Don't Be Wimpy, Weak, and Woke with John Cooper

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. We have a, actually, new guest to the program.

He hasn't been on here before, though we've spoken many times. We have John Cooper with us, the lead singer of Skillet.

Hey, John, how you doing? Good, John, it's so cool to be on the show. Thanks for having me, man. Well, it's cool to have you, honestly.

I've known about Skillet for a long time. I won't date you, but I know you've been recording for a while, and you have 17, with Skillet, 17 platinum albums,

I think I'm correct in that, which is pretty impressive. You're in the Christian music industry, but you've also been nominated for Grammys, so you've had some mainstream success in that.

And I was just saying before we started recording, and I want everyone else to hear, your new book, which is what we're gonna talk about primarily today,

Wimpy, Weak, and Woke, How Truth Can Save America from Utopian Destruction, I found impressive.

And not that I didn't think a rockstar could write a good book, because I knew that a rockstar could, but you went in depth.

You talk about things that, you know, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Kant, Foucault, Postmodernism, things that most people who are even pastors in Christianity want to kind of stay away from.

That's dicey, it's complex. So I just want to congratulate you on the book. It's out now.

Where can people find it? Well, that's so encouraging. Thank you, John. Unfortunately, the only place to get it currently is my website, johnlcooper .com.

The Kindle version is up on Amazon, and I am hoping, Lord willing, maybe two weeks, the physical will be up on Amazon as well.

But you can get a physical now. Just go to johnlcooper .com. Any idea about an Audible maybe coming, or?

Yeah, on my first book, we did an Audible about a year later. And I've not recorded that yet.

Now, I did record an Audible of the introduction chapter so people can know what the book is about for free.

So if people are like, yeah, I don't really know if I want that, you can go to johnlcooper .com, sign up on the email list, they'll send you a code, and you can listen to the introduction chapter, know what the book is about, see if it's for you or not.

Nice. And spoiler alert, it is for you. Go do it. Yes, I agree with that. Actually, I mean, this is for everyone.

It's accessible. But no matter how intellectual you are, you'll get something from this.

Whether you're not intellectual at all, you're working class, you'll get something from this. First question for you, and this really comes from the intro to your book, but you talk about the rules changing as being the inspiration for why you wrote this.

And I was hoping you could expand on that a bit. You talk about after Trump was elected, the rules change.

And you tried to be somewhat apolitical. You're in the entertainment industry, but there's a pressure that you felt, even in Christian music.

So that might be a mystery to some people. That's in Christian music. Talk to us about that. Yeah, it's funny, as you mentioned,

I have the physical copy of the book. I'm just gonna show it. Where's my camera? There it is. Let's do it like this.

So if you wanna know how I went from being nonpolitical to this, it's insane.

I mean, the thing is, is like, Christian music has typically never been all that political that I can remember anyway.

Now, certainly, I think it was more like, actually, let me rewind and start this answer over.

I would say it's not all that different than what you see in churches. If you look back 20 years ago, there was lots of churches that just never said anything about politics or major moral issues, but there were these assumptions.

And the assumptions, rightly so, would be things like you're pro -life.

You're against the murder of the unborn. You have a certain view of sexuality that we call traditional biblical sexuality.

You're against communism. It's almost like these things, they didn't really need to be said, they just kind of were.

And so when that changed for me was in around 2013 or 14, all of a sudden, for the first time in my career, we started in 1996 to give people an idea of what's up.

I started seeing Christian musicians getting very political for the first time in my career, but they were all on the left.

And so they were all pro -BLM. They were pro, they were saying words that at the time

I had never heard before. Privilege, in other words, social justice lingo,

I had never heard any of these words. Whether it was privilege or whether it was pro -life womb to tomb, I'm like womb to tomb.

I mean, I get what that means, but I don't know what that means. So that is when I started going, what are these people talking about?

And I started feeling like a fish out of water because they would say things that I just kind of didn't agree with instinctively, but I didn't know why.

And so around 2014, I began doing a real deep dive into,

I started reading like crazy. I was reading politics, theology, worldview.

I'd never heard of Christian podcasting. I didn't know there were any Christian podcasters. And now you're a podcaster.

Yeah, exactly. And so I started doing all this stuff. And so it was around 2016,

I remember finishing a book called White Guilt by Shelby Steele.

And it was an amazing book. I was in bed. It was literally probably the 100th book

I'd read. I finished the book and I looked at my wife and I said, I finally figured out what is going on in Christianity.

I can't believe I'm so stupid. People actually believe in postmodernism.

I cannot believe this because I studied postmodernism a little bit in college because I found it super interesting, but I never thought anybody would believe it.

And what was really getting my goat around 2015 and 16 was, do you remember when,

I think it was in, so it was after Obama's, was it

Obergefell? So it was after the same - 2015. Yeah, okay. So it's after the same sex marriage stuff.

Do you remember that Obama went straight from that into the transgender California bathroom situation?

Yeah, it was right at the end of his term and Trump kind of put an end to that, but I do remember that. Yeah, so that is when

I was like, what is going, I've never even heard of transgenderism. I don't even know what this is. What in the world?

So long story short, that's what got me into the whole your truth, my truth.

I kept saying, what are people talking about? And so when I realized it was postmodernism, that's when my eyes opened about a lot of things.

And I realized that we cannot make these assumptions any longer. If you go to a church and people talk and say, hey, at this church, we believe in the authority of scripture.

