A Cultish State of the Union W/John Cooper

All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is Jeremiah Roberts. I'm one of the co-hosts here. I don't know, I don't have anything else to say right now, except that I'm super excited, probably more super excited than most times.

I'm super excited. Andrew, how are you?

I am feeling the exact same way. I would have never thought that we'd be interviewing this guest and it's definitely a blessing for sure.

Oh yeah, absolutely. So I just want to just introduce him right now. We actually have with us Mr. John Cooper. How are you, my friend?

Good, it's cool to be here with you guys, man.

Awesome, awesome. And so just so you know, a lot of people are familiar with you, but it's, and obviously it's a real honor to talk to you and we'll get into, we've, both of us have followed you for quite a bit as far as your music career.

For anyone who doesn't know anything about you, just tell them just a little bit about yourself.

Oh, sure, sure. Let's see. All right, my name is John. I sing in the band Skillet. I play bass guitar as well. And let's see, we started in Memphis, Tennessee in 1996.

Wow.

Yeah, I can't believe I've been doing music that long. I don't feel like that's possible, but it is. And let's see, I gave my life to Christ when I was a kid. I was about five years old, raised in a Christian family.

And I've been passionate about the gospel, mainly since I was a kid, really. And of course that passion has grown over the years. And I guess that's it. The gospel, rock and roll, a far second. And let's see, I'm married.

I have two kids. I've one, my daughter is 18. My son is 15.

Right.

And your wife, Corrie, she's been in the band with you. She's in the band with you right now. And she's been with you since the beginning of the band. When it started, when it launched?

Yeah, not exactly when it launched, but very soon after, about 10 months after. And we've been married the entire time. So 23 years of marriage. And I'm married one of the only women in the world that doesn't mind living in a bus with 10 other people and her kids.

I don't know if she loves it, but she does it.

Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, man, well, I just want to say that it's just been interesting. If you think about just the past, I don't know how you'd feel about this, Andrew and John, is that the last year, most of the time, it feels like everyone's sort of doing their own thing and you kind of get together for the holidays or if you have something like Christmas, Easter, sort of the big things you share for the July together is something you have all in common.

And it feels like this past year, we all have collectively have experienced this wild and crazy turn that the world has had. I know for us last year when COVID hit, I remember at that time I was working for Costco and I was actually recording a podcast and I was looking at my phone and I saw this just giant blockbuster line of people, in 12 registers open, people were just backed up, just emptying the shelves of food.

And I was like, where is this even headed? I know you guys, I'm sure had things happen in the band with having to slow stuff down because I don't know if you guys have planned a tour, you can talk about that.

But in many ways, like our show, we focus in on the cultish fringe and things like that. And like the last year prior to COVID, it feels like we would come in here and talk about the strange things that are cultish and it feels like the roles have reversed.

So in many ways, it feels like now we feel normal right here in the studio talking about this stuff. Then once we go outside, that's where all the weird and crazy stuff is. So yeah, man, I just, real quickly, I mean, I know you wrote a book and we'll talk about that.

Relativism, Deconstruction, and the Search for Truth

Just in general, what do you think, just when you look back at the last year and everything that happened like in 2020, like how do you process that? And like, what are some of the things that you learned just in the past year, just in general?

Right, yeah, it is a very strange time. I mean, in a lot of ways, we've learned to kind of go through, as you said, the same thing, but we've been very like together alone. Is that a good way to say it?

Yeah, yeah.

We're very, it's a little bit of, it's a little bit of a metaphor of what people have become anyway from social media. You know, we are so, like I've got teenagers and my teenagers are kind of fine to hang out at home and chat with their friends online or something.

And for all of us old folks, we're like, you know, why don't you guys wanna go drive? Like go drive a car down to the, now I sound really old, to the drive-in, as if anybody goes to the drive-in, but you get my point.

You know, go do something. And I was thinking maybe this pandemic, kids won't even notice because they just sit, they wanna sit around on their phones anyway. They already are alone. But in the end, of course, it has affected them in a great way, but I'm kind of just making a distinction about the incredible strange times we live in, even before the pandemic, which is the fact that we have all gotten used to this total isolation and pseudo relationships.

