The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 1 – John Cooper

Episode 1: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

John Cooper’s central message is that Christians must unapologetically root their lives and beliefs in Scripture as the source of all truth, resisting postmodern deconstruction and false worldviews, and instead bring every area of life—family, art, culture, and public engagement—under the lordship of Christ. He uses his platform with Skillet, his Cooper Stuff podcast, and his book Awake and Alive to Truth to call believers to a robust biblical worldview that confronts cultural lies, strengthens the church against falling away, and encourages Christians to actively engage the world as witnesses to Christ’s truth and blessing.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show where we interview thought leaders from many different fields to show how worldview changes everything. Today I’m speaking with 12-time platinum vocalist John Cooper from the band Skillet. John and his wife Korey have toured for 23 years. They have two kids. Their success has given them an amazing platform to share the gospel and be a voice for truth.

We are going to go deep in our discussion today and talk about everything from what it’s like to be backstage at a heavy metal concert to the Puritans and their influence in the world. You are not going to believe this show. Let’s get started. John Cooper, welcome to the Dr. Jeff podcast.

John Cooper (00:49):
What is up? How’s it going? I feel like we’re doing a smart one because you’re called Doctor. They call me Dr. John.

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:56):
Dr. John, welcome to the Dr. Jeff. Doctor, doctor. Hey, listen, it’s fun to have you here. You’re the lead singer, the bassist, the songwriter for one of the most successful rock bands of the 21st century, Skillet. For 23 years, you’ve been on the road with your wife, Korey. I want to talk about those experiences. I want to talk about what it’s like to be a busy family and be on the road.

I want to talk about your Cooper Stuff podcast too, because you have taken some bold stands on a lot of issues and I think people are going to really want to know how open you’ve been about your beliefs and what kind of a response that you’ve gotten for that. But I’m just really glad to have you on the show today.

John Cooper (01:38):
Oh, thank you. I’m very excited to be here too and hopefully people will stick around and have fun with us.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:47):
I can almost guarantee people will stick around. At Summit Ministries, everybody’s a nerd. They all want to learn all the time. So we should be in good shape. But I want to go back to your childhood a little bit, John, before we get into the podcast and standing up for truth and the kinds of things that are really important to a lot of our viewers and listeners.

But I want to talk about your growing up years because you grew up in a kind of home where you weren’t even allowed to listen to rock music growing up, which is so ironic now that you’re leading this huge rock band. So tell us a little bit about that. Take us into your childhood.

John Cooper (02:26):
Yeah, it is kind of quite funny. Well, my parents are Christians. My mom was a fanatical Jesus freak. All right, fanatical Jesus freak. And I always give the stipulation that I mean that in a 100% positive way. Sometimes people wonder if I’m saying it bad.

(02:47):
Fanatical Jesus freak. My mom was like the person that would take her kid to the grocery store and in the middle of the frozen food section, she would meet a stranger and start sharing the gospel with them. And can I pray for you? And as a kid, you’d be sitting there holding your mom’s hand. I’d be like, “Oh my gosh, here we go. How long is this going to last?” And my mom was just fanatical about Jesus.

I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t, every morning, when my mom was not reading the Bible to me. I had an older brother. My brother was four years older than me. So before school every day, she would read the Bible. So he started going to school when he was five. That puts me at one, two years old. I just remember sitting at the table and listening to the Bible.

(03:36):
So my whole life was like that. But a funny thing, my mom really felt that rock music was like the biggest tool of the devil. If there’s any tool of the devil that he had ever made that was going to ruin the world, it was rock music. And when I was five years old, I was at my friend’s house and he had MTV. Now I know a lot of people listening don’t realize MTV used to only be music videos. Okay? We’re showing our age here, Doc. There actually was a music part to it.

(04:12):
So I was like, “MTV, what’s that?” He’s like, “They play music videos.” I’m like, “What’s music? What do you mean, music videos?” And he showed me the video for Michael Jackson’s song, Beat It, which was the awesomest song I’d ever heard. And I came home and I was singing Beat It to my mom. And my mom gave me the holiest butt whooping of all history for singing the devil’s music.

So that’s really long, but it’s kind of a funny story. Just really believed that rock music was that evil. It was created by the devil and freaked out about rock music. So yeah, that’s my little funny story. And my mom was a piano teacher and a voice teacher. So I grew up with music, but it was classical and gospel music and stuff like that.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:58):
Yeah. Did she come to terms with it later on?