You can't make an assumption that means what it used to mean. Because I hear postmodern progressive

Christians say it all, progressive Christians in air quotes, they'll say things like that all the time.

But as I talk to them, I go, oh, you don't believe in authority of scripture like I do, not in the way it used to mean.

So the last thing I'll say, because it's the longest answer ever. It was 2017, all this pressure was getting put on Christian artists to begin to speak out against Trump.

And there were lots of Christian artists speaking out against Trump. And it was billboard, like all the secular industry.

And I should tell people so they understand, Skillet started in the Christian music industry. But since 2006, probably 75 % of our income comes from the mainstream world.

We are more of a metal band than we are a quote unquote Christian contemporary band, even though we are a

Christian band, of course. But the point is, is that that's where we make our money. That's the bands we tour with are mainly on the secular world.

So all this pressure, John, why aren't you speaking about what Trump's doing at the border? Why aren't you speaking about how

Trump is coming against Roe v. Wade? Why don't you come against what Trump's doing with the Supreme Court in the hashtag

Me Too movement? And there was so much pressure, I couldn't believe it. And so I just felt like I'm gonna be forced to say something and they're poking the bear because if it comes out, it's gonna get unleashed.

And that happened in 2020. Gotcha, okay. So secular industry, obviously pressure, that's a given.

I think we all assume that because for my entire life in the secular world, if we wanna call it that, there's this expectation that you're on the left, right?

But this has creeped into the Christian world too. And I know you know some of my experience from seminary during some of the same times seeing this come in, the academic channels, you're seeing it come in through the music industry and you understand it.

Tell me a little bit about what inspired you to push back and whether or not you have support in that industry.

I don't know if that'll encourage people or at least let them know what things are actually like. It may not.

That's, I'm sorry, it's not as funny as it sounds. The way you said it was funny. I don't know if that will encourage people, probably not.

Yeah, I know. I caught that kind of at the end because I was leading up to something inspiring and then

I realized what you might say might actually reveal something that people don't know is really going on.

But in my audience, most of us probably do. Yeah, no, yeah, your audience knows what's up.

Well, you know how, and I don't need to say this because your audience already gets it, but the way that everybody already knows, the way that the left has taken the language of Christianity, taken out the meaning and then stuffed new meanings into the words like justice and all this stuff that you talk about with social justice.

What the Christian industry started doing, in my opinion, and of course, that's a generalization, the industry, there are really great

God -fearing, God -loving people in the industry, friends of mine. Even musicians,

Jeremy Camp is a good friend of mine. He's a great, really a very great man. Uncompromised, and there's a handful of people that are just fantastic.

But the feeling, let's say, of the industry began to sort of do that, where you have to use these words in order to show that you really care.

And I was up on it by 2016. By 2016, I had read all the books. I was like, no,

I know what's going on. I'm not using those words. That's not good. And not that I did everything perfectly.

I made some mistakes. I've repented about a great many of these things I've done as a Christian artist that I wish I hadn't have done.

But I knew what those words meant. So there began to be this pressure of, yeah, but at least if you could say that you do, it signals that you care, signals that you're on the side of those who are hurting and yada, yada.

When I just decided I had to say something, it was 2019, but it wasn't really about that. It was more about the kind of deconstruction, people leaving the faith.

You had Joshua Harris go apostate and make a statement about him going apostate.

And in his statement, if you remember Joshua Harris's statement, towards the end, he kind of repented.

If I remember correctly, forgive me if I'm wrong, but I feel like he either alluded to or said that I've been really terrible to, say,

LGBT people. Yes, he did. He did, right? Okay, so the feeling being,

I'm leaving the faith. I no longer believe in what I did believe in. And in fact, what I did believe in was also oppressive.

And I need to say I'm sorry for those oppressive beliefs. And now I'm gonna have a new belief system where I just love everybody because everybody is born with dignity.

And so there he is. He's borrowing the Christian worldview, of course, that everybody should be treated a certain way.

You should love your neighbor. Two weeks later, that happens with one of the guys that used to write for Hillsong.

Marty Samson was his name. Marty Samson comes out with another statement, I'm losing my faith.

And he starts saying how Christianity is terrible. Christians are so mean. And I just was fed up.

And it was actually my wife. Because I've been fed up for about three years at this point. She's like, you just need to write something and say it.

Write something on Facebook. And I was like, nobody's gonna care what I have to say. I'm a rock singer. Nobody cares about a rock singer getting philosophical.

And she's like, you need to go do it. And I thought, I'm just gonna do it to please her.

So, because she's, well, she's always right, typically. So I go to Chick -fil -A, which is, of course the

Holy Spirit's leading the Chick -fil -A. We all know that's true. So, and I just - It's so stereotypical, but you keep going.

I just happened to be at Chick -fil -A. Yes, Lord speak through the chicken. No, anyway. But I happened to be there.

And I started just typing on my phone, showed my wife and she's like, you have to post it. And I was like, nobody.

So I posted it and it ended up kind of going viral, which I was really surprised about. And that's what kind of brought me into.

But I didn't really start doing anything political or even, maybe you kind of call it culture war.

I don't know what you want to call it, until 2020. And that was because of all of the insane

George Floyd stuff. I live in Kenosha, Wisconsin. So Kyle Rittenhouse, shot three people, killed two of them, just about three blocks from my house.