They aren't real relationships when they're online. They might feel real, but you're not having actual like human connection. And so one of the things that it's brought up to me is that the interesting nature of the amount of like, for instance, Christians who aren't a part of a church any longer at all.

It's almost like COVID just got them at home. And now they're like, oh, I'll just, I'll watch church on TV. But you're not actually experiencing community. It's not real relationship. You're just kind of getting like some of the fringe benefits of the great teachings that people put out or a worship time or getting to sing, but you're not really with the people.

And I think that's kind of an interesting consequence of this. So, you know, I think talking to, listening to James or listening to Jeff Durbin or think, you know, people that have been very passionate about the people of God coming together in person to take the Lord's supper, to sing hymns to God, to be the people of God and live unafraid.

I think that's a really important message.

Yeah. And I'm just curious too, when you wrote the book, when did you start to write the book? Was it in 2020 or prior to that?

And also, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Yeah. When did you, when did you decide when, cause I know there was a while where you were, you know, I just, I followed you since the early days, since the very early days of Andrew and I were actually looking at some of the earlier albums and like being a song that's like locked in a cage.

More faithful.

Yeah. Like those are, those are some of the tunes that like resonate with us. Cause I mean, we're, we're both, I'm like, I'm an 80s kid. So I know that like that, especially when I was a, when I was a young adult, like all the songs are big, but, but yeah.

What were, what made you want to write the book?

Yeah.

Yeah. I actually wrote the book mostly, not in 2020, in 2019.

Okay.

I think 90 of the book was done last December and it was written, funny enough, in like probably 13 plus countries because I was touring so much. And what I really found amazing was that all the things that I was seeing happen in American culture that were really strange and, and bizarre to me, I was seeing, this is happening everywhere.

Cause we were touring in Europe. We were touring in Russia. We toured Australia. And I'm like, this is all the same stuff. And it is all to do with this, how the philosophies of truth, what we believe about truth has so drastically changed over the last 10, 15 years.

And, and, and you're seeing all the same kinds of deconstruction happen in my view, all over the world. And, and, and also keep this in mind. When I say we were touring in Russia, there's no Christian music scene in Russia.

In other words, we weren't playing churches. We play, we go to Europe and we play with Iron Maiden.

Okay.

We go to Europe and we play with Metallica or Black Sabbath or whoever. We're not playing Christian shows. These are rock shows. So it's not like deconstruction, as we say it only in the theological sense, but deconstruction, even in, in a secular sense, just people that no longer have any sort of foundation of life to, to stand upon.

And even in reality, no, no absolute reality to know what truth is, what truth is not. You can't judge anything. So I wrote the book, really, I just felt like I've got to get this out. And I, and I feel, especially for my audience, which is going to be probably half Christian, half not Christian, but even a lot of the Christian fans that we have are, are a real split.

Some of them might be deeply, deeply committed to the faith. And some of them might have actually fall on the kind of progressive wing of Christianity, which is like the, I love the spirituality of Christianity, but maybe they're not actually born again, right?

Maybe they like the worship feel, the feelings of worship, the, you know, the, the emotion, but maybe they don't actually know Christ and his Lordship. We have a lot of fans like that as well. So all of our fans are broken up in all these boxes and I felt it would be an important book for evangelism.

And maybe it could give some answers, but it also could be like, if you keep going down this path, it's going to lead you to destruction. But the good news is there's another path that will lead you to life everlasting in Jesus Christ.

Amen, dude. So your book is called Alive, Awaken Alive to Truth, Finding Truth in Chaos of a Relativistic World. I think that's really cool that you said you actually finished it in 2019, because it's like in God's providence, he was preparing for you to speak this truth into a culture where we're given a narrative and now all of these different worldviews are competing to try to make sense of this narrative.

And we're seeing everyone lost in the shuffle without hope. And I think, especially in chapter two of the book, when you're talking about relativism and post-modernism and the rise, you lay it all out on the table.

You know, you're saying, well, this is your worldview. And I think if someone's reading this book that, let's say like you're saying, they could be lukewarm Christianity or someone who's never really considered Christianity and the actual worldview that it involves, they can actually take a look at the worldviews that they say that they actually believe in to see if they can actually consistently hold that worldview.