John Cooper (05:01):
Well, long story short, my mom actually passed away when I was 14. I would say around sixth grade, my mom got sick with cancer. That is also when I first heard of Christian rock music because I was complaining to my buddies that I couldn’t listen to Metallica because I heard Metallica at the gym, like at the workout room.

(05:25):
As if we were working out hard in sixth grade. But sixth grade is when you’re a dude is when you first get like, “I want to go to the workout room.” And it was the 80s, Sylvester Stallone, Rocky and Schwarzenegger. We all wanted to be Schwarzenegger, and Metallica was in there and I was complaining to my friend, “There’s no way I could ever bring this home.” And he said, “Well, you know there’s Christian rock music.” And I said, “No. Why has this been held back for me?”

And so I brought a Petra tape home thinking my mom would like it because it was Christian and my mom was so mad that in fact, Christian rock music was worse than mainstream rock music because it was wolves and sheep’s clothing and she’s like, “These people are serving the devil.” But all that to say, before my mom died, long story short, Petra was coming in concert and all my buddies were going, my parents wouldn’t let me go.

(06:21):
And I think my mom was kind of on her deathbed for about a year, chemotherapy three times a week. She was going through all sorts of weird dialysis and everything in the whole world. It was horrible. I think my mom realized that this is going to be the last major fight. It’s a really sad way to say it, but is this the way she wants to go out? I think she had that feeling of, all right. So she said, “John, I’ll make a deal with you. I will take you to the Petra concert and when they start praying to the devil, we’re going to leave.” Wow.

This is a true story. Really believed they were going to pray to the devil. And so we went to the concert and my mom said on the way home, she’s like, “I still don’t like Christian rock music, but I believe that those Petra boys love Jesus.” So that’s the long version. My mom did pass away my freshman year of high school. So we can either get into that or not get into that, but that’s my story.

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:26):
Yeah. Now you grew up with a mom who’s passionately in love with Jesus, wants to share Jesus everywhere and then she passes away. There’s some part of your spiritual journey that is profoundly influenced by that.

John Cooper (07:45):
Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, some people know I wrote a book recently. The book is called Awake and Alive to Truth and I wrote about this in the first chapter. The first chapter is how I came to Christ and I say it for a lot of reasons because I don’t know how many people are watching our parents or might want to be parents, I hope. How influential you are on your kids.

That is your primary job is to train up your kids in the way they should go. And the Bible actually says in the fear and admonition of the Lord. That’s your job as a parent. My mom did that for me. One of the best advice I had ever been given was from my mom, she said, “I believe that God is going to heal me, but if he doesn’t heal me and if I die, you cannot be mad at God because God is good.”

(08:41):
“Everything God does is good. Everything he does is right. And we know that all things work together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. All things work together for the good.” And that was really great advice. I held onto that and I’m not saying, and I did write about it in my book. I had really hard times, all right? I had hard times of, how could God let this happen? Is God really good? Why would God let this happen when my mom loved him? I have all those questions, of course.

But I held on to those words of my mom based on the scripture, which is in Romans, is that Romans eight, I believe? Romans eight, yeah. It is Romans eight. Thank you. I think it’s Romans 8:28, I believe, or something like that. All things worked together for the good of those called according to Christ, according to his purpose. That’s great news for all of us. I held onto that and it’s been foundational for me.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:41):
Yeah. John, was it about that time that you got interested in being a musician?

John Cooper (09:50):
My mom was a piano teacher and my mom was always saying, John, you have a real gift for music. And of course, every parent says their kids are the most amazing whatever. So I think that I kind of knew that she believed that. I didn’t know if I believed that, but my mom had always felt that I was exceptional at music. And so I kept at it because of that. So my mom taught me piano for eight years all the way through eighth grade and I did piano competitions and things.

By the time I was in seventh or eighth grade, I began to believe that God had gifted me at music. I was like, okay, I can see that now. When I was probably in ninth grade is when I started feeling like, I think one of the only things I’m actually good at is music.

(10:42):
I’m not good at academics. I’m not very smart. I had a hard time paying attention in school. I don’t know what I’d want to do with my life, but I get that I’m good at music. And it was ninth grade that music began to so affect me. Christian music, my mom passed away. Christian music taught me so much about God, so much about the Bible and it gave me such hope in Christ that I thought, man, if I could do this for someone else, if I could be half as meaningful to someone else as Petra or Amy Grant or Striper has been for me, that would be worth something trying. And that’s when I began to think maybe I could do that.

Dr. Jeff Myers (11:29):
Yeah. Could it have ever occurred to you that you would have a band that’s successful for 23 years, that you’re in the Pandora Billionaires Club because you’ve had more than two billion downloads. You’ve had 12 times platinum albums that you’re actually carrying on the legacy of groups like Petra and Striper.

John Cooper (11:57):
Right. That did not occur to me. And no, I mean, even when Skillet started, never dreamt it would last this long. I honestly just thought this would last for a few years. You don’t meet a lot of 50 year old, I’m not 50, by the way, but you don’t meet a lot of 50 or even 40 year old rock stars still making music unless they’re very iconic like The Stones or Metallica or U2. You don’t see that a lot.

I never dreamt that, but I just thought, I believe God could use us for this time. I was 21 at the time for evangelism. Music is such a great way to speak into culture and to speak the truth of Christ. And we are at a time, it was the ’90s. The ’90s was a very dark, dark decade for people that weren’t alive or maybe were born in the ’90s who were listening.

(12:52):
It was dark, man. Nihilistic. And for people who don’t know what I mean when I say nihilistic, it just means there was nothing to live for. Nothing matters. Who cares? ’90s was all about that. If you don’t believe me, go listen to music in the ’90s like Nirvana. Nirvana. They had an album called Nevermind. When I think of Nirvana, I think of the lyric in their big hit that says, oh well, whatever nevermind. Nevermind. That’s the ’90s. And I thought this generation needs to know the truth of Christ that yeah, oh, nevermind. You’re right.

Outside of the Christian worldview, I can understand why you would believe that because outside the Christian worldview, there is no inherent meaning in life. You’re right. We’re just a cosmic accident. In the multiverse, if you go into science and physics and you believe in the multiverse and we’re just one of an infinite billion, trillion, gazillion possibilities that happen to have life and then we just evolved out of survival of the fittest and what have you, then you’re right. Whatever, nevermind.

Dr. Jeff Myers (14:06):
Yeah, right, right. Yeah.

John Cooper (14:07):
Why does it really matter?

Dr. Jeff Myers (14:08):
Out of all the possible worlds, we got stuck with the bad one about, out of all the possible worlds it could have been, this is the one we ended up with, right? Yeah. I think you’re right. It was a very discouraging time. People just didn’t see that there was a path forward.

John Cooper (14:27):
Absolutely. I mean, it is the Christian worldview, Judeo-Christian values, what Judeo-Christian worldview, I should say, really, that says you actually matter, not just because it looks good on a pillow, not just because it’s a great picture to hang in your house that you matter. You matter because you are made in the image of God. That’s an incredible, biblical revelation. So that’s kind of what I thought we would do with Skillet, never imagined it lasting this long.

Dr. Jeff Myers (14:57):
Wow. And so here you are 23 years and you and your wife Korey do this and then you’ve had other people in the band over time, which is kind of fun too, because you get to kind of introduce a lot of people to the music business. I’ve got to ask this. What is it like to raise your family on the road like you’ve done for 23 years?

John Cooper (15:23):
It’s really hard work. We’re blessed though. I mean, we are very, very blessed. Maybe I’ll give you the good and the bad very quickly. I’ll try to do it as fast as I can. The hard part is that the road life is exhausting. If you’ve ever gone on a family vacation, you know that being with, you want to strangle somebody, right? Yeah. It’s like, yeah, I love you, but I’m going to have to kill you now. Being on family vacation will show you that it’s hard work being cooped up in a vehicle with people that you love dearly.

Well, we were in a van for six years. Then we’re on a bus. There was one point we had 14 people in one bus. That’s including my two kids. You want to kill people and you don’t sleep a lot. And when you’re really, really tired and you’ve got to get up at weird hours and then you don’t get off stage, you usually don’t get off stage till 11:00, 11:30.

(16:22):
You get back to the bus by 12:30 or 1:00 AM. You’re a little bit jacked because you’ve played a show. It’s like going for a workout. You can’t sleep if you just go to workout at midnight. You got to wind down. You end up going to bed at 2:00 AM and then your kids are waking up at 6:00 AM. And my wife did that for a year, three, four hours a night. My wife would wake up.