And that is when I was just like, I'm doing something. I'm sick of this. And I'm sick of the Christian left. I'm sick of seeing my

Christian musician friends and the industry saying all this leftist propaganda.

It's just not true. And it's just time to push back. Cause if you don't push back now, I kind of fear that we're not gonna be able to in the future.

Well, that's what I wanted to get to because the subtitle, well, or I should say the title of your book,

Wimpy, Weak and Woke, that seems to encapsulate the moment we're in.

Exactly. I mean, those three words and the wimpy part is the part I think that most upsets me because there are people who know it's wrong and they don't have the courage to do something or say something with whatever platform the

Lord has given them. And there are exceptions, of course. We had Rosaria Butterfield on the podcast maybe two weeks ago and she's a breath of fresh air.

You are a breath of fresh air. You're a great encouragement. And so maybe like on a personal level, you told me,

Corey encouraged you, but what is it about you? Is it just a simple, like you just decided to do something?

Because you do talk about being wimpy at one point with this grandma figure who you didn't want to offend, which is a hysterical story.

Maybe you could tell that story. Yeah, I should. Yeah, I mean, I started thinking of the grandma part and I forgot the first part that you asked me actually.

Oh, you're saying why are people not really using platforms? Yeah, why are people not? And then why are you, what makes you different?

You know, there's a lot of reasons for this. And I don't think that it's overly generous to say that I think a lot of Christian, maybe let's just say

Christian artists, Christian pastors. I mean, some of my best friends are pastors who really don't like what

I'm saying. They would definitely not like what you say. And they are,

I gotta be honest, they love God. I know them, I've known them for years. They love

God. And they really believe that the way we say things is mean. It's off -putting.

It's more like what you talk about with the gospel coalition. It's not winsome. This is, you know, they use the scripture, which of course is the word of God.

He who wins souls is wise. They use that scripture all the time. In my view, they use it incorrectly, but they use it all the time.

And they think that what that means is that, I don't know, it's almost like you got to not tell the truth in order to win somebody.

And then after they're won to Christ, then you can give them the bad news. You know, like the bad news, which is, okay, now that you've said the prayer, the bad news is that Jesus demands that you give up certain things in your life to follow him.

That makes your life uncomfortable. And it's not always really great. I know you've been sleeping with people that aren't your wife for 20 years, but we want to trick you into becoming a

Christian and then saying, just so you know, now you got to give that up. That is really, that's so foreign to me.

But anyway, the point is, I do think there's really great well -meaning people who love God that just, they don't like this tone.

And in my view, they've sort of swallowed the zeitgeist of the 2020s, which is that being polite is more important than telling the truth.

And I just look at the prophets, the apostles, our Lord Jesus Christ.

I just don't, I can't see that anywhere in their repertoire. I just can't see them anywhere thinking that that would be a good way to do things.

I also do think in Christian music, there's a lot of people that say what I used to say, and this is why

I have a lot of grace for them, to be honest. I think they go, dude, I don't wanna talk about abortion.

I don't wanna talk about transgenderism. That's the last thing I wanna talk about.

And, or, I don't feel qualified. I don't know anything about this stuff. I meet a lot of artists that say things like that.

If somebody argued with me, I wouldn't know what to say to them. They say things like that. And they say, my mission is just to play music that uplifts people and lets them know that Jesus loves them.

I don't wanna be divisive. And they really believe that with all their hearts. I think what makes me different, to be honest, is was the worldview that I jumped into in 2014, reading scripture, getting dead serious about the

Bible in a way I had not been serious before, to be honest, and understanding that you can't break apart the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ that sets you free.

You can't take that apart and separate Christian ethics as if that's like a whole different thing.

You know, these things go together. The Bible is theology. The Bible is history. The Bible is ethics.

So it's almost like you can't do this. To stand up for one thing today is like standing up for the other.

And I keep meeting Christian people who are, they say they're Christians, but they're pro -choice.

I meet lots of people that say they're Christians, but they are pro -LGBT.

And so I'm like, okay, we have to make a distinction about what we believe or else it's just, you're really kind of taught, you're just using words that don't really have meaning.

Does that make sense? I don't know if I said that correct. Yeah, it does. I mean, you, I think the key point there for you personally, though, is you said in 2014 you, a switch happened and you got to know the word of God better.

You got serious about it. And you went from, I guess it was a process, I'm sure, from more wimpy,

I'm not calling you that, but you say that in your book, to more of this strong masculine type who says, you know what, whatever consequences come my way, this is the truth,

I'm gonna stand here. And that's, I think that's the importance of your book too, is because you want to inspire others to do the same and to make their stand on the word of God.

And even in the industry that you're part of. And I pray that that would be the case, that we would see more of that.

You do talk about this lie, though, being the enemy, that there's a utopia that we can build through our own efforts.

The word utopia is an interesting choice. I've used that word before to describe this, but not many people, maybe you've read more than me on this, but I haven't seen many people describe it as utopia.

But that is what it is. Like there is this assumption that we're going to enter a world where hate, supposedly, whatever that is, is eliminated.

And I just want to hear you flesh that out a little bit, because utopia sounds pretty good, right?

Even as Christians, we should want that, right? Yeah, absolutely. The reason I kind of use that word is because I was having a hard time in 2020.

So George Floyd happens. I started speaking out about this thing. I got a lot of pushback from some of my closest friends, to be honest.

They're like, John, you kind of sound like a racist right now just because I was saying

I don't buy into this narrative of white privilege, systemic racism, that sort of thing.

And so the more we started talking about it, let me give people a little insight into my theology, if I can, okay?

So I would never ever divide over eschatology, nor could I ever win a debate on eschatology, but I've been post -mill since I was in college.

That's my particular stream, okay? So I'm post -mill. I believe that the kingdom of God is going to, maybe you want to call it being victorious in the,

I don't know how people want to say it, but to be such an influence in the world that we see the earth flourish and things like that.

That's just a general statement. What I started noticing in people is that they were using my post -mill stance against me.

They were saying, but you believe that the kingdom of God goes into the world and begins to make the wrong things right?

I'm saying, yes, I believe that. You believe that the gospel of the kingdom starts like a mustard seed and it expands.

Yes, I believe that. And so they start using it against me. So then why don't you agree that Christians are supposed to be fighting for social justice in the earth?

So we're going through the whole thing. And I started, it took me about a year, because I'm not all that smart.

I'm not an academic. It took me a year and my head, I finally realized these people are talking about a faux post -millennialism.

It's not true post -mill. It's a, this is just like some sort of Marxist utopia.

And they think that utopia is the same thing as the kingdom of God. It's the perfect world.

And once I realized that, it was actually really kind of liberating for me because I do think that Christians should be fighting for justice, like in the abolition movement in the 1800s.

And I do think that Christians should march with MLK. I do think that Christian, here's the thing about the

Christian left. I don't want to hear any more peep from these people about how Jonathan Edwards was terrible because of his comments on slavery.

I don't want to hear a peep from them if they're not going to stand for the unborn today. It's really easy to say, but they don't stand for the unborn.

They don't stand against the mutilation of these kids in this radical gender theory nonsense.

So after a year, I finally realized they're in, in fact, I need to give a shout out to my older brother first.

My older brother is the one who turned me on to your podcast, by the way. So I'm going to give a shout out to him. It was actually my older brother who said to me, he said,

John, I think that some of this Christian left or whatever phrase he used,

I think it might be coming from their post -millennial eschatology because my brother is not post -mill.

And I said, what do you mean? And as he started saying, I was like, this is genius. You might actually be right.

And we started talking about it. And that was one of the things that really helped me get there. So the point about this utopia thing is just basically this.

If you kind of fall into that like enlightenment thinking, you know, almost like everybody around the world has the same idea of justice.

You know, I actually have a quote from the book at the end of the book from Pastor Tim Keller, where he says that, he says, all human beings have similar ideas of justice.

So we need to focus together to kind of create this better world. I remember reading that and thinking, that's just not true.

I mean, why don't we go to, why don't you go to Israel right now and find out if Hamas and the

Jews in Israel have the same ideas of justice over there? It's a really insane thing to say.

And I think that that falls into this enlightenment thinking almost that with reason we're all gonna agree and then we can build the perfect world.

In the 2020s is when I realized that what Isaiah says, woe to those who call evil, good and good evil.

That's what we're in right now. And if you have people like you and me who think that the killing of the unborn is evil, but you have another side that says, no, it's actually justice and we should shout about it.

We should clap about it. We should give a shout to these people for being brave enough to admit that they killed their own offspring.

I don't know how you make that work. And that is why every utopian dream ends in a dystopian nightmare.

Yeah, because there's no way to even in our own country which you would think would have more in common with each other than another country.

We can't agree. We're diametrically opposed. We're at each other's throats. So, and it's a good point.

I agree with your brother a hundred percent and I'm not post mill. So I'm not knocking it, but I think he's right that if you look throughout history, that's so true.

Even the social gospel movement is a good example of that. That was a movement that wanted to perfect society through all kinds of social reform movements.

But in the process, they lost the gospel. And then once you have that, once you lose that, then you lose the whole thing.

And one of the things you say though in the book is that this utopia raises up itself against human nature and that's why it won't work.

It's against the created order that God has established. In other words, and so it can't work because there's a blueprint that it's not following essentially.

And so you see this, you're confident. You see this all around you in the not just the

Christian music industry, but of course our entire world. And what do you say to your fans?

I'm assuming you have people who, young people, but people my age and probably younger who love your music.

And they're asking right now, John Cooper, how can I make a difference? I see what you're saying. I see that this is all a lie.

It's a sham. I don't wanna be part of it. I wanna stop it. What can I do? Yeah, great question.

I mean, since the book came out last week, I've spent the last seven days being called a false prophet.

Oh, I didn't see that. Oh man, there's a lot of angry people, the mainly Christian people.

Yeah, I don't really understand why people get so apoplectic about things that they just clearly don't, they don't even really understand, you know?

How are you a false prophet? They think that I am, I keep getting messages like that I am, how do they say it?

Almost like being macho and being toxic and abusive, hiding behind the name of Jesus.

So I'm using Jesus as a front to be macho and to send people into mental health spirals and calling them all weak.

It's a really bizarre thing. But I think that it speaks to me of how delusional and psychologically stunted our society is and the church is.

I mean, it actually made me think things are maybe even a little worse than I thought they were in the church.

It's kind of remarkable. I actually think that the answer of what to do, so there's kids like,

I wanna live for Jesus, what do I do? It's actually not difficult to know what to do, it just takes courage.

All you have to do is this, believe that the word of God is 100 % true.

In fact, the Bible says that. Every word of God is true, every word. Every word of God proves true.