So I think you hit on it just a little bit, but the world that we're looking at today, you know, with all this uncertainty, how do you think we got here? If you can give us like a synopsis.

How Postmodernism and Critical Theory Became Wokeness

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Well, there would be a lot smarter people to do that than me, but I'll tell you, let me tell you my story and I think it'll answer the question.

Sweet.

My story was basically this, around 2000, probably 12, maybe 11, 12 is when I began literally asking myself the question like, what is going on? Because I don't understand the world I'm living in. And I began having that, you know, when you have kids and you kind of get to that age all of a sudden when your kids are saying stuff that you don't understand and you're like, okay, I'm just, you've gotten old, you know?

I always thought my music career would kind of safeguard me from ever getting old. I'm always gonna be young. Well, all of a sudden I was like, I don't understand what people are talking about, but not my kids.

Churches, evangelical leaders, other Christian bands that I would tour with, friends of mine in my own church in some instances. I began hearing all these things that I just thought, okay, I've been a Christian since I was a kid.

I've been in church for 20 years, whatever, 30 years, and I have never heard what you're saying. And I don't know why it's not right, but something about it don't smell right to me. And I began really like, I just said, all right, Lord, I need you to show me what I'm missing.

And I began to read a real like deep dive, not just into the scriptures because I had a decent handle on theology already, but I began a deep dive into anything to do with culture, economics, political philosophy, you name it, I began reading about it, okay?

And because I'm not uber, uber smart, about three years into it, after I had experienced some personal friends of mine walk away from the faith. I mean, everybody listening probably knows this feeling, but it's heartbreaking.

It is heartbreaking that people that you, maybe you got saved at the same time as you, maybe there was like that outpouring of the spirit in college, and several of your friends all got saved and you went through discipleship training or Bible training, whatever your story is.

And you had that feeling like, we are all going to be fighting for the gospel for the rest of our lives. We're gonna run the race together. And then 10 years down the road, one of them just decides, I don't wanna be faithful to my spouse anymore.

Or one of them decides, I'm going to leave my family for a younger woman. Or one of your friends says, I've decided now that I'm actually homosexual. I'm gonna leave my wife, gonna leave my kids. I'm gonna be a homosexual and become the person that Jesus actually created me to be.

Now you're so involved in something that people like me, I just can't understand because I'm like, there's too many questions. Where is this coming from? And after about three years, I looked at my wife, I finished a book I was reading.

It was an amazing book, by the way, called White Guilt. And people should look it up if you don't know it. White Guilt by Shelby Steele. Anyway, I finished the book. I looked at my wife and I said, I can't believe it took me three years to figure it out.

But we are a world that no longer believes in truth. I remember studying postmodernism in college. I never knew that anybody would believe postmodernism. And I just, it took me three years because I'm not that smart.

But after three years, I said, oh, I see. They just took postmodernism and they injected it with critical theories and they created something new that now I know we call wokeness. At the time, I didn't know we called it wokeness.

They created something new and it is not just affecting the world, it's being injected into Christianity to make up a whole new Frankenstein's child. And that's my story.

Absolute Truth, Biblical Justice, and the Limits of Deconstruction

Yeah, that's really good, John. I appreciate that, man. And I guess one of the questions I have too, because I remember when I ran, I saw that sort of consistent message really throughout the entire book when I read it, just the consistency of absolute, I mean, obviously your book's title, Awaken Alive to Truth, of what the difference between having an absolute truth, having an absolute standard versus postmodernism or just this very like more relativism.

And in many ways, world views eventually have outspoken consequences. And it's just interesting and almost, your book actually inspired me to go back and reread a little bit. But also I've been through actually yesterday the old series of How Then Shall We Live by Francis Schaeffer.

And in many ways, he was talking about just the different cultures and how things have gotten to where they are. And a big part of it just has to do when it comes to art, when it comes to politics, when it comes to everything else, just sort of this lost of any sort of absolute standard.

I think the two, that's why we're trying, we're thinking about too, like how do we make sense as Christians living in the world right now? Because everything is so divisive. It feels that there's nothing that unifies us anymore.

When it comes to sports, there's nothing, half the people are kneeling for the national anthem. Some people are standing up. Everyone's, everything is polarized right now. So in many ways you see that.

