A Cultish State of the Union W/John Cooper

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All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, entering the kingdom of the cults.

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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.

00:13

Probably more super excited than most times I'm super excited. Andrew, how are you? I am feeling the exact same way.

00:19

I would have never thought that we'd be interviewing this guest and it's definitely a blessing for sure. Oh yeah, absolutely.

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So I just wanna just introduce him right now. We actually have with us Mr. John Cooper. How are you, my friend?

00:33

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, and obviously it's a real honor to talk to you and we'll get into, both of us have followed you for quite a bit as far as your music career.

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For anyone who doesn't know anything about you, just tell them just a little bit about yourself. Oh, sure, sure, let's see.

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

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Wow. Yeah, I can't believe I've been doing music that long. I don't feel like that's possible, but it is.

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And let's see, I gave my life to Christ when I was a kid. I was about five years old, raised in a

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Christian family. And I've been passionate about the gospel, mainly since I was a kid, really.

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And of course, that passion has grown over the years. And I guess that's it.

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The gospel, rock and roll, a far second.

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And let's see, I'm married, I have two kids. One, my daughter is 18, my son is 15.

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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 launched?

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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.

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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.

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

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Yeah, man, well, I just wanna say that it's just been interesting. If you think about just the past,

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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But in many ways, like our show, we focus in on the cultish fringe and things like that.

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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.

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So in many ways, it feels like now, we feel normal right here in the studio talking about this stuff.

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Then once we go outside, that's where all the weird and crazy stuff is. So yeah, man,

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I just, real quickly, I mean, I know you wrote a book and we'll talk about that. 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?

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And like, what are some of the things that you learned just in the past year, just in general?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And for all of us old folks, we're like, why don't you guys wanna go drive?

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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.

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Go do something. And I was thinking, maybe this pandemic, kids won't even notice, cause they just sit, they wanna sit around on their phones anyway.

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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.

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They aren't real relationships when they're online. They might feel real, but you're not having actual human connection.

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And so one of the things that it's brought up to me is that the interesting nature of the amount of, for instance,

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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,

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I'll watch church on TV, but you're not actually experiencing community. It's not real relationship.

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You're just kind of getting 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.

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And I think that's kind of an interesting consequence of this. So I think talking to, listening to James or listening to Jeff Durbin or people that have been very passionate about the people of God coming together in person to take the

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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.

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Yeah, and I'm just curious too, when you wrote the book, when did you start to write the book?

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Was it in 2020 or prior to that? Oh, sorry, go ahead.

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Yeah, when did you decide, cause I know there was a while where you were, I just,

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I followed you since the early days, since the very early days. Andrew and I were actually looking at some of the earlier albums and songs like Locked in a

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Cage. More Faithful. Yeah, like those are some of the tunes that like resonate with us. Cause I mean, we're both,

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I'm like, I'm an eighties kid. So I know that like that, especially when I was a, when I was a young adult, like all the songs were big, but yeah, what were.

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What made you want to write the book? Yeah. Yeah, I actually wrote the book mostly, not in 2020, in 2019.

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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.

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And what I really found amazing was that all the things that I was seeing happen in American culture that were really strange and bizarre to me,

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I was seeing, this is happening everywhere. Cause we were touring in Europe. We were touring in Russia. We toured

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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.

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And you're seeing all the same kinds of deconstruction happen, in my view, all over the world.

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And also keep this in mind, when I say we were touring in Russia, there's no Christian music scene in Russia.

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

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We go to Europe and we play with Metallica or Black Sabbath or whoever. We're not playing

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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 a secular sense.

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Just people that no longer have any sort of foundation of life to stand upon.

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And even in reality, no absolute reality to know what truth is, what truth is not.

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You can't judge anything. So I wrote the book, really, I just felt like I've gotta get this out.

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And I feel especially for my audience, which is gonna be probably half

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Christian, half not Christian, but even a lot of the Christian fans that we have 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,

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I love the spirituality of Christianity, but maybe they're not actually born again, right?

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Maybe they like the worship feel, the feelings of worship, the emotion, but maybe they don't actually know

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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.

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It maybe could give some answers, but also it could be like, if you keep going down this path, it's going to lead you to destruction.

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But the good news is there's another path that will lead you to life everlasting in Jesus Christ.

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Amen, dude. So your book is called, Awaken Alive to Truth, Finding Truth in Chaos of a

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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?

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If you can give us like a synopsis. 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.

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My story was basically this around 2000, probably 12, maybe 11, 12 is when

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I began literally asking myself the question, like, what is going on?

