#99: John Cooper: Awake & Alive
John Cooper is the lead vocalist, bassist and songwriter/producer for Skillet, one of the best-selling rock bands of the 21st century. The two-time GRAMMY Award-nominated 12x platinum band was recently invited into Pandora’s Billionaire club after garnering 2 billion streams, received a pair of GRAMMY Award nods, sold over 12 million albums worldwide.
In our conversation, we talk about what it means to put down the distractions of the world and pick up the life that God has called you to. This is a pastoral, challenging, and fun conversation!
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EP. 99 John Cooper
Tony: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Reclamation Podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. I'm your host. My name is Tony, and today is episode 99. I can hardly believe it. Episode 99 of the podcast. And I get to sit down with lead singer, pastor and voice of truth.
John Cooper, John shares his story. About wrestling with the truth. What does it look like in today's culture? He talks about his new book and I think you're going to find that John's got this incredible pastor's heart that I absolutely love. We had great conversations on and off the recording as always.
I want to ask you do me a favor, hit that subscribe button right now. Go ahead and subscribe to this episode. So you don't miss any future episodes and get ready. Get ready next week, episode 100. So excited to celebrate with you. Follow me on Instagram at TW Milt. We're going to be sharing some of the things that God is doing through this podcast on that platform as well.
And leave us a rating or review on iTunes. And don't forget as always the best compliment you can give us, share this episode with a friend. So now that any further ado, here's my conversation with John Cooper. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited today to have John Cooper with us. If you're familiar with John, he is known as the lead singer of skillet, amongst many other things, entrepreneur writer really kind of an, an Instagram evangelist and pastor John, how are you?
John: My friend, how's it going today? I'm doing good.
Tony: You're doing really well here. It's a, it's a cold day in Ohio, but you're in Wisconsin. Right? And it's gotta be even colder up there.
John: It's... I'm not going to lie. It's pretty cold today. It finally hit about two weeks ago, cold snowy. You know, what are you going to do?
Tony: As someone who's traveled all over the world, how do you end up in Wisconsin?
John: My wife is from here. So I, I sort of married. It was cause I'm I'm from Memphis. And I never, ever had even seen or, I mean, I've seen snow in movies. I had seen snow, but I'd never seen like, Snow. And so my wife were kind of dating, you know, I mean, we're come up here and I was like, what is up?
I met for Legos watching some crazy Antarctica film it snows up here, but anyway, it's so cold, but I have, we have a church here that I love. My wife's dad pastors, a church He's sort of half retired now, but the, they planted a church here when my wife was a young kid and for 25, 30 years. And so you know, we moved up here to be a part of the church.
I love it here. Very unusual place to being abandoned from like, are you in Nashville? I'm like, no, I'm in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Where did the notion? But you know, it's important because You know, not to get off on a tangent, which is not what we're talking about, but a lot of people they notice within Christian music, it does seem that there are a lot of bands or worship artists or whoever that don't necessarily seem to have a robust faith, a robust understanding of scriptures.
Sometimes, you know, they end up going off the rails and I've always said that a lot of Christian musicians don't have a church that they just they're just like itinerant. They go and they perform everywhere and they don't have. They don't have the body of Christ. And I think it's such a tragic thing. So for me, it was not to be, I'm not trying to go off on other people, by the way.
I didn't mean it that way, but I just mean for me, it was, Hey, it's a sacrifice to live up in Kenosha, but I'm where God has me with the people of God prayer and feeding me and they send us out to do the work of evangelism. That's how I say it anyway.
Tony: I love that. I think it's I think it's a good reminder about, you know, the kind of the foundation, which we stand on the saints that have led us and have gone before us.
It's actually a really good way. You've got this new book out and I love to read dedications. And, and you dedicated this book to your mom, Deborah Cooper. I, I'm curious if you can tell me about your family life growing off. Growing up your, your faith life and what will that look like and how, what, what made you dedicate the book to your mom?
John: Sure, sure. Yeah. My mom was a fanatical Jesus freak. Okay. Fanatical Jesus freak. I tell people I got to where I hated going to the grocery store with my mom, because she would go preach to random strangers. Let's go, you know, Hey, I just got to run in and grab some chicken. I'm like, I know what that means.
That means we're laying hands on somebody in the frozen food section. I know what that means, mom. And next thing you know, she comes to a stranger. I'm sorry. Is there something I can pray for you about. Oh my gosh. But anyway, so I say it in the, in the best way possible I'm of course I'm kind of joking, but my mom loved God.
I can not remember a time. Literally when my mom was not, we were, let me say this. I can not remember a day that we did not start by reading scripture and memorizing scripture. I had an older brother four years older than me, and it was just the thing that my mom did before school. She would sit us down and she would read scripture.
So my brother was, you know, five, six years old and I was one, two years old. So that's, that's what I remember. That's what life was. So. I had a very deep for a kid, a deep understanding that all of this world, everything around all of this, this snow, even, even the snow created by God, for God and through Jesus Christ and it's for his glory.
That was just the understanding that I had ever since I was a kid. And so I dedicated this book to my mom because I it's hard for me to know where I would be without that teaching is I gave my life to Christ as a kid, and I don't remember ever not believing in God, you know? And so that's kind of the short version.
I dedicated the book to her because of that. And also, I like to always use that opportunity for anybody listening. I don't know exactly the demographic, if people are married or if they're looking to get married or they're hoping to be married. That, what you do in your family matters that God's first sphere of government is the family.
And that is your job as a husband, as a, a parent, as, as a wife, as a mom, as a dad, that's your job to train your child in the fear and admonition of the Lord. And I'm a product of that. So. Partly why I dedicated to my mom. Oh no. I,
Tony: I think that that's a really good spot to lean into. I'm curious, you have two kids of your own now, right?
I'm really curious about some of the things that your family might do. I mean, how much of, I mean, Are they like a dad we're going to their grocery store. We're going to lay hands on people where, I mean, well, like where, where did you land on all that? How does that I, I love the idea of generational disciple-making well, your mom kind of poured into you and how are you then doing that with your kids?
John: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, if I could go back and do it all over again, I would do it even more. But I am so thankful to God. We are walking in the blessings of that obedience. My kids are 1815. My kids love God. My kids are, are sold out in their faith to Christ and have been since they were children.
But I would go back to younger John and say, no, don't younger, John, you don't understand how important this is, but we did begin early on when my daughter was three, four years old. We began worshiping at home a few times a week every morning, I would say, okay, It's time for us to worship together as a family.
And we would turn on some sort of worship song or whatever, or we would sing together. Well, we would always seen together, but I would always teach my kids. You know When we worship God, we don't mess around. We don't play. We don't, we don't get crayons out. We don't color. You know, we don't joke. We get serious to give God his due time.
And during that time, we, we thank him for who he is. And I would begin to teach my kids how to pray. Or if we singing a song, I hope this is encouraging to people singing a worship song together. Like There's a really old worship song that some people may know. You guys remember a G SIADH or you it's really old lady.
My life be for you. It's a really old one that I sang as a kid, so was singing it with my kids. And then I would say, I remember saying to my daughter, this is going to sound silly to some people, but I hope it helps. She was four. And I remember saying to my daughter, do you know what it means to adore Jesus?
And she's like, no. And I said, let me tell you what the word adore means. And I explained to her how, when she goes asleep at night, she needs to know where all of her care bears are. Right. Yeah. She needs to know where those care bears, because she felt like she was the mom of those little care bears, you know?
And she looked out for them. She loved them. And I said, that's what it means to adore somebody. You adore the way, who they are. You adore that care bear and this, that, and the other. And I remember teaching her when she was four. I said, it might sound silly, but you're supposed to adore Christ. More than you adore care bears.
And if you don't that's okay. But you can ask God to help you learn to love him more than you adore those care bears. And I remember by the time she was five years old, we were in a church meeting with, with other people. And some people are praying out. And my daughter, I remember my daughter saying, Jesus, I love you more than care bears.
And you know what, as silly as that sounds, I'm about to lay something on. So people here, I've never said this in an interview, by the way, ever, I've done a thousand interviews. We did our talks about this war, as silly as that sounds. If we could raise a generation of people who love Jesus more than fill in the blank, come on football more than.
Sex ed or even good things like. Family. You know what I'm saying? Loving Christ more than you love your wife. That's the way it's supposed to be loving Christ more than you than you care about your job. Fill in the blank. It has to be Christ at the top. So it might sound silly, but if our deepest affections could be beginning with Lord Jesus Christ and everything else under that, that'd be pretty cool.
So I don't know why I've never talked about that in an interview, but you got me started. So that's what we try to do.
Tony: I think that's well, listen, I I'm I'm I get to serve as a pastor of a church and sometimes I wonder if me being a pastor is not an idol in my life.
John: Hmm. Right. Like can be right.
Tony: Even the work of the righteous can become an idol.
Right. It's true. I have long believed that when the Israelites built that golden calf, it wasn't, it wasn't out to spite God it's because they couldn't see God. Right, right. It wasn't like, they were like, Oh, we need to do something to get back at God. And I don't think most idols. You know, work like that in our lives instead.
It's more like, man, we just, it's a one degree shift of, I took my eyes off Jesus a little bit more today. Took my eyes off Jesus. So, I mean, maybe that's the, maybe that's the prayer from your. You know, out of the mouth of babes, as they say.
John: Well, you know what? I, a hundred percent agree with you. In fact it's actually a good time to plug my book because I wrote a book called awake and alive to truth.
By the way, you can only get it on my website, John L cooper.com, but there's a chapter in my book called tear down your idols. And it's about that very thing. And I, and I, I talk about what exactly what you just said, which I think. I think is actually really deep wisdom, which is that even good things that God has given you that are good when you love them too much.
That's when it takes that number one place and even good things like your kids or your, your flock, you know, even your calling, God gave it to you, but it's for his glory, it has to say in its space. And I like, I love what you said because when I read the old Testament, Certainly there are times when the people of God just turned their back on jobs, but there were many times when really they were just adding, they're adding bail worship into that.
They weren't saying we want nothing to do with God anymore. They're like, Hey, we're. This is going to be great. Let's do this. Let's take everybody's gold and let's just build this. And then when, when Moses comes down, when I look what we did, this is so cool. I think they really just did it. They didn't get it.
And, and they were adding things to your faith. And do we not all do that? So it's I think you're right. I think it's a really, for me, it a really an encouraging thing for me to say, okay, I need to walk deeper in my faith in Christ today. By beginning each day. By saying no other gods before you, right?
No other gods before you. I love that.
Tony: Let's get super nitty gritty, cause I love to get practical about this stuff and nitty gritty.
What are some of the things that you do to, to make sure that you keep God in the right place? Right? Because I mean, like. The further you progress in your career, no matter who you are, like there are more opportunities to get distracted by a lot of things.
John: Yes.
Tony: How do you avoid the distraction and stay, stay dedicated to keeping Jesus as Lord in your life? Like what are the daily practices?
John: Fantastic question. I CA I can not encourage people enough. And I know, you know, we're all looking for it. It's like having some kind of health, health guru and saying, what can we do to get in shape?
And they're like stopping sugar.
Tony: What's the plan B?
John: Is there a pill my hands three times and spin in circles and drop pounds. The truth is this man. I really, I believe it more. I'm 45. I said it, I believe this more at 45 than I did at 44 and a heck of a lot more than I believe that at 24, amen. Young people, you got to hear us.
If you are not reading the word of God, if you're not reading the word of God, you are going to drift. Even if you love Jesus. And I know this from experience because. I could be somebody that could go. For a while without reading the Bible a really good, I can be somebody that just on my excitement alone, because I get excited about Jesus.
I get excited about praying. I get excited about the Holy spirit. I get excited about all of that, and I love evangelism. And I always feel like talking about God, but if you get away from the written word of God, Without knowing it, you, you won't hate the flesh as much as you ought because you're not being reminded of what the flesh is.
And, and, and, and your flesh begins to deceive you into thinking that God does it hate wickedness as much as he actually does because your flesh does not want you to succeed. Right? This is what I've found in my life. If I start the day. Reading the word of God. It reminds me how, unlike Christ I can be. I just read it because it's Valentine's day.
So I was reading a little thing for my podcast and I was reading the love chapter. Love is patient love is kind, and as I'm reading it, I'm like, man, I've been recreated by the spirit of God. And I don't live like that. I don't love like that. I mean, I want what's mine. I want mine. I want somebody to serve me.
And, and so I just encourage Christians begin to love the words of God and you will see I'm not living like that. So in theology, You know, you read all those great Puritans and people, they always call it, you know, mortification of the flesh. It's putting to death, the deeds of the flesh, putting to death.
The fact that I want my wife to serve me today, I don't feel like serving my wife today. Can I be honest? I want her to look out for me, but God's way says no, I, I am supposed to live a life of serving her at ain't easy. And a lot of Christians don't know, you can't even do that. Without the spirit of God, the spirit of God, you can't actually love, Oh, that's deep theology right there, but it's true.
So that's what I would encourage people to do.
Tony: Well, and if you go back to that first Corinthians verse chapter, you're talking about chapter 13, but if you look at 12, it says, I'll show you the most excellent way. And it's actually like, that's, he's telling you how to lead, how to lead other people, how to, how to, how to.
Lead others. And it's such an important idea that, that sometimes we, I think we just sell short, but I had a mentor for a long time used to say I'm 24 hours away from making a bad decision that will ruin my life. And that's why scripture is so important in every day,
John: I love that. 24 hours a day..
That's my second quote of the day you give me, I love it. I'm going to use that 24 hours away from making a bad decision. You know, I think. I think that is something that you realize, the older you get as well, you know? And I think it's good for, for older people to tell younger people that, because I think that younger people, I know I was like this when I was young, I was on fire for Jesus, loved the scriptures.
Love my God. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Nothing can get me down. I'm more than a conquer. And all of that is true by the way the Bible says all those things. Right. But I do think that we are more, as we get older, we're more apt to see the other things in scripture that, that give us an idea of.
Yes, you are more than a conqueror and tries, but you need a daily dispensing of the grace of God in order for you to be that person, because it is not you this more than a conqueror, it's actually Christ in you. That is that conqueror. So if you try to conquer in your flesh, you're going to have bad results.
But when you conquer in your spirit, meaning when I am weak. He is, he is made strong. It's that twist that I think younger people aren't as apt to see in the scriptures. I was the same way. Sure. But it's good for people like your, your mentor, as you said to remind people. And again, I, I love I'm a huge fan of the Puritans.
The Puritans are the very best when it comes to realizing how bad your flesh is and how, how, you know, it's easy to point the finger at people that are sending that, that do major sins, people that. Cheat on their spouses. All right. It's easy to go. I would never do that. The older you get you go, Oh Lord, please help me never to do that.
Right.
Tony: So I get to pastor a, I'm a Methodist church. And so Wesley was real big on this idea too. Very similar. And we talk about band meetings all the times. And so like, I meet with a group of guys. We get together. We're banded. Yeah. And we confess our sins to each other. Right. And that's a practice, right.
Bands. We call it in the Methodist tradition, they call it banding. Right. And so that's the only way that I get to say I'm in a band, by the way.
So in, in my band, like we get together and all we do is confess sin for the sake of Of repentance, you know, and, and, and it's, I think, I think we've underestimated the power of, of repenting and turning away from sin.
And I think it's, it's a big part of the Christian walk that oftentimes doesn't get shared because people are a little scared of it.
John: That's powerful. I really agree with that. And I think there are several I'll add to it. I agree with that a hundred percent and adding to it, it's almost like we're really missing a lot, a lot of the pie.
Okay. There's the pie, you know, you see the pie chart with all the slices and I do think confession is a, is a big part of that. And Another part of that is a lot of people don't confess for multiple reasons. One is that they're scared, as you said, I'm embarrassed. I mean, I get that. Another part of reason people don't confess is because they don't know how much God hates sin.
It's almost like I know that God's not into it, but. You know, that that comes. I also think from not really reading the scriptures often enough, and the more you read scriptures, the more you go, Oh, wow. You know, the wrath of God is mentioned 500 times in the old Testament. And the wrath of God is, is a big deal.
You know, God. I think it's Charles Hodge, the theologian Charles Hodge, that when he talks about God's holiness, there's the aspect of God's holiness. That means that that nothing can be in his presence. That is not Holy, because it would defile him. It just, you can't even come into the presence. Right. And Charles Hodge calls that.
The awful majestic holiness of God. That was good. The awful majestic holiness of God. That's the reason that in order for us to come into the presence of God, we have to have the very holiness of God. Which is powerful scripture, right? Powerful theology. But because of that, I think that we don't know how much God hates sin.
So because of that, we go, Hey, I don't really want to confess because it's embarrassing. And plus everybody does it and plus this. And so I think we need a re a robust teaching of the holiness of God. We need a robust teaching of the fact that. The Holy spirit has broken the power of sin over your life.
That's what Jesus' death did.
Tony: John. I'm about to, we're about to start a revival right here. I can feel it.
John: Let's go. And yeah. So I do think that Christians I think at large, we forget that, yes, we still have to walk in this. Suit of flesh, right? It's sack of flesh, but the power of sin is broken through Christ on the cross.
That means that we actually can walk in freedom. Christ has set us free. So why, you know, we don't go back to a yoke of slavery. The Bible says those things together, and then you bring confession in with it. There's a reason to confess. If you don't aim on stopping what you're doing, you know what I mean?
If you're kind of like, yeah, it's not a big deal. You put all those things together. And that's when we see a revival in your band, as you just said, that's when you see a revival in your band that says, Hey, we actually believe that we have been set free in reality. So now our lives need, we need to live a lot of physical life.
That is consistent with the spiritual reality. Maybe that's a good way to say it.
Tony: Yeah. I, I think that there's so much goodness there and one of the things I appreciate about this work that you've. You've now got before us in this is about wrestling with the truth and all of this. Like you're given us a lot of truth.
And one of the quotes that I really loved is in chapter two, it says, why does the truth seem to change every day? Can you, can you kind of give some context to that and, and why, why does it seem like people are wrestling with the truth? You know my version of the truth or your version of the truth now more than ever before.
John: This is really, really important.
And, and again, if people are listening that are 16, 18, 20, 22, 23. You might not know how much the world shifted in 2010, 11, 12, 13, because of your age for, for half your life, you've grown up with it and it might seem, you might notice that things were crazy, but you need to understand it. Didn't use to be this weird.
Okay. It didn't used to be this weird. And here's why, I mean, for centuries, literally centuries. There's been a sort of, I would say, agreed on worldview are in that doesn't mean that everyone was Christian, but it means that people, people believed that there was such a thing as absolute truth. And that reality was what we see.
And so even psychology and science used to be bait. We're getting into philosophy a little bit, but, but stick with me. Cause it guys, cause this is it's important. Even psychology. Which now has become so metaphysical. And so, so again, there is no objective truth in psychology really anymore, but psychology and science used to be given to this that we know there is a reality.
For instance, we know that the sun rises every day. We can see it. We all know that. So science would aim to find out why, what is behind it? What is true behind the very things that we see in reality and. That is all based on, on an assumption of presupposition, that there is a reality and there is a truth.
We just don't know if we'll ever be able to dig to the bottom of it. No one knows the secrets to all the universe, but we discover things in physics. We discover things in science and it begins to make sense. Psychology used to say this. There is a reality that we all can see. And so in psychology, you need to get your brain.
To line up to what we know is true in reality, that is all changed now because we don't believe in absolute truth. And that really began to change. And in the 1960s with the, the, really the, the popularity of the postmodern worldview, which says that there isn't. An absolute truth. There isn't an objective truth.
There's versions of truth. There's versions of reality. And so we can't get to the bottom of reality because there's not one reality. So that has shifted in such a drastic formation that, that even psychology. For instance, now we, they don't look at reality and try to line your brain up to it. They say, well, whatever you believe in your brain, Is true is actually true.
And what that leads to is what, what we would just call a relative, a relativistic worldview, which means I have my truth. You have your truth. He, she has her truth and there's nothing that we can build our lives upon. That is why everything in this world is right now is so. Toss to and fro every single day everybody's going, Whoa, what is true?
What could I possibly believe? Here's the scariest thing. Yeah, here's the scariest thing that worldview. I don't understand how that worldview, which is obviously against the Bible, right? If there's no objective truth and how do you know there's God, there's no Christianity without objective truth, that worldview has seeped in to Christianity.
And that is what has led to what I call Christian deconstructionism or Christian postmodern worldview, relativistic Christianity, progressive Christianity, whatever you want to call it. All those things basically have made up a new Christianity that says, Oh, I believe in Jesus. I just think that I believe in a different Jesus than, than your Jesus.
Which is a pro it's a problem.
Tony: Yeah, because what ends up happening is we end up remaking Jesus in our own image rather than the letting Jesus remake us in his. Right. And again, because there's no, there's no target. It with no absolute truth. There's no target and with no target, how could we ever be, be sanctified, right?
Like in the effort of trying to follow, I mean, how do we follow something that we decide is going to be arbitrary to our whims and desires?
John: 100%. I mean, that's, this is actually why I even wrote this book. It's why I even started doing my Cooper sub podcast. Because when I started noticing all this stuff happened, I was like, w w wait a minute.
What are you talking about? I was hearing Christian say things like. Oh, no, I've really loved Jesus. I just don't think that the Bible is actually true, but I believe in the principles, they were acting as if they were Christian, but they didn't believe in the Bible or they would say no, no, I do believe that Jesus died, but I don't necessarily believe that he was literally.
God incarnate. I just believe it was symbolic. I was hearing all these weird things and I was like, Whoa, I've never even heard that. That's not what it means to love Jesus. And so once I started looking into it, as you just said, all that you're doing is creating an idol. You're creating a new Jesus. That is inconsistent with the Jesus of the Bible.
And so that's what I wrote about it in my book was that it actually makes more sense to just not believe in Christ, but to say that I believe in Jesus, but he is divorced from all of his words that makes him out to be a total madman. I mean, right. You're, you're killing a guy that went around saying that he is one with the father.
God. Who wants to, who wants to follow someone like that? If he's lying right from right. It's pretty weird stuff. It's like, it's like, Oh, I've got this friend. He's totally awesome. I mean, my friend, Joe he loves sinners and he feeds the poor and he comes up. He talks about being God a lot, which is very strange.
But beyond that, I love it when he babysits my kids. You ain't going to leave your kids with that babysitter, man. That's a weirdo. Unless what he's saying is true. And that's what defines Jesus as the Christ. Otherwise he's just a weird guy saying a bunch of some good things and some weird things. So that's actually, why, why, why?
I even wrote the book? That's what started this whole journey of mine. Yeah.
Tony: I'm, I'm always curious on how people hear from God on stuff like this. What's the journey from a musician to apologist, you know, like how do you get to a place where you're like, you know, I'm going to write about, I mean, this is not this is not very easy stuff for a lot of the world to take in.
Hmm especially in, as you, as you aptly pointed out that the post-Christian culture that we're heading towards and relativism and all of those kinds of things, how did God lay this on your heart? And how did you say, man, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to write this down. How, how did you get to that place?
John: This is really interesting. I mean, I guess the first part, I would say this it's so important. People need to understand. We really are. I'm not going to get into eschatology. I'm not even qualified to do it. So I don't mean this in, in whatever apocalyptic sense. It could sound as if it means. Yeah, but we are in a falling away from the faith time, like an apostasy type situation.
And I don't even mean that in terms of eschatology. I just mean. I've never seen this before in my lifetime. I've never seen when the large, large chunks of people who say they follow Christ are saying the most heretical things that are not in line with traditional Christianity. They are, they are new religions.
They are new forms. And break offs of Christianity. All right. I've never seen it in my lifetime. And a lot of well-meaning people who I do believe are born again, are being swept away with it. They don't understand the biblical doctrine. Right. And so the reason I started doing this, you will, I mean, I, I am taking the risk doing it, but it's actually in line with the reason I even started skillet.
I started skillet. Because I wanted to tell people the great news of Christ and for the first 13 years, 14 years. I did that, but I never ventured into culture. Meaning I never talked about politics. I never talked about what someone else said on Twitter or what some theologian said that I disagree with.
I'm like, no, it's not about that. It's just about the gospel. It's about Jesus loves you. He died for you. Repent be born again. That's all I got to focus on. The reason I started being soft-spoken with these things is because now. I don't want to say that the gospel isn't enough, the gospel is always enough.
Amen. The problem is, is that the gospel. Is not defined in a ubiquitous way anymore. So when I say the gospel is enough somebody else says you're right. The gospel is enough. I don't believe that Jesus, his words are true, but the cost was enough. So I'm like, all right, wait a minute, wait a minute. The Constable is enough.
You're not defining it correctly. And so all of a sudden I'm going, man. If I'm going to talk about the fact that, that Jesus loves people and wants to see them saved and born again and recreated, then a half to get into these things and culture because people are being swept away by lies and they're lying to themselves.
They think they follow Christ when they're really following an imposter and it's scary and it's dangerous.
Tony: Yeah. I mean, ultimately what you're really talking about here is spiritual warfare, right? You you've entered into the, the spiritual warfare kind of part of this equation. And one of the things I know to be true is that the moment that we step out in faith on something.
Which could feel risky to a large part of the population. The enemy is going to attack us. How has it been for you in this journey? What's what's the spiritual warfare battle been like for you? What have you noticed about yourself? What has God taught you in this process?
John: Sure. Awesome question. Thank you.
I would say. First, I want to, I want to be honest about that. I'm just going to be dead honest. Haven't thought this through because no one's asked me. But dead honest. The truth is this I've had an an amazing career. I never dreamt in a million years. Okay. And not in a million years that we would be this successful.
Sure. So I want to say from the start I'm going to give you, give you both sides. I am risking a lot by doing this, but I want to say. It's not like I'm risking that much. I've had an incredible career. If it all goes away tomorrow, I'm sold 12 million records is I'm not destitute. Sure. I'm not suffering in communist, China and prison for my faith, you know?
I'm in America and I've been successful. And so I, I want to admit both sides of it. I don't actually feel like I'm risking that much. I am risking my career, but, and that's fine with me. I'm willing for the career to go in order to see God glorified and to save a few. I don't mind the career going if it happens, but I do have considerations.
I have 12 employees. And so my decisions affect all of my employees, you know, since I know somebody's like, Oh wow, John's saying some, some crazy stuff. What happens if I ruin my friends' careers too? That's a real possibility. So that weighs on me as well. And luckily I have a band who loves Jesus and my band is behind me.
They repost the crazy stuff. I say, it's not actually crazy, but the, the, the challenging things I say, they repost it. They love it. And they're saying, Hey, you know, if it means our career, it means our career. And I'm very thankful for that. I will tell you what's the hardest about it, to be honest, is that I've lost friends.
That is what I didn't expect now. I, I expect that I could lose. Non-Christian friends. Sure. But the truth is, is I really haven't lost many non-Christian friends. I've lost Christian friends. This is what's so bizarre to me is a lot of my non-Christian friends have heard what I've said and I think they've been like, okay, I don't quite get what you're talking about.
Even for some of them that might even seem academic. Almost like you're talking about things that may be, I don't either understand or care about. They don't understand about critical race theory. They don't, they don't or, or what have post-modernism they're like, I don't really know what you mean. Don't care.
John's into Jesus. It's kind of weird, but he's cool. My Christian friends are either like loving it or some of them that I've known for 20, 25 years have just been like John you're so hateful. You're, you're evil. You've you're, you know, you're this and this and this and you're bigoted and blah, blah, blah.
And, and I cannot believe the amount of Christian friends I've lost because of statements I've made. That I think are very strong on, on, on pro-life or fill in the blank. And I'm just like, what are you talking about? And, and that has been heartbreaking because they were people. I thought that we would be running to the finish line, you know, running to the finish line together for the gospel to, to, to win the prize, right.
When the prize together. And they're just like out of the race. It just really it's depressing. So anyway, that's my honest answer. Oh, no,
Tony: I, I really appreciate the honesty there and the, and the vulnerability and I, and the courage to, I mean, you have a platform, right? And I think there are two general thoughts.
When you have a platform, you can either protect it or you can take it out for a spin. And I love the fact that you're, you've taken your platform out for a spin and your people are like, go get a John we're behind ya. You know? And that's, that's I mean, that's my prayer for you know, all the people who identify as Christians and mean, ultimately what we're talking about here is Orthodox Christianity.
Yeah, it's not, it's just not, it's not new Christianity. It's it's this is the nice increase. This is the, this, the, the, the creedal theology that, that much of Christian the entity was based on.
John: Absolutely. In the, I mean, 10 years, 11, 12 years ago, there was incredible agreement on most of those. The things, you know, I mean, we may disagree about tertiary issues or, but.
Tony: Nobody was changing them. Nobody was changing the pronouns for God.
John: Absolutely. A 100, I mean, right. We've gotten, it's such a weird place. Here's what happens? You just, you just, you just want one-uped me, that was the perfect way to say it. Here's the thing. If people can see us, I was thinking about like this here's here's the ball.
Of Orthodox Christianity and people are going outside of that, the ball and saying crazy things. And then people like us are within the ball going, Hey, that's wrong? And then these people are accusing us in the ball of being divisive. And I'm like, what? You're the one saying weird stuff. All I'm saying is nothing new.
This is just, as you said, these are the creeds. This is the stuff that we've all agreed on for, for a few hundred years now. What are you saying? They're saying the weird stuff, but we're the ones being called divisive. It's a very strange place to be. I, I really do believe there's persecution coming in the church, but I gotta tell ya.
I think. It's the first time I've said, well, I've, I've hinted at it. I'm going to say it on my podcast too. But I actually think that much of the persecution is going to come from those people going outside of Orthodox Christianity a hundred percent. I don't even think it's going to be from the world.
It's going to be from those people that now, because...
Tony: The world doesn't really care, right? Like you said earlier, right. The world doesn't really care what Christians do. Cause they've already kind of put us in that crazy camp anyway. Yes. And so like, Hey, you just, Hey, you know what, John, just go be crazy over there.
Follow your little Jesus. And, and the the people who are outside of Christianity are okay with that. The people inside of Christianity are the ones that really struggling. And my denomination Methodism, this is the crux of the issue when it comes to like the church is going to split in the next two years because we can't agree on.
What used to be considered basic Christian doctrine. Wow. Wow. And so it's, it's a, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking. Right. And, and because more than anything, what I think. I think most of us can agree on is that we just want to follow Jesus the best way possible. And I think that means sticking with what's worked for the last several hundred years.
John: Yeah, it really is. Some people listening might not know that is not an exaggeration.
Tony: I mean, I know it feels a little, it feels a little spicy. Like we're breaking some sort of like, like, like we're calling out, but it's just like, Hey, you know, there's all these creeds, there's all this scripture. There's all these theologians who have stood the test of time.
And man, I want to historic faith a lot more than I want to cultural faith.
John: Yeah. I think that you said it. I do agree with you a hundred percent. I think that. There are a lot of Christian leaders, pastors influencers going outside of orthodoxy. And I think I would try to be as charitable as I can be. Yeah.