But how do you think about, let's give like a recent event that happened. I mean, I know Johnny talked about the Capitol, about what happened at the State Capitol just this past week. And then also you experienced, really in many ways up close to your door in Wisconsin where you live when the riots happened in Wisconsin.

And everyone's now trying to say, there's all these double standards. People were writing and looting back them and no one said anything. And then now people are, and everyone's pointing their fingers at each other.

But one, how do you, let me actually just set you up for two questions, John. How do you think that just the idea of the moral relativism, the loss of absolute truth, how does it relate to both of those situations?

And I guess the biggest question for me when I saw both of those events, especially what happened last week, my first thought for myself was that how do I think first as a Christian? Because all of us, we have our own confirmation biases when it comes to political prejudices and things like that.

And that's something before where I've had to think, I've yet to have one thing before the other. But yeah, so how does it relate to the loss of absolute truth, do you think? And then how do you think we live as Christians in regard, especially in regards to how polarizing things are right now?

Yes, it is really, really confusing to be frank. And before we started recording, you were mentioning our mutual friend, James White. There are a lot of people, a lot smarter than people like me that are saying such great stuff on these subjects.

And I'm so thankful for people like that because these are really confusing times. And I think part of it is that we have this deconstruction culture in which a lot of people don't know that deconstruction is a fundamental part of postmodernism as well, right?

It's deconstructing the way that truth has been perceived from oppressive cultures and things like that, right? So you begin deconstructing all these thoughts. What you have is a lot of Christian people that have never quite understood, I'm not being rude to them, but I'm just saying, they've never understood theology and its systems.

So they haven't understood the various ways that Christ tells us how to live and that the covenant law tells us how to live. But they haven't understood it. But then when something happens, they begin deconstructing something that they never had formulated in the first place.

So each individual issue becomes an issue of, well, what do you think about injustice and marching with whatever thing? Everybody goes, well, you have to love your neighbor. And they end there because that's the end of their deconstruction.

And if you say, yeah, but they're threatening my family. Don't I have a right to protect my family? Then they would say, well, turn the other cheek. But they never understood the concept of biblical justice.

And they never understood the concept that yes, Christ tells us to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength and love your neighbor as yourself. But then Christ also says all of the laws and the prophets are fulfilled.

What does it say?

I can't think of the scripture all of a sudden. In other words, those two commandments that Christ says, he says all the law and the prophets are found in those two laws. So you can't ignore the rest of it.

So I guess what this has done for me to be frank since 2012, what it's really done for me has made me realize that if I don't have a rock solid foundation in the word, then I'm gonna be swept away just like my friend who left his wife.

I'm gonna be swept away just like the other person because I'm just as easily deceived as anybody else, right? So what it has done for me is given me an even higher view of scripture and even higher view that this is the only unshakable thing that there is.

And so on these little issues, I think we have to take it back to a systematic understanding of theology and what the old covenant law and the ethical words of Christ, what those things mean together.

I don't know if that answers, but that's the way I view it.

Christ, Philosophy, and the Idolatry of a Made-to-Order Jesus

I think that's great, man. I wanna hear what you think about this. Like while you were talking, it made me think of, specifically when you talk about deconstruction, it's almost like there's been in the last, I'd say 80 or 90 years in our culture, a massive shift on not only the deconstruction of the word of God and the inerrancy of scripture, but also the deconstruction of Christ and who he is and how he tells us to live our lives, right?

Like in Colossians chapter two, we're told that all of the knowledge of God's mystery is Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, right? And then Paul even says right after that, he says, I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

And then after that, we're even told by Paul, warning us through the spirit of God, he says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty the seed according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.

For in him, the fullness of deity dwells bodily. And you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. So in that sense, Christ and his fulfillment through his death, burial and resurrection and the word of God, what we actually have is all the things that we need in order to live a just and righteous life and loving our neighbors, right?

And then, but what it seems like is people within the last, I'd say 80 or 90 years, at least the United States of America is we don't know who Christ is anymore, right? And I would say even many mainline evangelical Christians in a sense may not necessarily know who he is, and they have fallen captive by philosophy and empty the seat in human tradition, let's say specifically for the social justice movement.