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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,

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I'm just, you've gotten old, you know? I always thought my music career would kind of safeguard me from ever getting old.

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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.

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Churches, evangelical leaders, other Christian bands that I would tour with, friends of mine in my own church in some instances.

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I began hearing all these things that I just thought, okay, I've been a Christian since I was a kid.

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I've been in church for 20 years, whatever, 30 years, and I have never heard what you're saying.

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And I don't know why it's not right, but something about it don't smell right to me.

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And I began really like, I just said, all right, Lord, I need you to show me what

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I'm missing. And I began to read a real 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,

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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.

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I mean, everybody listening probably knows this feeling, but it's heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking that people that you, maybe you maybe got saved at the same time as you, you know, 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.

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And you had that feeling like, we are all going to be fighting for the gospel for the rest of our lives.

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We're gonna run the race together. And then 10 years down the road, one of them just decides,

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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.

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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.

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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,

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I just can't understand because I'm like, there's too many questions. Where is this coming from? And after about three years,

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I looked at my wife, I finished a book I was reading. It was an amazing book by the way, called

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White Guilt. And people should look it up if you don't know it. White Guilt by Shelby Steele.

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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.

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But we are a world that no longer believes in truth. I remember studying postmodernism in college.

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I never knew that anybody would believe postmodernism. And I just, it took me three years because I'm not that smart.

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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

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I know we call wokeness. At the time, I didn't know we called it wokeness. I just knew they created something new and it is not just affecting the world, it's being injected into Christianity to make up a whole new

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Frankenstein's child. And that's my story. Yeah, that's really good,

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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

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I read it, just the consistency of absolute, you know, obviously your book's title, Waking 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.

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And in many ways, you know, worldviews eventually have outspoken consequences. And it's just interesting.

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And almost your book actually inspired me to go back and reread a little bit, but also

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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.

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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.

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I think the two, that's why, you know, we're trying, you know, we're thinking about too, like how do we make sense as Christians living in the world right now?

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Because everything is so divisive. It feels that there's nothing that unifies us anymore. When it comes to sports, you know, there's nothing, you know, half the people are kneeling for the national anthem.

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Some people are standing up. Everyone's, you know, polarized. Everything is polarized right now. So in many ways you see that.

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But how do you think about, let's give like a recent event that happened. I mean,

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I know Johnny talked about the Capitol, about what happened at the state Capitol just this past week.

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And then also you experienced, you know, really in many ways up close to your door in Wisconsin where you live when the riots happened in Wisconsin.

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And everyone's now trying to say, oh, you know, there's all these double standards. You know, the people were writing and looting back them and no one said anything.

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And 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,

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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?

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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

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I think first as a Christian? Because all of us, we have our own confirmation biases when it comes to, you know, political prejudices and things like that.

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And that's something before where, you know, I've had to think, I've yet to have one thing before the other.

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But yeah, so how do we, 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 like how polarizing things are right now?

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Yes, it is really, really confusing to be frank. And, you know, before we started recording, you were mentioning our mutual friend,

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James White. There are a lot of people, a lot smarter than people like me that are saying such great stuff on these subjects.

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And I'm so thankful for people like that because these are really confusing times.

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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 post -modernism as well, right?

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It's deconstructing the way that truth has been perceived from oppressive cultures and things like that, right?

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So you begin deconstructing all these thoughts. What you have is a lot of Christian people that have never quite understood,

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I'm not being rude to them, but I'm just saying, they've never understood theology and its systems.

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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.

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So, but they haven't understood it. But then when something happens, they begin deconstructing something that they never had formulated in the first place.

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So each individual issue becomes an issue of, well, what do you think about injustice and marching with whatever, you know, thing?

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Everybody goes, well, you have to love your neighbor. And that they end there because that's the end of their deconstruction.

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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.

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But they never understood the concept of biblical justice. And they never understood the concept that yes,

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Christ tells us to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

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But then Christ also says all of the laws and the prophets are fulfilled.

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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.

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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

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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?

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So what it has done for me is given me an even higher view of scripture, an even higher view that this is the only unshakable thing that there is.

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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 ethical words of Christ, what those things mean together.

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

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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?

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Like in Colossians chapter two, we're told that all of the knowledge of God's mystery is

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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.

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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 to see it according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ.

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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,

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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?

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And then, but what it seems like is people within the last, I'd say 80 or 90 years, at least the

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United States of America is, we don't know who Christ is anymore, right? I would say even many mainline evangelical

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Christians in a sense may not necessarily know who he is, and they have fallen captive by philosophy and empty to see 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.