And if you do that, then you're going to look to the Bible rather than look to TikTok to explain to you what side of an issue you should be on.

I hear some people say that pornography is bad for society. Some other people say that maybe pornography is actually good for society because the more pornography there is, it makes people watch pornography rather than commit sex crimes.

That's what progressives say. I've talked to young Christians and say, well, maybe they really have a point there.

Well, if you don't believe the word of God, then they do have, it's gonna sound like they have a point because you're gonna go, oh.

In other words, we don't discriminate between opinions when you're not going to the Bible. But when you go to the

Bible, the Bible is gonna give you an answer for how you are to do that. How are you gonna raise your kids?

How are you going to be a good husband and be a good wife? How are you gonna pray for your friends? So one of the things that I think

I like in the book that is my favorite thing about the book, if I could say, you don't mind if I just go on a tangent, do you,

John? I would love it, yeah. Okay, all right, tangent time. One of my favorite things, so I borrowed this picture from the great

Schaeffer. All of a sudden, I can't remember Schaeffer's first name. Francis Schaeffer? Thank you.

Yes, yes. One of my favorites, I forgot his name, sorry. Francis Schaeffer, just such a great thinker.

And he has this picture that a lot of people know from his book, Escape from Reason, and it's the two -story building.

He breaks this two -story building into nature and grace, and there's been a lot of people argue about whether he really truly understood the

Catholic, who's the Catholic guy, Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas. Thomas, yeah, he really understand, but that's -

We don't need first names, it's fine. Yeah, who needs a first name, Harris? So we don't need to go into that, but I borrow his picture, because I think it's a really great way to think of today.

What I see the church doing today is breaking heaven and earth up into two different floors.

Heaven is gonna be the things that Christ is Lord of. So Christ is Lord of salvation, and so he can help me get to heaven.

He can recreate my heart. The Holy Spirit can help me be more pious in my life and live a holy life.

So all the things that pertain to my holiness and getting to heaven, that's what

Christ is Lord of. Then on the bottom floor is earth, and earth is what?

Things pertaining to this world, to the here and now. That's gonna be politics, the economy, being a good dad, this and the other, abortion, the transgender movement, sex, gender, you name it.

That's the bottom floor. What I see happening in the church is them saying all that matters, they think that both matter, but they wanna have

Christ be the Lord of the upstairs, and then let's look to man's ideas for the downstairs, because they don't wanna get involved.

Christians shouldn't get involved in politics. Christians shouldn't get involved in culture war. Christians shouldn't get involved in the drag queen story hour.

So David French is always saying, David French says that drag queen story hour is a blessing of liberty and things like that.

We don't get involved in any of that. Those are things, as Tim Keller kind of said, that we all agree on, because everybody has the same intuitions about justice, but that's just not true.

And so what I'm calling people to do, maybe that fan that you just said, that young guy that's like, I wanna make a difference for Christ, what do

I do? We make Christ the Lord of both floors. That means Christ has the answers for politics, for economics, for tithing, for how much of your money you should give to the poor or how you should give to the poor.

In fact, Christ even has the answers, if you can imagine it, for if we should march with BLM and burn cities down in the name of systemic racism.

Christ even has the answers of whether we should support Hamas when they are raping innocent women and beheading children and putting babies in ovens and things like that.

I can't believe to see Christians so confused about these things. So all throughout the book,

I try to give people that two -floor analogy and I explain why Karl Marx or Foucault or whoever it may be,

Freud, how they ruin that model and why it doesn't work. Let's talk about sexuality for a moment just because I think that's, the world that young people are growing up in, and I'm not really that old at all, but it's different than the world

I even grew up in. I mean, I didn't have a cell phone till I was, I think 15 or 16, and it wasn't a smartphone, right?

And the internet was so slow with dial -up. I mean, you're not gonna be, there weren't like a lot of places to go and download what people can download today.

And talking to young people in my church, I am shocked, legitimately. I feel like an old person, even though I'm like,

I was just there, but they're telling me about the things happening like in their high school. And it's unbelievable as you can imagine.

And so the world is very dark. We have more accessibility to sexual images and all kinds of weird stuff that we didn't have before.

And you don't even have to go into a store to buy any of that. It's just, it's a tailor -made world.

Whatever your, choose your poison, right? And you can have it. And it should be subsidized if you can't afford it or something.

So enough of my rant on that. I'm just curious, cause you did write a chapter on this in the book about sexuality.

You talk about Freud, you talk about how everything's sexual now. What's your advice to young men specifically out there who have, who as soon as they hit puberty, they are in a world of temptation.

You know, this actually goes back to also why people are calling me a false prophet. By the way, that doesn't even bother me.

It makes me giggle. I think it's funny. So I'm not trying to go back to it for a woe is me time. I'm going back to it because some of what they're referring to is that I believe, like for instance,

I believe that queer theory is literally the end of all things.

There will be no meaningful conversations even able to have in the world if queer theory actually becomes as ubiquitous as it seems like it is already becoming.

There will be no distinctions between anything. If you embrace queer theory and you embrace the idea that men can be women and women can be men, or you can be both or neither, blah, blah, blah, then you will end up having to accept that there really is no difference between mankind and beast.

It just follows. And in fact, the queer theorist would probably be like, yeah, that's right. You have to follow it all down.

So some of the false prophet stuff is to do with the quote unquote alarmism.

It's the alarmism of saying, guys, our world is about to be destroyed.