And some of those books, like you said, you had to get into to read, to see what's going on in the world. Well, those are just, what is it like gray matter? It's just trying to fill the void that only God can fill.

He's already spoke to it in his word, but for some reason, our culture wants something more. Do you see that happening?

I know exactly what you mean. I mean, what is so, I think, what really bothers me is how much it has seeped into the church. I mean, yes, of course it's happened in all of culture and in lots and lots of different ways, but it's so happened inside the church for a plethora of reasons.

But I think that usually it all boils down to one simple reason that all of the simple folks out there can understand, which is just this. We all would like to make God in our own image. I mean, that would just be, that would be nice.

I mean, it's blasphemous to say, I don't mean to be nice, but it'd be kind of nice to be like, well, whatever I want is who Jesus should be. And that would be fulfilling and that would be fun. And then basically I can be like God, basically.

At that point, I am my own God, really. It's idolatry. So all of it kind of still boils down to, you can either worship Jesus Christ as he is, and we know how he is because we have the word of God, or you can worship, air quotes, Jesus Christ as you desire him to be.

And so one of the chapters in the book that I wrote, the chapter is called Tear Down Your Idols. And it's basically a chapter saying that we've created a Jesus that we think is awesome. And he is a Jesus that is basically love.

That's basically all that he is. All he is, is love. And he gives me what I want. I'm healthy, wealthy, blessed. And he never, he doesn't punish me. He doesn't judge me. There's no shame. You know, there's all those kinds of things.

And, you know, shame is one of those words we hear a lot right now, right? You shouldn't live in shame and yada, yada. And he gives me all the things I want. And as long as I have the good feelings, and I have love, then I kind of have Jesus.

But we all know that that is idolatrous. That is not a Christ to be feared. That is not a Christ that is full of holiness. In fact, that's a Christ that does not punish wickedness. I mean, that would be very unjust to not punish wickedness, right?

So in the end, I did write a chapter on that, but I think it just comes, there's just new ways that it looks, but it just boils down to good old fashioned idolatry. One of the things that I really find pervasive and scary is because in my profession, I play with a lot of Christian musicians.

And when I first started, I don't know if people find this interesting, but maybe if you listen to Christian music, I think you'll find it interesting. When I first started, I had this impression that everybody that was a Christian musician did it because they were so in love with Christ.

And they were so devoted to Christ that they didn't follow secular music and they didn't care about the fame. They did Christian music so that they could tell people about Jesus and they could give him worship.

And I just kind of thought every time I would meet a new Christian, this is so funny. Every time I meet a new Christian artist, they're gonna wanna sit down and talk about the Bible and how great Christ is.

What I found out was that there are some people like that, but there's a whole lot of people in the business that eventually just come out and say, hey, I love Jesus, but I don't really believe the Bible.

And that threw me for a loop. Around 2013, 14, I just was like, I don't understand this. I didn't even know it was possible to claim to be a follower of Jesus, but to deny his words, because it's just so illogical to me, but that's a real pervasive thing happening in the church today.

So my mission is to tell those young people and those millennials, those parents, those people sitting in churches that are going through the motions that think they can kind of be into Jesus even though the Bible's not that important.

My mission is to tell them that they probably are not actually worshiping the true, the one true God.

Amen.

No, that's really good, man. And then we were thinking too, when we're going back through your book, just about the difference, again, of being awake and alive to truth versus just having like postmodern relativism.

And so in many ways, like I said, that's outpouring in so many different ways. I mean, you have everyone that, everyone has their own truth. And you can think right now, I mean, if you, right now you log onto Facebook and you can't even go literally 15 seconds without seeing a bunch of arguments, both Christians and non-Christians, everyone angry at each other, arguing over what is true, what is fake news and what is not.

But ultimately, you know, we have no standard. We've abandoned any sort of point of reference of absolute truth. So what's the point of even having a conversation about like fake news, right? When there's like, how do you even, there's no difference, like what is true?

So, I mean, it makes sense when somebody sees something like right in front of their face and they're just almost not, they're a complete denial of it or they have a completely different vantage point perspective.

I mean, so many of us have our own confirmation biases, but not only just in politics. Oh, did you have a thought on that, John?