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Well, those are just, what is it like gray matter? It's just trying to fill the void that only

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God can fill. He's already spoke to it in his word, but for some reason, our culture wants something more.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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We all would like to make God in our own image. I mean, that would just be, that would be nice.

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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

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I want is who Jesus should be. And that would be fulfilling and that would be fun.

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And then basically, I can be like God, basically. At that point,

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I am my own God, really, it's idolatry. So all of it kind of still boils down to, you can either worship

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Jesus Christ as he is, and we know how he is because we have the word of God, or you can worship, air quotes,

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Jesus Christ as you desire him to be. And so one of the chapters in the book that I wrote, the chapter is called,

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Tear Down Your Idols. And it's basically a chapter of saying that we've created a

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Jesus that we think is awesome. And he is a Jesus that is basically love.

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That's basically all that he is. All he is, is love. And he gives me what I want. I'm healthy, wealthy, blessed.

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And he never, he doesn't punish me. He doesn't judge me. And there's no shame. You know, there's all those kinds of things.

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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.

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And he gives me all the things I want. And as long as I have the good feelings, and I have love, then

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I kind of have Jesus. But we all know that that is idolatrous. That is not a

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Christ to be feared. That is not a Christ that is full of holiness. In fact, that's a

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Christ that does not punish wickedness. I mean, that would be very unjust to not punish wickedness, right?

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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.

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One of the things that I really find pervasive and scary is because in my profession,

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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,

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I think you'll find it interesting. When I first started, I had this impression that everybody that was a

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Christian musician did it because they were so in love with Christ.

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And they were so devoted to Christ that they didn't follow secular music, and they didn't care about the fame.

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They did Christian music so that they could tell people about Jesus and they could give him worship.

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And I just kind of thought every time I would meet a new Christian, this is so funny. Every time I meet a new

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Christian artist, they're gonna wanna sit down and talk about the Bible and how great

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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,

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I love Jesus, but I don't really believe the Bible. And that threw me for a loop.

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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.

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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

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Bible's not that important, my mission is to tell them that they probably are not actually worshiping the one true

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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.

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And so in many ways, like I said, that's outpouring in so many different ways. You have everyone that, everyone has their own truth.

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And you can think right now, I mean, right now you log onto Facebook and you can't even go literally 15 seconds without seeing a bunch of arguments, both

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Christians and non -Christians, everyone angry at each other, arguing over what is true, what is fake news and what is not.

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But ultimately, we have no standard, we've abandoned any sort of point of reference of absolute truth.

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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?

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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.

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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,

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John? Oh, I'm just totally agreeing with you. Go ahead, I'm listening. But yes,

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Andrew, you brought something up to me too, which especially I wanna, especially with you being a musician,

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John, was just the aspect that Schaeffer was talking about. We were watching, How Then Shall We Live?

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Ask him about that. Yeah, Francis Schaeffer said 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.

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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.

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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?

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What do you think about that? Oh, Francis Schaeffer's amazing.

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I know, I love it. I mean, it's crazy. Yeah, I mean, of course that's true.

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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?

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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?

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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.

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When I grew up in the 80s, and you said you were from the 80s as well. I mean, what was our mantra?

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Sex, drugs, rock and roll, right? Sex, drugs, rock and roll. That was the mantra. It was hedonism.

30:15

It was a celebration of pleasure -seeking. The difference was this.

30:21

No one in that time period that I can recall that loved that, that exuded that.

30:28

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.

30:38

The aspect that you don't see was the aspect of virtue attached to that pleasure -seeking, right?

30:46

I don't remember everybody ever saying, I'm seeking pleasure, sex, drugs, and rock and roll because I am a good individual.

30:53

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.

31:03

The new thing that has been injected, I think, came with the critical theories.

31:08

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.

31:21

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.

31:33

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.

31:46

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.

31:58

But you don't have to say it when it, you know, you don't have to say it when it's coming against you.

32:05

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,

32:16

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.

32:28

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.

32:38

It's chasing the wind and it's miserable. If you pursue pleasure, you end up becoming disillusioned because pleasure is not ultimately pleasurable.

32:49

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.

33:05

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,

33:13

I believe, because under a hedonism, you're convinced that you'll be happy if you have those pleasures.

33:22

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

33:30

Yeah, no, that's good, man. Yeah, so many ways, I think that I would be in agreement,

33:35

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.

33:48

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?

34:00

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.

