opportunities with not just with fans but with the bands that we tour with and to be honest a lot of it it's been super easy because the truth is is that when you're on the road you're in this lifestyle like you said of sex, drugs, rock and roll that's what bands are into just the very fact that I'm in a band but I don't partake of that hedonism and I don't do those things our lifestyle is about something so different and the fact some people listening

I'm sure don't know my wife Corey also plays in the band so we've been touring together for 23 years and skillet so the fact that we are married and that we are faithful to each other and our kids are on the road people always just want to ask how do you guys make this work?

what's going on? and it's such an easy opportunity to talk about Christ because without Christ I think we probably have a very different lifestyle so it's been really pretty amazing

I won't say who the band is because it would be inappropriate for me to say but I was on tour with a band that was known for full on full on debauchery and on the third night

I was going to bed we played the show I was going to bed and I got a phone call from the singer of the other band and he says hey

I didn't even know he had my phone number and I said how's it going and he goes hey do you think we could talk about Jesus tomorrow?

and I said wow let's talk about Jesus and we had this amazing conversation and I was just stunned to find out that he believes in God he knows that Jesus' words aren't real but he has never been able to live out to build his life upon those words and I said well can we pray together?

and I talked about what it meant to know Christ but I also said but you need to build your life upon the words of Christ and so we prayed together and subsequently he did give his life to Christ and what not in fact his whole family got saved and his kids got baptized his wife got baptized, he got baptized it was a really beautiful thing but I'm always looking for those opportunities and I've got a hundred other stories like that but that's the one that's probably most special to me

Well John, we're out of time and I definitely want you back. I hope that you can return for a two hour show where I can actually play some excerpts of your songs and so on and have more of a detailed conversation with you.

I would love to have you come back I want to make sure that our listeners have all of your websites first you can go to johnlcooper .com

johnlcooper .com and you can also go to skillet .com skillet .com

and the book is Awake and Alive to Truth and where's the best place for our listeners to pre -purchase that?

Well thank you very much the best place to, actually the only place that you can buy the book is on my website johnlcooper .com

johnlcooper .com that takes you directly to the book. That's the only place you can buy it because I self -published it and just a short story which is to say that before I finished the book

I had talked to six different publishers and all six said we really want to do a book with you and I said let me write the first chapter and I'll send the synopsis and I sent it in and after sending it in all six declined so they said this isn't the book we would like to make with you and I just said thanks,

I appreciate you reading it but I just felt this book burning in my heart I felt like this is a time to write a book of things people want to hear.

It's a time to write a book of things that people need to hear so quite excited about the book johnlcooper .com

and then if you would like to watch my podcast it's called Cooper Stuff Podcast and that's on iTunes and YouTube and things like that and those are probably the best places to reach me and Chris, thanks so much for having me on.

It's a real honor I'm amazed that you'd want to talk to me but I very much appreciate it

Oh, I loved every moment of it brother and what you said actually reminded me of a dear friend of mine who's now in eternity with Christ Robert L.

I'm sorry, Robert J. Cameron he was an Orthodox Presbyterian pastor and he was a black man and he at my urging wrote a book on racism in the church and he was honest enough to include the racism of black

Christians against whites in addition to the reverse and one of the most major Christian publishers wrote him a rejection letter saying that his book was the finest unsolicited manuscript they ever read but they did not feel comfortable criticizing the black church for racism so they declined publishing it

Wow! I know quite insane and quite obviously an unbiblical and a non -Christian answer to that very serious problem but John it's been a joy look forward to having you back and I hope that you could just hang on for a minute so I could say a proper goodbye to you off the air.

I want to thank everybody who listened especially those who took the time to write in questions and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater