Apologia Stuff With John Cooper

Opening Banter and Show Setup

Non-rockabotas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it!

Are you going to bark all day, little doggie? Or are you going to bite?

We're being delusional.

Delusional? Delusional's okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay.

It doesn't really hurt.

She hung up on me!

What? What?

Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives.

Right.

Don't go into the world and make homies.

Right.

Disciples.

I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, pasta.

When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

Romans 1 and the Collapse of Moral Order

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of evil, murder, and I lost my link. There we go.

Sorry. Strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die.

They not only do them, but give approval to those who do practice them. That would be Romans 1, 28 through 32. Welcome everyone to Apology Radio. I'm very excited about today's show. And Isaac, you can unmute that.

Hi, Joy.

Hi. How's it going?

It's just Joy and I today with a special guest.

It is.

Pastor Jeff's on sabbatical right now. And I'm very excited. This is a show I've been trying to schedule for a minute, but it's been hard to coordinate schedules with our guest because he's a very busy man and seems to be on the road 24 -7.

But all that to say, live from Kenosha, Wisconsin, on the crazy streets at the Rittenhouse trial, is John Cooper. What's up, brother?

How's it going, man?

Good. How are you?

I'm doing good. It's good to chat with you. I'm glad we finally got it worked out. You've been hounding me for like six months.

I know. It's been a while.

It's all good.

I'm glad we were able to make it happen. Absolutely. I played this song intentionally because it seems like somebody needs a hero.

That's true. Lots of people need a hero. I love to hear it. It's a good song. It still sounds good.

Yeah. Your face is a little bare in the video, though.

I know. I don't know who that is.

Yeah.

Me as a young person. I don't even know what I look like under this thing. I'm afraid to find out.

Well, man, I'm excited, like I said, to have you back on. I just got to say thank you publicly because we got to meet. When was that? About a month ago? I don't even know how long ago.

Yeah. Four weeks ago, probably. Five?

Yeah.

You guys were here in Tempe and got to go and brought my girls. You have two new super fans. Thanks to Corey and Jen who took them on the tour bus and gave them bananas and cookies. They won them over very quickly.

My oldest, who just turned 11, listens to Skillet 24 -7 now.

I was going to say the last few times I've seen her, she's been a little more punk rock.

Yeah. She totally has been.

She's embracing that.

I appreciate that.

Not every parent would, but I will take that from you as a compliment.

The perfect family to be in. It's perfect to be a Pearson if you want to be a little or a lot punk rock.

I was probably 18 when I hit that stage, so she's a little ahead of me.

Let's put it this way. I have seen a picture of Luke back in the day where he just basically had a little chunk of red bangs. It was bleached. The rest of his head was bleached.

It was bleached, yeah.

Did you ever have red hair? Why am I imagining that?

I don't know. I had a red shirt on.

Okay, maybe that's it. I'm getting my colors.

No one else on this podcast has ever had bleached hair.

Yeah, that's right. When rock music is involved, you have to have every color of hair. You have to have tried every color. How do you know which one you like the most? You've got to try a whole bunch of different colors.

Rock and roll.

That's right. I just wanted to thank you guys and say how awesome you were and how much we appreciated it. Tell your wife and Jen how much my girls appreciated that.

I will. It was great. I loved getting to meet you and your family. We also got to have James White and Kelly. I feel like some other people were there too from your church. Right now, I can't remember their names.

It was great getting to see people.

Summer was there with her kids.

Of course. Yes, that's right. James' son was there. It was just a great time to get to meet face-to-face people. We've texted. We've talked about theology. I've had questions. You've sent me stuff to listen to here and there.

It was great to hang out. It was a great show.

Absolutely. I forgot to tell you. I don't know if you knew this. I don't know if you remember when you were doing the Q &A before the show. There was the buff dude with the Jesus is Lord shirt or whatever.

Do you remember? When they asked you about how much you ventured, you were like, not as much as Jesus is Lord guy.