34:09

You guys wanna find more about that. Definitely check out John Cooper's book, we'll get the plug in a second.

34:15

But also really, if you just scroll through, go through Francis Schaeffer's How Then Shall We Live, either the book or also his book,

34:24

Christian Manifesto. And that's really good for understanding how we got to today. But one of the things too,

34:31

John, is that I know that you've been very outspoken and you've talked about another podcast, but it seems when you had the guy who

34:39

I believe is Marty, the singer from Hillsong, and you kind of spoke your heart about that. I remember that went viral. And then you just became a lot more outspoken.

34:48

And I know you've just been really, it's really been, you really have thought heavily too, just about where the culture is and where it's at.

34:56

For some of you, for one who always, now you got your own podcast and you're always giving your, you get to speak in your mind.

35:02

When I think of just right now, how uncertain things are, and this is the question I've been asking myself.

35:08

So in Ephesians, when it talks about, Ephesians 5, verse 16, says, "'Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.'"

35:26

So for me, I mean, I would agree with you. Like, I don't feel like I'm that smart of a guy. I don't know what the future holds.

35:32

And I feel like I don't have the answers to anything. But I guess the question I was asking myself, and one thing is

35:38

I just want to ask you, when you look at that verse where it commands us to do as Christians, like, how do we practically live that out right now?

35:46

What are some ways that we can live, do you think, not being unwise, but as wise? I mean, as of right now, what are some things that come to mind for you?

35:55

Oh, there's so much. Yeah, I did become very outspoken at a certain time.

36:01

And I'll tell you why. It's because before that, what I felt like I saw in the world was just such, people were so mad, you know, constantly polarized, constantly yelling.

36:14

And I just felt like I didn't want to be another person yelling. You know, I thought, hey, in my relationships,

36:21

I share my opinions. I try to share the gospel with my unsaved friends.

36:28

And with my saved friends, I try to share the truth. I try to do the best I can, but I don't want to be just another person yelling about stuff.

36:35

But I finally got to a place when I honestly felt, if I don't say something, then who's going to, you know?

36:45

And it's not because literally no one else is doing it, like the world depends on me, but I finally came to a place where I thought,

36:51

I can no longer be silent about these things. But I will say this, there are still things that I never do speak on if I don't feel that I understand it.

37:01

And I think that that could be a good place for Christians to, like, for instance, people were saying, well,

37:08

John, don't you understand why people were at the Capitol last week and yada yada? And people know that I'm conservative.

37:16

And I feel passionate about some of those things. But I just said, I said, honestly, I don't understand the election stuff, the election allegations of fraud.

37:26

I've read them, I've listened to them. It's just above me. I just don't understand it. So there's no reason for me to go on and say, you know, these election machines were this,

37:37

I don't understand it. So I'm just going to stay away because what I do understand is that Christ is the hope of the earth.

37:44

Whether election machines failed or not, I don't know. What I do know is that Christ can fix everything.

37:51

He can fix your life. He can give you hope. If you build your life on his words, you will be unshakable.

37:58

Whether America crashes and burns, or whether there's a socialist takeover, or whether that's all alarmist and the world goes back to normal in six months,

38:09

I don't know what's going to happen, but Christ can fix it. So I do think there's an element of maybe not being the first people to speak out about something if we don't really understand the issue.

38:21

But I will say the opposite side, which is that I just refuse,

38:27

I refuse to listen to lies. I'm tired of listening to lies. And when I say that,

38:33

I don't mean on every little thing in the whole world. I mean, I refuse to believe lies, even if they're little, but in terms of the big lies that I'm being told, such as that I am racist just because the color of my skin, because of critical race theory, and that my actions, even if my actions don't have racial intent, people that say, yeah, but they are racist because we are in a system of it,

38:59

I refuse to believe those lies. And those lies coming into the church is something that I am not willing to stand by and listen to.

39:06

So I think that in terms of that, you pick your battles. Yeah, no, I would agree.

39:12

I mean, I know for me, just in transparency to my audience that, I mean, just we all have our confirmation biases, and I grew up very much with, just because of my upbringing, like very much confirmation biases when it comes to just being a lot more, leaning towards being right -wing and conservative.

39:31

But I've had times in my life where I've had to be challenged and asking myself, am I a Christian first?

39:37

I remember going on a mission trip to Morocco, Africa, and this is around 2007 -ish, and I was probably the most hardcore, pro -George

39:48

W. Bush Republican. I knew all the talking points. I listened to Sean Hannity every single day, and like Rush Limbaugh, like any, if you just circle back to, go to circa 2004, like I knew all those talking points, and I knew,

40:02

I just knew that. And so I just knew that all, we have to just protect ourselves from the terrorists.