This is gonna be the end of Western civilization. They feel like you're being like a prophet of doom. You sound pre -millennial, but anyway.

It does sound very pre -mill, doesn't it? Believe me. As I said, I cannot win a debate so nobody hold my eschatological views against me.

But the reason is is that sexuality, to me, that's the key.

If the church does not stand our ground on sexuality, we lose everything. We absolutely lose everything.

And I had a reason for saying that, yes. What I would say to these young folks, this is just so upsetting to me.

And I really thank God for Rosaria, as you said earlier, Butterfield, and some of these people standing up against this.

A lot of Christians just do not believe that it's as bad as it is. And that's where the false prophet stuff comes.

They just refuse to believe it. And they keep saying, guys, there's nothing new under the sun.

It's always been this bad. You're making it seem like it's worse. That's just not true. It hasn't always been this bad.

Transgenderism is the most civilizational shifting thing that has happened.

And I don't even know how long. I mean, you're talking about something that could change the trajectory of human nature forever.

And of course, if anybody's done the reading, I'm not gonna get into this. And I don't write about this in the book.

But if anybody knows what transhumanism is, we're one step away from transhumanism, which we won't even get into.

And transgenderism sort of makes that possible. It's a sort of narcissism, you know, that really will bring us into a man and machine kind of thing coming in together.

It's absolutely horrifying. The thing I wanna say to young people about sex, I am so tired of hearing this.

You are not defined by who you want to have sex with. You are a whole person.

There is so much to who you are. And if you are in Christ, I mean, this is one of my soap boxes

I am so tired of hearing. And this is probably the thing that I am most passionate about, about my eschatological views.

My eschatological views don't matter to me so much as does the principle of the victory of Jesus Christ on the cross.

And if we don't believe that the Christian today can walk in the victory, winning against sin, and I'm not talking about perfection.

You know, I'm not talking about some sort of Wesleyan, you know, holiness, perfection. And now I'm exactly like Jesus.

Of course, we're gonna sin. I'm talking about, does Christ have the power? Does the

Holy Spirit have the power to change my sexual activities?

If Christ doesn't have that power, then we're all in a bunch of trouble because it means that maybe

I haven't been given a new nature. Maybe I haven't been given a brand new heart. I can't even believe this.

We believe Holy Spirit has the power to raise Christ from the dead, but the Holy Spirit does not have the power to help me ward off the arrows of the devil.

I can't even relate to this, you know? And so it's that measure of victory that you're not a slave any longer.

Why are you living like a slave? That's what I would say to young people. I'm not saying that it's not easy.

I'm a man. You don't grow a beard like this without having some testosterone. No, I'm joking. I'm just joking.

A nice beard. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. I get it. I'm not saying I've never struggled with lust and I can't even relate to such a thing.

Come on, don't be ridiculous. But the point is that I am not the same man I used to be.

And I can truly say in my life, like today, I can say I don't have those kind of thoughts anymore.

I used to. Don't have those thoughts anymore because I've gotten used to how to fight those things through the power of the

Holy Spirit who makes me more than a conqueror. Anyway, I could go off on that. No, that's encouraging. That sex thing just drives me crazy.

Well, me too. I get messages. In fact, I've been messaging with a young man last few days who is experiencing some of what you're saying and claiming that he has attractions to other men and he's never had attractions to women.

And somehow my theology and yours must make an exception or must fit that, right?

We must figure out a way to construct around this instead of making it conform to what the

Bible says about us, which is, yeah, you're a man, but there's something that comes with that.

You actually are made for a wife. And it doesn't mean all women either. That's the other thing I see is like, well,

I'm supposed to be attracted to women. Well, yeah, but you're supposed to be attracted to your wife. That's what

God wants. And it's, I guess I'm on my own soapbox, sorry. You said it and now

I'm annoyed just like you're annoyed, but - I'm getting you in a bad mood. You know, one of the things about this is that it's because of,

I said, the zeitgeist of the time, you're not allowed to say something that you believe because it may trigger someone else.

Well, you don't know my experience. Right, exactly. And I'm so tired of the experience. Experience does not equal reality.

And I'll just share something from my own heart, which is deeply ugly, but I will.

I struggle with, honest to God, I'm a really nice person.

I love people. I love meeting people. I'm an extrovert. I'm pretty much 99 % of the time in a really good mood.

You almost never find me not smiling and laughing. That 1 % of the time when something triggers me,

I will fly into a fit of rage. And I broke my hand one time punching the refrigerator.

I've kicked a wall in a hotel room one time. It broke through the wall. I've done so much stupid stuff because I don't think of my,

I'm not an angry person. And when it comes on me, I'm like the Hulk. That's what I wrote. Our most famous song is called

Monster. That's what Monster's about. I hate it. It's disgusting. My kids have seen it and I've had to repent to my kids.

And I explained to them, this is not what a man of God lives like. A man of God learns to put this to death and your dad is learning just like you are.

So I explained that to my kids. But the truth is this, I experienced that sort of rage maybe once a year these days.

I wish it was zero. I'm embarrassed to say it's not. It's not zero. It's about once a year. It used to be all the time.

And I can't make up a new theology that says, I just flew in rage and punched somebody in the face and then say, well, you don't know what it's like being born this way.

I've always had this angst in me. And you don't know what my dad did to me.

Or you don't know what these kids did to me at my school and the way they used to beat me up or the way they, you don't know any of those things.