Yes.

That's one of your worship guys.

Yes, he definitely goes to our church. I didn't even know he was there when you said that. I thought it was funny.

I got to meet his family before the show. His kids are musicians. I've seen their videos. James has sent me their videos of them playing some skillet songs. They're really talented young people. I was really thrilled to get to meet everybody.

It was wonderful.

Praise the Lord. Speaking of heroes, we didn't plan this. I'm wearing a Mandalorian shirt that says, this is the way and then he's got the Boba Fett. I guess, technically, I have the hero shirt on. We didn't plan that.

I was pretty excited when we both had.

You guys are like, this is the start of a legit bromance. Should I leave the show?

Cool people always, we like the same stuff. I'm self-identifying as cool. Basically, Star Wars, metal, rock and roll, all these things are going to be, usually wrestling is involved like WWE and NASCAR.

It's all in the pot.

Did you see the trailer for Boba Fett?

No, I haven't.

What is it called? The Book of Boba Fett, I think. Did you see it? I think it's going to be a series on Disney+.

It looks awesome. Is Jon Favreau doing that one too? Because I'll watch anything he's doing.

I wouldn't be surprised if he is. Because it's probably tied into the Mandalorian.

Right. He's like the new Lucas, but even better.

Even better. Way better. Oh, man. I have a lot of directions I want to go today, if possible. While we're talking about music and stuff, a couple directions will go here. As you know, when you were here, I was supposed to have seen August Burns Red at the same theater you played at, which they got postponed until the 7th of December.

But this is what I was going to tell you, because I knew this would get you fired up. They had canceled a bunch of shows, because they came down with the Rona and stuff. I just heard an interview with them the other day, their guitarist, and he was like, yeah, so they got 12 people on their crew.

And he's like, 9 out of 12 of us came down with COVID, so we had to postpone 6 shows. And this is what's crazy. And he goes, and so the 9 out of 12 of us that got COVID were all vaccinated.

Oh, wow.

And the 3 people that didn't get COVID were not vaccinated, but already had it. And I'm like, and they're just like, but now I feel good, because I got the natural antibodies and everything. And I'm just like, guys, you've not seen this.

You've not seen what's happening here. And so I was like, oh, man, come on. Come on, people.

I'm glad we're acknowledging natural immunity, though.

Yeah. Yes.

Antibodies.

Yeah.

And I saw something the other day, it was a college football coach came down with it and was missing a game or whatever. Because he tested positive. And he's like, well, but I'm thankful I got the vaccination.

And I'm just like...

Yeah, I saw an article.

Come on.

I saw an article that was like, man wishes he had been vaccinated, because it would have not been as bad. Which he doesn't really know, just based off of the headline. You don't know how it would have been.

But it's interesting.

It's a crazy time, because there's like a collective mind losing. It's true. It's like the whole country, we've lost our minds. And I've tried to be... I mean, in general, I think I'm a fairly gracious person, or I try to be.

Where it's like, hey, I really don't care, Luke, if you get the vaccine or not. And I don't know if you care if I get. It doesn't matter to me. There's certain things that you can make a choice. But there's been this collective mind.

I mean, people have gone crazy. I fully expect half the country to be eating grass, and Nebuchadnezzar pretty soon. And what's really weird to me is that I've been speaking out about my faith in Christ.

Sorry, not in the Christian music, in the mainstream music.

Well, maybe in the Christian as well.

Desperately trying to get the Christian band saved if we can. But yeah, I've been speaking out for Christ for a long, long time in the mainstream world. Now, let's be honest. Everybody in the mainstream world is nuts about that.

They don't necessarily love hearing about Jesus, but they have always put up with me. Some have supported me even. But I'll tell you what, the most kickback I have ever received, ever for my faith, has been on my stance on vaccine mandates and mask mandates.

It is as if I just, the unforgivable sin. And I said to my wife, I said, the amazing thing that it shows me is that it wasn't the gospel, quote, wasn't the gospel of Christ that made them really, really angry, meaning Jesus is the way, the truth, the life.

No one comes to the Father unless they come through him. And a lot of people didn't love that message, but they can deal with it. But they will not deal with you speaking out against the state. They will not deal with it.

I mean, what you're really witnessing is an actual, you've spoken against their God. You did not bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's idol of gold. And it is the one thing you're not allowed to do. It's just been really amazing to me.

So a lot of the bands, I'm just thinking of this because you're talking about bands, they just don't know what to do. And when I say they, I mean, we're in there too. We just don't know what to do because you're in an entertainment industry that is largely driven by social media and media at large.

And you're not allowed to speak anything against, I mean, you get rage against the machine telling people that if they don't get a vaccine, like rage against the machine has become the machine.

That's so ironic.

It's crazy. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm the revolutionary here.

Oh my goodness.

I'm the revolutionary and rage against the machine is just government rock now. And so I don't know. My older brother made up the term government rock, which I find pretty awesome.

I like that.

I think it's pretty great. It's a great way to scoff at someone.

Yeah.

Anyway, there you go.

No, I appreciate that. I mean, it's just, it's like we're back in the first generation of Christianity. Like, you know, we're not saying Caesar is Lord. And like you said, we're the revolutionaries because we're like, no, Jesus is Lord.

So I'm not going to about anyone else. Sorry.

It's weird, isn't it? I do think it is like a collective mind, a mind loss. And whether we get into this, you know, more or not, I eventually I have to imagine, I mean, I'm not saying, I'm not predicting the future, but I have to imagine eventually that people will get so crazy and it will get so dumb that finally everybody goes, okay, all right, we've had enough.

This is just unworkable. And that's what I mean when I say people are eating grass and staring up at the moon like Nebuchadnezzar. Eventually you're like, okay, this is crazy. Who knows if and when that'll happen, but I have to imagine in the arc of history, at some point it will happen, people will realize what's gone on and we'll write books about how dumb we were, you know?

Yeah.

No, absolutely. And, you know, this is why I'm glad I'm a post-millennialist because I can think long term. And I don't know if you happen to catch James. Dr. White just did another sweater vest dialogue with Doug Wilson and that was one of their points of conversation was, and I love what Doug said, and I've kind of been saying similar things, but it's just like right now it's like clearly our nation is under God's judgment, right?

Like there's no doubt about that. And even within the church, it's like God's blowing the chaff away within the church and revealing who the true faithful Christians are. And within history, I think you're right, like this period we're in right now will just be like a little blip, like people will look back and be like, can you believe what they did, you know?

And so like I forget the analogy Doug used, but basically he's like if you ever played like a football game or any sporting event and like the team you're playing against starts like playing against each other, like that's what we're witnessing is, you know, the team we're up against, they're starting to fight and they're going to eventually fall apart.

And I keep saying that, you know, I think we'll outlive, and our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids will outlive this nonsense because we're the ones reproducing. We're the ones, you know, that are being faithful with families and not murdering our children and adopting and stuff like that and, you know, not being homosexual.

So, you know, we'll eventually outlive this. It may take 100 years or so, but that's why it's so important to have a long-term view of history.

The Blessings of Covenant Faithfulness

Yeah, I absolutely know what you mean, and I would say, yeah. It seems to me, again, along the lines of what you're saying, that that is the rewards of, I guess you'd say the blessings of the covenant in Deuteronomy, right?

You do these things, and because you are in the flow of God's design, you're in the flow of His covenant, this is what pleases God. And when you do them, you are going to thrive. And I have to just think, yes, we have a battle plan.

It's called keeping the law of God. And if we do that, even if this period of time we're in now, even if it lasts a long time, eventually the blessings of God will be so evident in the church and in the people that the world wakes up to what is going on.

I think that's a little bit of a piece of what you're saying as well.

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that. Were you going to say something, Joy? No, you look like you were going to say something. So basically what you're saying is that you haven't deconstructed.

Yeah, no, I have definitely not deconstructed, but I'm always happy to talk about deconstruction whenever you want to.

Give me a reason.

Okay, so just staying on the music theme, so I've talked a lot about the labeled podcast on here, the history of Tooth and Nail, and that's where I heard that August Burns wrote an interview and stuff.

So I've tried really hard to get them engaged with us and people that I know in the industry that have connections and all that stuff in regards to theology and all that stuff, and it's just been crickets, and I cannot figure out what the heck is going on.

So anyways, recently the host of Labeled, he's the guitarist for the band Emory.

Oh, I didn't realize that.

Yeah, and he had the Bad Christian podcast, if you remember that. I don't think it exists anymore.

Oh, okay.

And Matt, oh, we totally lost his last name. Anyways, he recently was talking about how he deconstructed, and then I've noticed a theme lately in a lot of their episodes where they had Aaron Sprinkle on this last week, who is just a really important producer within Tooth and Nail Records and all that stuff.

Do you know who Aaron Sprinkle is?

Oh, yes, of course.

So then he's kind of saying the same things, like deconstructing and all that stuff. And so I've noticed a theme recently, and I've just been like, come on. It's just a noise the heck out of me. And they're saying stuff like, oh, it's so freeing.

I can be free and talk about these things, and I can look at the things of the Bible and appreciate the good things that Jesus said. And I'm just like, oh, my goodness gracious. You guys have just become meaningless.

Obviously they have no objective standard anymore. It's just, well, yeah, some things Jesus said were really cool and really great, and I can love people, but that stuff about homosexuality or whatever, whatever it is, whatever flavor of Jesus that they don't like, they can just say, well, I've deconstructed, so I don't need to hold to that anymore.

Well, John, I actually have a question that that kind of brings up. Probably most people who are listening right now have not lived extended periods of time on the road and then been home. So obviously your experience is not what everyone's is going to be, but what does discipleship and church attendance and stuff look like when you're out, when you're not in one place?

Sure, sure. Well, maybe I could tie, I might tie that question in a little bit with what Luke was saying.

Right.

But I want to, before I do, I should be clear that I don't know Aaron Sprinkle. I know who Aaron Sprinkle is, of course, because TVNL was so big. So I have some things to say about that, but they are not out of personal knowledge.

They are huge generalizations, except that you're saying you listen to something and you're specific. But I think last time I was on Apology Radio, I believe we talked about this, Luke, and I was saying that when I was first coming into the Christian market, that I had that experience where I met a lot of Christian rock bands, or not just, I shouldn't say Christian rock, Christian bands, contemporary rock, whatever.

And I did notice that there really wasn't, there really was not an excitement about the idea of living your faith for Christ. Maybe in theology, we might want to call that lordship, or holy living, sanctification, whatever you want to call it.

There wasn't an excitement that Jesus Christ not only saved me, but he gave me a brand new heart, and now my job is to live by his laws. That's my job. And that's not only my job, that's what I want, because the Holy Spirit has come in my heart, and the Holy Spirit not only gives me the capability to live by his laws, but it gives me a desire to love what he loves and to hate what he hates.

That was not evident in Christian music. And so as a huge generalization, as you say, what you just said about that movement of tooth and nail, that's just not surprising, because a lot of what, in general, a lot of what those bands were clearly all about, even when I met them, they were always supportive of basically moral anarchy.

They were never interested, again, it's a huge generalization.

No, I understand, yeah.

A lot of them were never interested in being, I want to live by the law of God, and that's what is good. So what you have basically are basically a lot of people who believe in God, and they believe that they need a savior, whether that is literal or not.

They need something to lift them up, you know what I mean? I need something to get me in a better place, maybe not a savior to literally atone for the sins in my life that have earned me the wrath of God.

So it's kind of like one of the reasons I think the church is here, as you just said, the football team that's fighting itself right now, which is, it's amazing to me to see so many Christians on the wrong side of what is happening in our earth right now, to see Christians actively promoting church closures because of COVID, actively promoting segregation in churches for whoever has a vaccine.