40:07

And we're, in many ways, I was sort of just taught to like to fear. My introduction to Islam was the

40:15

September 12th, when we saw the pictures in the newspapers of Osama bin Laden, the Arabic writing.

40:21

And so I went on a mission trip to Morocco, Africa, which is the predominantly Muslim nation. And I remember

40:27

I got really challenged too about what am I first? Am I a conservative American?

40:34

Or am I a Christian first? Am I a Christ follower? Who am I perceiving these people at?

40:39

These are people that are, they are Christian brothers and sisters in the Lord, had a completely different perspective living in the

40:45

Middle East. They didn't really like, they didn't really see George W. Bush in a positive light if we just talk about that.

40:52

And in many ways, I had to just, that really challenged me. And I think that was one of the things too. And maybe you could give me your thoughts on this too,

40:58

John. I know for me, when, again, I don't have the full answers of everything that happened.

41:03

Like I said, I'm, and like I said, I have my confirmation biases. So in more ways,

41:09

I felt more favorable initially to the March of the Capitol than I did over the

41:15

Black Lives Matter demonstrations over the summer, just because of what took place. But as soon as things got really unraveled, for me,

41:25

I immediately took a step back from anything that I love as far as my

41:31

Americanism and my political ideas and asked like, okay, how do

41:37

I think as a Christian right now? Like in regards to everything that's going on.

41:44

And so that, I think that was just really challenging for me. What do you think, like, when you look at just what happened like over the weekend at the

41:52

State Capitol, and again, none of us are the smartest people, none of those people are way more smarter than us,

41:58

John, but what do you think are some ways, like how do we practically like think through, how do we respond to something like that that happened?

42:05

If we're Christians first before we're Americans. Okay, the weirdest thing happened,

42:11

I think I know what you asked me, but my stupid internet service cut out and I only heard half of that, but I think what you asked me was, you said at first you were generally more favorable towards what was going on at the

42:24

Capitol than BLM. I kind of missed you after that, but I think you just asked me what I thought about what happened at the

42:30

Capitol. Well, yeah, I was initially, because I have my own confirmation bias, I'm generally just more conservative leaning just because of just how

42:38

I was raised and just how I view the world and the stuff that I've just, we've all had that. I think immediately when

42:43

I saw things become unraveled, I just know that I had this immediate, like all that was, and it just for, when everything went crazy, all that was gone.

42:53

And I thought, okay, how do I think now as practically as a Christian? And I, to be honest, I didn't really have the answer.

43:00

So I just wanted to see if you, like, what do you, how did you process that? You know,

43:06

I think how I processed it was this, for me personally, it wasn't very hard, but I didn't,

43:15

I mean, being totally honest with you, you haven't said this anywhere else, because people get so mad about this stuff. I didn't really understand why people were at the

43:24

Capitol to be 100 % honest with you, even though I just kind of thought, okay, I know that people don't trust the election, and I'm not a part of the, any of the

43:35

Stop the Steal. I'm not, I haven't spoken out about any of that stuff, because I just don't understand it.

43:40

But then I thought, well, they just want to show their support, and I can understand that. But the minute I saw people start shoving and fighting cops on the news,

43:50

I was just like, whoa, totally out on this. And for me, it's an issue of encouraging

43:56

Christians to remember, all of us, that God is not just in control, but God has already planned the future.

44:06

I mean, he has already purposed it unto his own glory. And I think that it's wonderful that we stand up for what we believe in, and we fight for truth, and we fight for justice, metaphorically speaking, and we say, hey, this is what we should be doing, and we pray, we do all those things, but in the end, we know that Christ is going to be glorified, and we may go through really hard times to get there.

44:32

So for me, it was like, hey, I know this is all in his hands, and whatever the future holds,

44:37

I feel really fine about that. I just pray that God helps keep me, keeps me steadfast in my devotion to Christ first.

44:49

But I do think it's important, as you said, that we are people of principle, and that we are people who are

44:57

Christians, not just first, but we are Christians far and above all the other stuff, you know?

45:03

So that's why I felt it was important for me to go on and say something, because I came out against BLM really, really hard, because I can't stand the violence.

45:15

But it did take me about five days, I mean, five days of Minneapolis burning down, right?