I think that some of them may have, I think they may have good intentions. I think there might go, Hey, we're going to show the world that we love them by having peace. But I think that it's a misunderstanding of the gospel, that the world is not going to have peace with the gospel. It's not meant to be.
There is no peace. Remember the prophets in the old Testament saying peace when there is no peace. That's what that looks like to me. There isn't supposed to be peace. There there's actually war flesh in the spirit. And it just makes me sad. I think that they want to join hands with the cultural movement and think that it won't affect Christianity.
But I, I, I think you're right. I think it's alluring because it makes you feel, it makes you seem like the nice one. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like we're the nice people and Jesus loves people guys, and Jesus was, he loved his neighbor. So that's what we gotta do. And they don't understand that they are really changing the nature of what the gospel is.
And so I think that's going to be a bit of a difficult time. So I'm so thankful. There are people that are really encouraging this next generation to rise up and fall in love with the Bible. That is the way we are going to thrive. And once you go outside of the Bible, whether you claim Jesus or not, and you try and, and, and you try to make you try to make life work without the principles, the Bible teaches.
It's not going to work. It's going to fall down. That's the, the house built on the sand. That's what Jesus says. It's just going to collapse.
Tony: And you had an Instagram post the other day that feels like it fits into this really well, which was, can we make pastors on cool again.
John: Right! Yeah.
Tony: I was like, I was like, boom done already there.
Just ask my kids. I was like, but, but the problem with cool is cool. Always submits the culture. And, and not, and I, and I think, I think that's a, that's a really good, that's a really good message. If you fit in everywhere, you're probably not following Jesus everywhere.
John: Yeah. I agree with that. You know, for, for people that want to know that as just someone that enjoys culture I'm not really an academic, but I love culture.
I look back in 2001, two and three. All right. 2000 around that to early turn of the millennia. I remember for the first time hearing a bunch of cool Christians talking about being relevant. D do you remember that, that we gotta be relevant? We gotta be relevant to the world. Do you want to change culture to be relevant?
And I remember the time I was like, be, be relevant and it, because I'm always slow to the take. I kept asking people cause I would get asked in interviews. So John, what do you have to say about being relevant to the world? And I remember asking someone an interview. I said, Hey. You're the fifth person that's asked me that.
And I really do want to answer you, but I don't really know what people mean. What, what do you mean by that? Because I literally didn't understand the language and that whole relevant to the world thing. I believe there's a lot of people that really meant it well, and really what they really wanted. What they really meant was is we always talk about the gospel, but we're not hitting people where they're actually at.
We were not making the gospel understood for the times, and we need to do that, which I would agree with that. That's if that's what they're saying, but in practice, what did it look like in practice? All that it meant was this. They began to shave off. The parts of the gospel that make people mad. Right?
And so all of a sudden, you know, Jesus, all the Jesus was, was this amazing loving person everywhere. He went, his supernatural love drew crowds from everywhere and they were hanging on every word because there was no one ever like him before, because his love and all of a sudden, Jesus, wasn't somebody that actually.
I mean, that's true, by the way, he loved people supernaturally without a doubt, he's God incarnate. But all of a sudden they forget that Jesus people wanted to throw him off a cliff. They forgot.
Tony: How many times it was He almost stoned?
John: Yeah. They forgot that that Jesus was everybody left him and he looks at his few disciples.
Is, are you about to leave too? You know, he didn't chase down after them. He didn't say, hold on, let me make it more relevant. Let me make it more relevant to you. What I'm just saying is guys, you know, when I said eat my flesh, all that I really meant was this. You have to like me, that's not what he said.
He's like, yeah, eat my flesh. They all leave. This is a Jesus that yes, love people. But he, he said the hard truth that, that move of relevancy produced a generation who believes that it's actually best. To not talk about the offensive parts of the gospel. And so now that's kind of what people think sharing the gospel is his lowest common denominator.
Jesus loves me no matter who you are, just admit that he's true in your life will change. And that's just not true. It's repentance and God giving you a brand new heart that makes your life changed. So I think that that's for me, kind of the key to this, where do we go from here? Go back to the scriptures.
It's not about Lowe's common denominator. It's not about, as you said, being cool, being loved by the world and everybody going, man, he's a pastor I can get on board with. Cause he actually gets it at some point. They are not going to like you, you know, they're they're they're I heard a friend of mine Dr.
James White, he has a podcast called the dividing line. He was talking about all the, all the, the woke pastors that are attacking the church right now, trying to get in good with those people. And he, and he said, if we ever get to a Gulag state, like if we ever get to a place where Christians are literally being killed for their faith, he's he said, all those woke pastors think.
They think that th that they are making friends with the enemy, but eventually they'll, they'll be at the gulags too. The only difference is this, when they arrive at the gulags, they will have arrived. Compromised. Yeah. Woo. Come on. You can either get uncompromised. Now they're going to come for you one way or the other.
So why not be in the fight?
Tony: I love it. I love it. That's that's so good. And, and I, I really appreciate what you're doing with this writing. I appreciate what you're doing with your ministry. And so W where is the best place to pick up the book? Is John L cooper.com. Is that right?
John: Yes. In fact, it's the only place.
In fact, I'll end with a little story for it. If you don't mind. I love it.
Tony: And I have one more question for you at the end.