So you can't speak to it. That is not how Christ tells us to live. So I tell those embarrassing stories about myself.

I am truly humiliated about it. It's a really ugly thing about me. But the point is, is that that can't define me.

I'm defined by Christ. And whether I feel, always feel it or not, that's the truth.

So fall in line with the scriptures, man. Come on. No, thank you for sharing. And now that you have shared that, 43 minutes in is gonna be the,

I'm gonna see the big jump on my video. Everyone's gonna be like, what did he do? He punched a fridge. Yeah, I mean, as a guy,

I mean, I think a lot of guys have that and I can relate to that to some extent. I mean, that's, it's, you lose control and that's not what the

Lord wants. And obviously we give the spirit control. So I'm gonna just let you do what you want with this cause

I don't know how comfortable you are with it. But I figured this would be both helpful and it probably would have a little bit of an interest or an entertainment value for some of the people out there.

So I'm gonna let you name some names. You named some in the book, right? You talk about Zack Lambert.

You talk about Andy Stanley. You talk a whole lot about Tim Keller. Now, when

I saw that, I thought this is unique because especially with Tim Keller, once a

Christian puts out, publishes a book, most publishers won't take it if they're really going after another person who's, that could hurt their business, who's big in the

Christian world. Tim Keller certainly has been that. And now he's lionized. I mean, I don't know if you have like a running list in your head.

I'm sure it's not exhaustive, but who are the bad guys that people need to watch out for in John Cooper's mind?

And then who are some of the good guys that you say, these are people to listen to in your mind?

That's a really great question. And this is the reason I self -published the book.

I know that people would be like, no, you can't say that. And I just was like, you know what? I'm not looking to be like an author.

I mean, I hope just to help some people. So I just published it myself. That's the reason you can only get it at my website until it's up at Amazon.

I wanna be really fair about this because this is really difficult. I have so many friends who are personally offended at me when

I mentioned Tim Keller. They just, they lose control. And I'm not saying that Tim Keller's not in heaven and that we're not gonna spend eternity together.

I'm not saying that. But I think as you made, I wouldn't mind giving you a plug.

The little documentary that you did called What Happened to Tim Keller, I believe is what it's called. Absolutely fantastic.

If people haven't seen it, they need to go see it. It's absolutely fantastic. The reason I have such a problem with Tim Keller is because he seems like, he kind of created this, the third way aspect.

The third way, which is basically when you sort of agree with the people on the right, but you just don't like them.

I mean, that's basically it. I can't, it's, that's it. That's pretty much it, yeah.

Yeah. You're ashamed of them, yeah. I'm ashamed of them. And I really don't want people to know that I do like them.

I disagree with the people on the left to some degree, maybe even a lot, but I kind of like those people.

And so - That's a great description of it. It's just so brutal. And they just brutalize the people of God over and over and over again.

They just beat us up. And I look at the things they say and I go, for about two years,

I kept saying, so I'm quite good friends with Dr. James White. I know you know James.

Yeah. James is a good friend of mine. And he really, really is a mentor of mine actually, and gave a ton of time to me.

And I can't thank him enough for that. And I would say, I would send him stuff. I'd say, James, so Keller said this and this and this, but it seems to me that the

Bible says this and this and this, this is part of my naivety. And James would always laugh at me.

It took me about two years to actually understand. I think that Keller does know all these things.

He's super duper smart. He knows everything that I'm saying and may even agree to it, but he's acting like he doesn't or something.

I don't know what's going on. And it's just such leftism. And so I had even more quotes from Keller originally in the book, but it wasn't because I wanted to just keep beating up on him.

It was because it's easy to go to hyper Christian left, like to somebody that reform people would be like, of course, we don't care.

For instance, Zach Lambert, no true Christian really cares what

Zach Lambert has to say about anything. He's a progressive LGBT, quote unquote,

Christian. Nobody takes him seriously. But if Tim Keller is saying the same thing as him, then you really should use the

Keller example, sort of like the J .D. Greer, God whispers about sexual immorality nonsense.

Well, that means a lot more coming from J .D. Greer than it would from Andy Stanley because nobody really cares about, well,

I shouldn't say nobody, serious Bible people don't really believe about, sorry, don't really care about what

Andy Stanley has to say. Not anymore, no. Not anymore, yeah, exactly. So that's why

I beat up on Keller so much, but he's, in my mind, it's not that he's the worst of the worst, but I can't think of anybody who has pushed the church more into what

I would call the wimpy and weak territory than Dr. Keller. It doesn't mean I hate him.

Doesn't mean I don't celebrate him when he says something I think is really, really good. And I applaud him when

I read something that he says is great. Some of these progressive people that are really dangerous are people like Andy Stanley because he still acts like he isn't and he uses so many words to sound that way.

Andy Stanley is, I particularly have a real problem with Preston Sprinkle. I know you know that because I've texted you before and said, what do you think about this?

And again, it's not because Preston Sprinkle doesn't say some things that I aim in. He says a lot that I aim in, but then he says some of these other things because he wants to make it clear that he doesn't like John Harris and he doesn't like John Cooper and he doesn't want to be like John MacArthur.

And so I don't know why he's doing that. And he says these things like, the church needs to repent for heteronormativity.

That's pretty bad, John. Yeah, whiteness, heteronormativity. Yeah, it's like all these sins the

Bible doesn't actually ever address, right? But they're really like stage code red, stage four cancer.