45:21

I was like, that's it, I just gotta say this. And it only took me about 16 hours to come out about this, because I'm just like, what do

45:29

I say? I don't like all this violence. But I felt like it was important to do. Otherwise, my friends who were on the left, especially my atheists or unsaved friends on the left, will accuse me of being a conservative before a person of principle.

45:45

And our principles have to be built upon the words of God and the Bible, of course.

45:50

Yeah, and I think too, man, I think that's one of the things I've been thinking about the last couple of days is that even when you have really, in many ways, really secular, godless conservatism, which in many ways it really is, and you have the liberalism, they're always fighting against each other, like, well, this person did this, but did it way worse.

46:12

So they're always having this double standard. They say one thing and do the other. But if you think about it, if you look at absolute standards, you think about, like, what does

46:21

Jesus say when he talks about, it's been said to you, don't commit adultery. But I say to you, if you look with lust in your heart, then you've committed, it's just as bad.

46:31

And so even like when you look at people now are trying to make the comparisons, well, the rate of the capital wasn't as bad as all the people, there were way more, way more damage, way more people that were killed.

46:44

But at the end of the day, you still have people, people are still killed, people are still murdered.

46:49

You still had image bearers of God snuffed out for people or whatever, I think you had just a couple of people who were stuffed out, who were killed and all the anger and people, people had anger and rage, people have anger and rage in their heart, but it's only,

47:03

I mean, the Bible says that it's only the law of God, it's only the law that constrains us. We want to outdo what is, we want to do more, but a lot of times it's the consequences of what may happen if we act out.

47:15

So in many ways, I mean, according to God's standards of what happened, I think both sides equally before a holy

47:20

God, what happened to the capital and what happened over the last summer, in many ways, they're just, they're equally as wrong before if you look at, if you use the gospel and ultimately

47:32

God's truth as our standard, I think that's a huge thing. I think like what it shows is that there's so many people that are in need of a savior, right?

47:41

And I think what I really like about what you're saying, John, is you're keeping it really simple, saying, you know, I don't want to talk on the things

47:47

I don't know too much about, but you know what that sounds like to me? It sounds like Colossians three. It says, then if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

47:58

For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ is, who is your life appears, you will also appear with him in glory. So we know, we know that we need to seek our minds and set our minds on Christ, who is the king of the earth, right?

48:09

Not only is he king of the earth, but he's also the king of the hearts of men. And it's only by the gospel that we could restrain the evilness of the hearts.

48:18

So what we're seeing on the Capitol, when people are going out there getting angry and hitting and hurting with their hands, they're trying to grasp at something that they cannot necessarily grasp at.

48:28

They're trying to restrain the hearts of men, an ideology, a belief system, an idea, but they can't actually grasp at something that's non -tangible like the soul.

48:38

So instead, what ends up happening, instead of the change of a heart from a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, the heart gets squeezed and then stops pumping, right?

48:45

People end up dying. That's how we as humans handle situations without God, right?

48:53

Just like with Cain and Abel. He kills his brother, right? The blood spills on the earth.

48:58

So what we're seeing at the Capitol, but what we're seeing between the left and the right are two people who are in need of a savior.

49:04

And like John was talking about, you gotta be preaching the gospel because Christ is the one who changes the hearts.

49:10

There's no nationalism or ideology, a form of government that's without God, that doesn't keep

49:16

God or Christ as central figure, right? That to restrain the hearts and minds of men, lawlessness will abound because only the changed heart will want to observe

49:28

God's statutes. And that's the only way we can have peace and love God and love neighbor, right? Like that's kind of what

49:33

I see it as. I know what you mean. Yeah, absolutely. I really agree with also the idea of that.

49:41

If you don't have any ultimate hope, and then you're gonna think this is my last chance to get what's mine.

49:51

It's my very last chance at all costs to give me something that's gonna fill up all the emptiness, that's gonna bring some sort of order to the chaos.

50:02

And I will say that, I think I do say this, obviously, I've already denounced it, so it doesn't need to be said.

50:10

But I do think that last week was also a product of the last, gosh, the last 10 years, we have been further devolving into chaos, and we've been eroding at all of the reason that we have laws.

50:26

And you have people, philosophers come on TV and explain to us during the BLM riots or protests, some of them turned into riots.

50:34

We have people come in there and explain to us philosophically speaking, why burning down buildings is actually not violence, and why maybe stealing from that would actually even be reparations.