What's wrong with these people? Christians actively promoting rioting, actively promoting burning things down because the Rittenhouse trial doesn't go the way they want it. As you see this happening, I think what is really bringing up is this distinction of who believes in the law of God and who just believes in general that God is real.

Because those are two different things, man. So I think that that's important. And when I look at Skillet, to go to the question that Joy was asking, I think that what Skillet has had that is really, truly wonderful and that I try to talk about all the time is that Skillet is a part of a church, like a local expression of the body of Christ that we call a church, if that's the right word.

And I have leaders in my life. I have spiritual authority in my life. And I have elders and pastors and brothers and sisters. And we're not just an island going to do our own thing.

Right.

Spreading, what's the word? Spreading positivity. I put that in air quotes. Not just spreading a positive message about a God who loves people. It's more than a positive message. It's the truth of Christ.

Yes, who loves people and wants to redeem you. That you would repent and be born again. So I think that that is big. What church looks like for Skillet on the road, I will say when we're on the road, it is not like every Sunday we go to a church.

When we first started touring, we would go to a church on the road because it felt like the right thing to do. But it just didn't work for lots of reasons, which I won't say. So we did begin sometimes having our own church, if you will.

We would sing songs together, especially when my kids were little. We'd worship together and we would talk about Scripture or this and the other. Now it's more of an issue of we can, because of the Internet, we can watch, I can watch my own church online if I want to.

So we didn't have that sort of streaming available all those years ago, but now we do. And so now there's so much great information, teaching, theology. My own church will stream online. We can do worship together as a family or as a band online.

Things like that. But I think one of the things that Skillet had going for us different was that we had a passion. We had a passion not just for Christ, but for his people, for his kingdom, which is actually a really big deal.

And I think a lot of bands don't have that sort of understanding of the Scriptures, or maybe they don't care, or maybe they never had anybody teach that, or they've never experienced the life of the church, so they don't know what they're missing.

No Neutral Ground in the Entertainment World

Yeah.

You want to follow up? I think, I imagine, and I'm just thinking about this right now as we're talking about it, I imagine a lot of these bands that we're talking about that meet in a youth group or just their young kids growing up in a Christian home.

I grew up in the church or whatever, and they form a band and stuff. I mean, obviously God's sovereign and saves those he wants to save and everything, but I imagine a lot of these bands, I hadn't even thought about that, so I'm glad you asked that question, Joy.

They start going on the road, they start touring, they get away from their families, they get away from the church and accountability, and then next thing you know they're abandoning Christ.

Well, and there's such a guilt in culture already in the entertainment industry, and it's not a culture where you're going to be discipled or you're going to have any authority. You're going to be taught in authority, and it's not going to be God.

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's difficult.

That's actually a really great point that you just made. I think that people like the reform folks tend to get this, in my view, better than other Christians of other tribes or whatever you want to call it.

The reform people understand this myth of neutrality much better than other streams. I think in certain other streams, there can be the notion that there are neutral areas. Maybe the music business is just a neutral area, and you can use it for good, or you can use it for bad, or you can just kind of do your thing, and Christ doesn't have to come into that specific area.

The reform folks know that there is no such thing as a neutral area. Everything belongs to Christ, and anything not surrendered to Christ, of course, is going to be chaos. As you know, Luke, you did a sermon on that.

Christ or chaos. The reform people get that so well. What happens is that a lot of Christian musicians go out into the music industry, and they're basically like, oh, it's a neutral area. What they do not understand is that the entertainment world is absolutely under the lordship of chaos from the world's point of view.

It is actively warring, actively warring against everything that Christ stands for. It is moral anarchy. That side is of the belief, much like the sexual revolution of the 60s. It's of the belief of the only reason that we're not happy is because Christianity or other forces want to keep us chained up in this repression of our sexuality, and that's the reason that we don't have freedom.