That's right. And so to me that right now that the dangerous thing for the church is the people that as soon as somebody like, somebody on quote unquote, our team says something that's true and then all of big

Eva comes out against them. I just, these people, I don't understand.

I don't know. It really bothers me. Your description though, I think is so good. It's so simple, but it's so true.

And I think like, I've been hesitant to say it that way a little bit just because you probably noticed this in the

Christian world especially. It's like, you can't question motives, right? Like everyone's quick to say like, God only sees the heart.

You can't see the heart. And I'm like, well, I see the fruit, right? I see the actions. But you have to like have all your ducks in a row before questioning someone's motive because like that scene is so judgmental and so out of bounds.

But like, that is exactly how they act. And I think you nailed Keller with that. Like it is that he likes leftist personally.

Like those are the kinds of people he wants to hobnob with. He doesn't agree with their positions on things but they're the kinds of people that he would be not ashamed to be seen out in public with going to a restaurant or something.

But if it was these hayseed Christians who think that women shouldn't get an abortion and maybe we should just abolish it.

And from the middle of the country, those people, those are, you know, they're not educated.

They're, maybe I agree with them, but to be seen with them. Oh, you know, that's so true, that arrogance.

And I, yeah, I've seen that firsthand in seminary. And I mean, I've been to a couple of different Christian institutions of higher learning and that's a real problem.

I don't know how we like address and overcome that because the Bible says you have to love your brother.

First John even says, you're not a Christian if you don't love your brother. And that's a scary thing to me that that's like a problem we have.

But I'm going on my own soapbox and I'm sorry. No, I think that's a great point.

And I wouldn't mind just mentioning which you've already mentioned before. And obviously we're using Keller as an illustration.

In some instances, Keller does actually agree with the leftist, as you pointed out in your book and on your show, you know, cause

I listen a lot. And I think that some of that happens because I know this from the music world.

In the early 2010s, 2008, 9, 10, let's say,

I had the benefit in the secular music world of having people think that maybe

John and Skillet are literally, they're literally like the best people in the industry.

They're the nicest people. So we were looked at as the good people because we were giving people hope.

We were the ones that were speaking up for the mental health crisis. And we were the ones speaking out against, you know, whatever, it may be violence.

And we were looked at that. That's how quickly things shifted because now people look at us like we are the most evil people in the industry because we hate women, because we're pro -life.

And all these kinds of things have shifted. But the point is, is when you're getting those kinds of accolades from the world, when your secular friends who are either famous or powerful or rich or influential say to you,

John, I've never given Christianity much of a thought, but you've actually, you're the nice one.

You're one of the nice Christians. All the rest of them are terrible, but you actually get it.

Once you start hearing people say that enough times, it starts to change the way you think about things.

And I think that some of these people have begun to become more leftist in their thinking because they have these relationships and they're getting the applause from the world.

They're getting the slow clap from the world saying you're one of the good people. You get it. These other

Christians are mean and they yell about sex and they yell about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but you actually care about the poor.

Then you start doing, okay, well, why don't we join together? Because remember, we all have common intuitions about justice.

Why don't we join together to care about the poor? And the next thing you know it, you're no longer a man of the kingdom.

You're a man of utopia. You think like utopians think. You think like leftists think.

And the next thing you know, you're going, I don't like those people. I don't like those conservatives. You know, all those people that say, oh, if you don't, he who doesn't work shouldn't be allowed to eat.

Seems pretty mean to me. Yeah, well, it's a reminder to me that you being at the top of the industry, you're giving up.

You're making a sacrifice to take the stand you're taking. And I know I appreciate it and many people out there appreciate it too.

And of course, the most important thing is the Lord rewards that and he appreciates it. And so I know we've been going about an hour so we should probably land the plane, but I just wanna say that, you know, you've been a great encouragement to me.

Most people don't know to what extent behind the scenes, you and your wife, Corey, and I do hope to meet you in person at some point soon.

But if people want the book, which I do recommend, we only scratch the surface, everyone.

You can go to johnlcooper .com and you can get a copy of the book. And then where can people go to get your music?

Is it skillet .com? Yes, skillet .com is the website, but anywhere you listen to music, you know, where Apple or Spotify, and of course you can buy the records and iTunes and all those things.

A social media is Skillet Music. Skillet Music on, oh, okay, on Twitter.

On, okay, gotcha. Yeah, oh, I'm sorry, Insta, Facebook. Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Okay, gotcha. No, I think people should be able to find it pretty easily.

So, and I have listened to your new album and I actually quite enjoy it. And I think I told you,

I wasn't, I didn't grow up into the metal or even like pop punk as much.

I had friends who were, but I was always a country music guy. That's my, my dad's like that.

But I've started to broaden my horizons a little bit and I actually really enjoy your album.

And so I would just encourage people. Yeah, even if metal's not your thing, check it out. And I think it's good.

I do a lot of cycling too, right? It's great music for going on a long ride or, you know, going on a run or something like that.

So johnlcooper .com, check out Skillet and anything else you wanna plug?

No, I think that's about it, man. I sure enjoyed talking with you and being with you. Thanks for all the work that you're doing.

I appreciate it. And yeah, we'll do that meeting. And then, and since you're a singer, you have to come sing some, some bass with Skillet.

Come sing. I would love that. Yeah, to sing bass. Yeah, Johnny Cash, yeah. No, I would love that.

So, all right. Well, God bless. And, you know, God's, I was about to say best of luck and then