50:46

We find out that riots is just the voice of the unheard. There's all these things that philosophically, they're chipping, they're chipping away at all of our faith in any institution, part of that institution being that there are fixed objective laws that are right, not just before the government, but before some sort of higher law that we would call

51:09

God's law. And they're chipping away at all of those things. And so people are kind of like, well,

51:15

I don't know. I think that violence isn't really all that bad anymore, because we all have a higher law that we all believe in, and I have my law and you have your law and somebody else has a different idea.

51:27

And it's my truth. This is how I feel about it. And I'm gonna create, I'm going to force my version of reality, to use postmodern language,

51:36

I'm gonna force my version of reality onto you, because if everybody has a truth claim, then everybody has their own justice claim.

51:44

I mean, it's just logical, you know? So I think you're right. Without Christ, what is it?

51:50

James White always says that, Christ or chaos. There's two options, man. There's one really good option, one really bad option.

51:58

Yeah, and I'll just say one other thing too, just to capitalize on that. And I actually have two other real fun questions for you.

52:05

I know I really appreciate you coming on here, because I know, but so in regards to what you're saying, like Christ or chaos,

52:11

I mean, this is really the foundation of like your book. And then I also rereading, then that led me to reread

52:17

Schaeffer and also watch the series, but also then it led me to John chapter 18.

52:22

And I think this is almost where it really sums up really your book. So in John chapter 18, when

52:28

Jesus is talking in the same for Pontius Pilate, Jesus says, in fact, I was born. In fact, the reason

52:35

I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone who is on the side of truth listens to me.

52:42

Pilate looks back to him and responds, what is truth? And I think in many ways, you're sort of seeing that that's the really the culmination of what's happened here.

52:51

Everyone has asked themselves, what is truth? Has really become wise in their own eyes, like it says in the book of Judges.

52:58

And now you're seeing a million different gods all fighting against each other in many different ways.

53:05

So absolutely. Did you have any comment on that real quick? Well, I mean, you saying that about everyone becoming wise in their own eyes reminds me the scripture that basically says that people do evil and call it righteous and vice versa.

53:21

Yeah, what are those who call evil good and good evil? That is, thank you, thank you.

53:28

But that is what I believe we are actually seeing now. And I'll just leave or I'll say this one thought and if we're done, we're done.

53:38

But for all of my Christian friends, if there are anybody listening that says, hey, I'm a

53:43

Christian, but I do think that we could join together with some of these postmodern movements for their move in justice.

53:52

You see that a lot right now, there's a big division in the church between the gospel of Jesus Christ or what we call the ideological social justice movement.

54:02

And I think that's what I would just wanna encourage Christians with is what you just said.

54:07

If everyone does what's right in their own eyes, then that means that you will think you're doing something just, but it just might in fact be incredibly evil.

54:21

And we see that with all sorts of dictators. In reading history, you go back and you read history with dictators that killed millions and millions of people that were convinced that as soon as I just get rid of all the dissenters, as long after I kill all the people that are dissenting, what

54:38

I'm gonna do for the people is gonna make their lives much, much better. We're going to get to utopia, but we have to get rid of those people that are dissenting.

54:46

And you end up doing incredibly unjust things. And I just wanna encourage Christians that this secular utopia that the postmodern world is trying to create is actually not like the kingdom of God.

55:00

Because there's a lot of Christians that think it's basically kind of like the same thing. We want peace and justice and they want equity and justice, but it's actually not the same thing because without the spirit of God, you cannot understand righteousness.

55:15

Without the spirit of God, you cannot understand truth. That truth is revealed by God and God alone and that is it.

55:22

So I just wanna encourage people that with what you said, if everyone does what's right in their own eyes, we're going to be into chaos.

55:30

And I really believe that that's a lot of why we are in the mess that we are in right now. No, I appreciate that, man.

55:38

And just two last things before we wrap up here. I know you're a bit of a comic nerd.

55:45

I think James actually shared one of our groups, some of your, you got some pretty sweet memorabilia at your place.

55:52

So you mentioned that first of all, you're a Marvel, when it comes to comic books, you're a Marvel guy, you

55:59

Marvel over DC, but your favorite guy is Spider -Man, right? Yeah, yes, the only

56:05

DC character I like is Batman and he is my second favorite superheroes. But other than that, it's all

56:10

Marvel. Okay, I mean, of all people, like why was Peter Parker slash

56:16

Spider -Man? Why is he your, why would you say he's your guy? I mean, of all the Marvel characters, anything particular?

56:22

I just loved him ever since I was a kid. You know, I don't know to what,

56:27

I mean, I love Spider -Man since such a young age that I don't know how much depth went into the reason why.

56:36

Two or three years old, I just liked his costume. I thought he was cool.