John: Yeah. People might find it interesting. Again, I'm just being honest. When you sold a lot of records and you have a whole lot of social media numbers. Yup. Publishers want to make a book with you.
It's the easiest way to make a book. In fact, there's a lot of smart people today that could write amazing books that don't get published because they don't have social media numbers. Right? So somebody like me not near smart could get a publishing deal because I got the numbers. Well, here's the thing at a bunch of publishers.
Say, John, We would love to make a book with you. And I said, okay, well, we'll, we'll see who gets the best deal here. And so I wrote a book and then I sent in the book. And guess how many wanted to publish my book? Zero. Wow. Got a single publisher would, would publish this book. That's amazing. I've got a skill.
It has a million followers on Instagram, right? 5 million Facebook friends or whatever you call it. Not a single Christian publisher wanted to make this book. And so I think that that is, that should give you a window into the state of where Christianity is heading, writing about truth, writing about the exclusivity of Jesus Christ, that he is the way the truth and the life.
And no one gets to the father, unless you come through him. It's unpopular even in the Christian publishing world. That is a scary statement. So. All that to say the only place you can buy my book. Cause I self published. It is my website, John L cooper.com. If you want to go straight to the book, John L cooper.com/awake.
And it's good for people who maybe don't know a lot about Bible theology and you don't think you could sit. Through a John Calvin book and sit there and read the whole thing and understand it. This is a book that I think is like theology for dummies theology for dummies like me. That's what I call it.
Check it out. And you can find Cooper stuff. Podcasts comes out once a week. On anywhere, Apple podcasts, YouTube Cooper stuff, podcasts.
Tony: And then you're also of course, on Instagram and Facebook
John: John L. Cooper on Instagram.
Tony: Okay. The last question I always love to ask. People's an advice question.
If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice and except I'm gonna, I'm going to take you to a specific moment for that piece of advice, right? In, in the preface of the book, you tell a story about how somebody said, if you give all of this up, you could be a really big deal. And this is before obviously skillet ended up doing what it did and really shaped a lot of the music scene and Christian world.
If you could go back and talk to that young man on that night after that conversation, what's the one piece of advice you would give yourself
John: after that conversation? Oh, that's interesting because you know, what was hard about the conversation where people don't know you've got to get my book it's in the it's in the prologue.
What was difficult about the conversation was this guy was basically saying skill. It could be the biggest band in the world. You, but you have to stop talking about Jesus, stop doing Christian interviews, stop doing it. He wasn't telling me to stop being a Christian. Yeah, he wasn't, he's just talking about it.
What was difficult was that he then began to say things like this, John. Imagine if you got really famous, which you could only do, if you stopped talking about Jesus, imagine how much your money that you would make. Could change lives for the poor. In other words, you could change, you could give tons of money to the poor in the name of Jesus.
And imagine he's like, look at what Bano has done. That's what he said to me. Look what Bano has done all in the name of Jesus, but he doesn't talk about Jesus. He's literally changing the world for Christ without ever talking about Jesus. What was difficult for me was how I think the quote I said in the book was how it's it's, it's eerie.
How much lies can sound like truth. It is a little bit of truth in what he was saying. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's probably true actually, but it's not all of the truth and that is exactly what the serpent. Satan did with Eve. And it's the same thing it's like, did God really say that? Come on. He wasn't saying that everything God said is a lie.
He's adding to it. Right. Which we talked about earlier. So if I could go back in that moment and say to John, I probably would say this this was advice I would give to me at any point in my life when I was younger. And it, and it's pertinent for that moment. I would say, John, you have to remember that the Bible, the word of God is not just axioms of truth.
It's not just things that God spoke that are true. The word of God is God. Well, it's inseparable from him. You cannot separate the words of God from God. Otherwise, whatever he speaks could be tainted in some way, you know, those kinds of things. So I don't want to make, I don't want to get into some heresy saying that.
God is limited to the words of the Bible. I'm not saying that, but everything that God has spoken for all eternity is a part of who he is. I would say, John, you have to have a higher understanding that it, Oh, you know who says it? Good is J I packer. Packer says it. Great. It's not just authority of scripture.
It's divinity of spirit. That is good. That is the best way to say. So I hope it don't confuse people by saying when you hold a book that God is this book, he's not a physical object. I'm not getting weird. I'm saying that his words are a part of who he is. So they are absolutely right at all times. And even if you think, I don't know if that makes sense to me today.
I'm the one that's wrong. Not the divinity of scripture. That's my advice.
Tony: I love that, John, thank you so much for being so generous today with your time. I really enjoyed the conversation. It was life-giving for me. And I know it touched the lives of a lot of people.
John: So thank you. I loved it. Thank you for what you're doing.
Thanks for everybody for listening to me, ramble for so long. Keep rocking you guys!
Tony: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the reclamation podcast. Our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. And if today's episode with John, did that, please do me a favor, leave a rating and review on iTunes.
Share this episode with a friend and don't forget to hit the subscribe button. It does so much to help people find us on the interwebs. Next week, episode 100, my dear friend and mentor Charles Kasi shares his new book, candor, how to speak the radical truth. I think you're going to love it. I think you're gonna love him.
And I look forward to celebrating episode 100 and maybe just, maybe, probably definitely a bonus episode next week. Thank you guys. See you next week.