Oh, I'm just totally agreeing with you.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

I'm listening.

But yes, Andrew, you brought something up to me too, which especially I wanna, especially with you being a musician, John, was just the aspect that Schaefer was talking about. We were watching How Then Shall We Live.

Ask him about that.

Yeah, Francis Schaefer says something very interesting that I wanted to ask you about, John. He says this, I'm gonna, and I quote, "'All through history, the artists have done two things. "'They have reflected their culture, "'sometimes much more accurately than the writers, "'even the philosophers, in two.

"'And secondly, they often provide the way "'for the next step of what's going on in culture. "'So sometimes they're prophetic, "'but always they're exhibiting "'that which is the culture of that day.'".

So John, looking at the music industry today, what picture does the most popular form of music paint of our culture in America and its future? What do you think about that?

Francis Schaefer's amazing.

I know, I love it.

I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, I mean, of course, that's true. I mean, it seems true to me. You know, there's so many. Honestly, I don't really know, but I do think an interesting element that is infused into our current times that I would say is different than 20 years ago, all right?

I don't wanna be one of those people that's like, we're in a completely uniquely evil time. That's not the case, right? History since the fall of Adam has been full of evil people. But there is an interesting thing, and I hope it doesn't take me too long to say it, so let me try to think of it like this.

When I grew up in the 80s, and you said you were from the 80s as well. I mean, what was our mantra? Sex, drugs, rock and roll, right? Sex, drugs, rock and roll. That was the mantra. It was hedonism. It was a celebration of pleasure-seeking.

The difference was this. No one in that time period that I can recall that loved that, that exuded that. Think of who exuded that in the 80s. Madonna or, you know, we have lots and lots of films that basically was just a celebration of sin.

The aspect that you don't see was the aspect of virtue attached to that pleasure-seeking, right? I don't remember everybody ever saying, I'm seeking pleasure, sex, drugs, and rock and roll because I am a good individual.

Nobody said it was going to earn them a right to go to heaven. That is the difference between hedonism and our modern wokeness of humanism. The new thing that has been injected, I think, came with the critical theories.

It was the injection of critical theories into it means that now you can actually, you can be a hedonist, but you can also be viewed as the most moral person in the room. As long as you have wokeness, as long as you are an activist for the right positions, then your personal sins or your personal morality doesn't play into it one way or the other.

And you don't have to have any principles. So in other words, it is good for you to say that a riot at Black Lives Matter is a positive thing. That is virtuous for you, even if people die. It doesn't matter.

You're standing for the quote-unquote right position, and you can still be viewed as a good person who is worthy of virtue. But you don't have to say it when it, you don't have to say it when it's coming against you.

It doesn't matter because you have the virtue aspect. So at the end of my book, I just kind of said, the interesting times that we're in is that the hedonist, I think this is how I said it anyway,.

If I can remember my quote,.

The hedonist ends up, if you just pursue pleasure for your entire life, you end up exactly where Solomon ends up. And when we read Ecclesiastes, he's like, this is all nothingness. This is more empty than the most absolute emptiness there is, it is nothing, it's vanity.

It's chasing the wind and it's miserable. If you pursue pleasure, you end up becoming disillusioned because pleasure is not ultimately pleasurable. But in 2021, if you pursue wokeness, you end up disillusioned on two instances, that pleasure is not actually that pleasurable and self-righteousness is completely empty, leaves you completely devoid.

It's almost like you're double blindsided. Both of those things you thought was gonna get you what you wanted and you end up in even more despair, I believe, because under a hedonism, you're convinced that you'll be happy if you have those pleasures.

Under the new thing, you're convinced that you're good. And that's how you get destruction.

Living as Christians in an Age of Political Polarization

Yeah, no, that's good, man. Yeah, so many ways, I think that I would be in agreement, I think you'd be in agreement too, just that so many people right now, everyone wants answers as to what's going to happen even in the next week to two to three weeks.

And everyone's so focused on that. I think it's good. And I feel like this is one of the takeaways I had from your book too, was that we need to more focus on how did we even get to where we are right now with this polarization?

And I think a big part of it just has to do with the loss of postmodernism, with that effect of just understanding there's this loss of any sort of absolute truth. You guys wanna find more about that.