56:42

I loved the old, the cartoon when we were all growing up, the Spider -Man, Spider -Man does whatever a spider can.

56:48

I love that, I just thought it was awesome. Awesome, and of all the different films that are out there, for me, it's a tie between the original

56:56

Spider -Man 2 and Peter Parker and into the, the reason into the Spider -Verse. Oh, that's good, yeah. It almost is my favorite, but I think it's,

57:03

I think it tie goes to the original Spider -Man 2 with Doc Ock, but what would you say is your, it was probably your fave of all the different movies that have been out?

57:12

Do you mean superhero films or do you mean Spider -Man? Spider -Man, Spider -Man films or superhero films in general?

57:18

Yeah, I think that Batman Begins is probably my favorite superhero film. Nice, okay.

57:25

I love Batman Begins, it was very, I did not expect it to be so good because the

57:31

Batman films had gotten just so terrible. And they're kind of ruining Batman for me, actually.

57:37

And when Batman Begins came out, I thought, I'll just see it, it probably won't be that good. And I just could not believe it.

57:44

But other than that, I mean, I think all of the Marvel, I mean, the Marvel Universe films leading up to, you know,

57:52

Infinity War. I mean, Infinity War was amazing, so I'd probably go those. Good, all right.

57:58

Well, and just real quickly, John, where can people, we were talking about your book a little bit, we'll give some plugs when we drop this episode in a couple of days.

58:06

If people wanna get your book, Awakened Alive to Truth, at Def, I believe it's really good to give a good foundation of practical understanding of how we got to where we are and even some really good thoughts on also how to live out, especially a salt and light as crazy as, you know, the world has gone and probably more than likely is gonna be.

58:24

Where can people find more about you and what you have to offer? Sure, okay, so the only place to get my book, it's still not available on Amazon.

58:33

The only place to get it is my website, johnlcooper .com slash awake.

58:40

And just a quick plug for the book. I think that it's a good book for, if you've got teenagers that might not sit through a

58:49

John Calvin book, which they probably won't, maybe they can't understand that sort of depth.

58:55

This, I think, is a very basic theology book, original sin, not trusting your feelings, authority of scripture, so on and so forth.

59:03

Very evangelistic. It ends with a gospel presentation. And I think it could be good for people like that if they wanna learn about Christ or be encouraged in their faith.

59:13

Other than that, I do have a podcast, Go to Cooper Stuff Podcast.

59:19

You could do that on Apple or you could go to YouTube. Cooper Stuff Podcast, it's every Monday. And then sometimes

59:25

I do little short videos here and there. And I hope to bring culture and faith together and encourage people in their walk with Christ the best

59:34

I can. Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you again, John, for coming on the show. And also just really just being so outspoken.

59:41

I know both through everything that you've done. I know that in many ways, even for me as a young Christian, a lot of your earlier music really helped me.

59:51

I remember I grew up in the church and I knew everything intellectually in my head, but it wasn't until around the age of 17, a near death experience,

01:00:01

I almost died. And that whole thing made me all of a sudden, everything I knew in my head, all of a sudden, like God saved me in that process.

01:00:10

And I had a real hard time connecting everything like spiritually, like just from knowing everything intellectually to actually having a real understanding of the

01:00:19

God of the universe and know who had a relationship and loved me. And in many ways, like I remember there's a station that was based in Idaho called

01:00:28

The Effect. I don't know if you even know who they are. I remember The Effect. Yeah, they played a lot of your older music.

01:00:35

So in many ways, like a lot of your songs, like Saturn, More Faithful, and many of those different ones, and like the song,

01:00:44

All Rest in the Shadow of Your Grace, I'm not gonna try and sing it. But a lot of those many ways, it helped me make that connection.

01:00:51

So I know God sovereignly works things out, but on one level, I just wanna say, one, thank you for just going out and making that music because it helped me as a young man when

01:01:04

I first got saved. So in many ways, yeah, you just never know, like I said, and this is just, you never know for anyone listening, like you just never know, like be salt and light and speak the truth because you never know how it's gonna impact people.

01:01:17

So on that note. I love it. Yeah, on that note, brother, I know we went a little bit over, but I appreciate you coming on.

01:01:22

Thank you so much. Thank you again, John. It's great chat with you guys. Thank you so much for that. And I look forward to seeing the show.

01:01:29

Absolutely, absolutely. All right, everyone, I appreciate you all listening in and just go ahead and comment, like on our social media, tell us what you thought about this conversation and whatever happens over the next couple of weeks, the next year,