If we had utter freedom, if we could throw the shackles off of all sexuality and just live as sexual animals, then that would actually make us really happy. They not only believe that, they praise it.

They praise chaos, that radical revolution. The whole industry is governed by that. I think Christians are naive to think, well, maybe just because I have the brand Christian band or even Christian music industry, that those aspects are going to be not at play, and that is naivety.

It is absolute naivety and a misunderstanding. I think of scripture and the war at hand, so that's a really good point that was made.

I appreciate that a ton. I just saw a couple questions pop up for you in our live chat. I'm going to tell you right now, you don't have to answer these. You can laugh at the first one I'm going to read to you because it's hilarious.

Someone is asking about your Illuminati symbols all over your albums or something.

Yeah, I've had people ask. The only reason I know what Illuminati is is because people will be. Like, why do you have Illuminati symbols?

Well, now, John, that sounds like something someone in the Illuminati would say.

It does, doesn't it? It's the same with QAnon. Whenever I make a stance about something political, I'm accused of being QAnon. In fact, when I said that I wouldn't play any concerts that were vaccine-only, people on my fans on the left were like, I knew you were QAnon.

Now I've got to look up another thing. Anyway, here's what I would say. I find this so frustrating, obviously. I love the fact that Christians care. I love the fact that Christians care about what's going on and care about righteousness.

Let's talk about ethics that glorify God. Let's talk about His law. I love that they care. But, man, people get legalistic in the weirdest stuff. They get legalistic about a triangle on a record. I've heard people say, if you look on this album cover, there's a triangle.

And I look at them like, hey, that's not even a triangle. It's a three-side. But even if it did, it's a triangle. But they get legalistic about the weirdest stuff. So I never spend any time defending it.

I never defend myself. I never say, no, it's not. It's this and this and this. I just let those people go about their business. I kind of view them like Jesus viewed. Remember when the disciples were like, Jesus, that other guy is baptizing people over there.

And Jesus is like, eh, let them do their own thing. That's how I view it. If you think Skillet's Illuminati, don't listen. You're missing out on really good music, and it would really pump you up. But feel free to not listen.

I'm laughing because we, I know you can't see us, but we have our radio logo behind us that has a trisetra in it. And literally every show we do, someone's like, why do you have pagan symbols? And it's just, no matter how many times we say it's not a pagan symbol and explain it, they don't want to hear it.

So I was laughing when I saw that. But the next question, and I can answer this for you if you want, because I know we've been talking about this. But someone right after that said, I heard John was part of the Seven Mountain Mandate.

A seven, oh, oh, oh.

Remember, because it's like the post-millennialism. Remember, you had asked me about this a couple weeks ago, and so I was explaining to you the difference between this, kind of the apostolic Seven Mountain thing and the difference between that and post-millennialism.

I don't think that was me.

It wasn't you?

I don't, was that me getting you that? I may have. I can't, I don't remember calling it Seven Mountain because I don't quite know what that refers to.

There's another name that goes by, which I'm completely blanking on right now. I'll go ahead and answer this for you. So, no, John does not believe in the Seven Mountain Mandate. He's a post-millennialist.

So the difference between the two is essentially, so Seven Mountain thing comes a lot from Bethel, Reading, and stuff. And the idea is that there's seven mountains within culture that we have to overcome, that we have to take dominion over in the name of Christ, and then his kingdom will be ushered in.

That's kind of the idea of what that is. And it's literally the reverse of post-millennialism because we're saying, no, Christ's kingdom is already here, Christ is ruling and reigning, and Christ's kingdom will eventually take over everything, and Christ will return when everything's put under his feet, the last being death.

So it's literally the reverse of that, but we often get criticized saying that that's what we're teaching, because they're similar, but reversed in similar ways, you know what I mean?

But both have to do with the kingdom of God on Earth, and both have to do with every dominion belonging to Christ, so I can't even answer that because I'm not really aware of it. So whoever said that, I'm not saying they're lying.