(16:45):
Do mom stuff, teach the kids school. It was really, really hard work. The benefits of it have been amazing. And I say this now again because some people watching may want to have kids in the future. The benefits of it are this. You get as the parent to be the guiding influence on your kids. And I’m a very big believer now in homeschooling. I’m a very big believer in even if it’s not homeschooling but doing school online, but with your children.

I don’t mean locked up in a room by yourself all day like we are now, but I’m talking about you being the guiding influence in your life rather than your kids learning morality, sexual ethics, biological ethics, all the things involved from the public school system, giving your kids to the state to learn that. We were forced to do it and I am so glad.

(17:40):
And now I’ve become a very big advocate for that sphere of government that God created that is called the family, that is for the man and the wife to be a government over your kids, influence into your kids’ life to train them up. And that includes in academics. So I’m a big believer in that. We’ve had the benefit of that. And because of that, my kids are very grounded in biblical truth and they’re not shaken by the fact that their friends say all kinds of crazy things online. They’re not shaken by that and they can speak into it from a biblical standpoint.

Dr. Jeff Myers (18:16):
I think even though being on the road, it’s kind of not a natural state of being, but it’s very historically American. Half of my growing up here is Detroit, Michigan, half my growing up here is on the farmlands of Kansas. So I had the contrast.

(18:33):
And people in the old days on the farm would work together. They would school together. This parent leaves and goes to work, this parent leaves and goes to work, this kid leaves and goes to school, but it’s all really there together. I want to ask you about the environment of being on the road because you play a lot of festivals, you personally and Skillet are very well respected in the hard rock community.

So there are a lot of rock bands. You’re playing festivals with them, some of the most famous bands ever. In fact, you guys get to be in shows with Metallica now, which is crazy. But these are known a lot of them as being very hard partying bands, some very opinionated in their musical approach and their lyrics being even against God or Christianity or the things that they see representing the establishment.

(19:30):
Take us behind the scenes a little bit backstage of what it is like to be there. And you’ve got your wife and your children and your team. Just give us a little insight of what it’s actually like.

John Cooper (19:43):
Sure. Well, I think it’s a great transition that we just made actually. I want to make one point about you talking about the farmlands and Kansas and whatnot. You’re right, that is very American and that really comes back to our kind of heritage and the Puritans and that sort of thing.

And I just want to mention this because if I died tomorrow, if there’s anything that I could say that I think would be meaningful and lasting, it would be to encourage Christians in America to go back and fall in love with the Puritans. It has been an incredible journey of mine over these last years. I was really reawakened to the Puritans through J.I. Packer. I’m a big J.I. Packer fan.

Dr. Jeff Myers (20:29):
Yeah, sure.

John Cooper (20:30):
Yeah. And he’s very knowledgeable about the Puritans and he really, I hadn’t realized how much of my people that influenced me were built upon Puritan thought. And so that is very Puritan life. Well, we have tried, and I’m not saying we’ve done an amazing job of this, I’m not tooting my own horn, but to answer your question, I have tried to put that into my life. The Puritans really want, their desire was to see Christ glorified by making all of life holy and not separating your life into things that are spiritual and things that are natural. Okay?

So what that would mean would be praying is very spiritual, but changing the kids’ diapers is also very spiritual and milking the cows is also spiritual. All of life is unto his glory and that is, to me, beautiful theology. That is what it means to see Christ glorified and all things brought to submission under the feet of King Jesus.

(21:33):
So I try to do that in my life on the road and it’s not just that I’m spiritual when I write a song about Christ or when I sing a song about Christ or doing an interview. It’s also spiritual when I hang out with bands backstage and eat cheeseburgers at a music festival with bands who frankly, some of which are enemies of God.

Now I guess technically, if you want to get into theology, anyone who is not in Christ is against Christ, but I’m talking about there are people who are not just in that section, but there are people who are actively against the church, actively against Christ, right? There’s a little bit of a difference there. And I’m saying that there are people that would say, “It’s my mission. It’s my mission to tear down Jesus in the world.” There are those people, but to me, it’s just as spiritual talking about sports with them as praying with my kids.

(22:30):
And so what we have just tried to do, and I hate to get off on a tangent, but I really love the Puritans, but what I’ve tried to do is imploy when you try to make all of life unto the Lord, pure unto the Lord, you will be blessed in an incredible way. And what it does is it gives you insight and wisdom into the world. It gives you insight into, this is what I believe, okay? It gives you insight into business. It gives you insight into the way that you should run your crew and the way that your crew should actually be the most professional crew that there is.

And so by implementing these things, which again is very much built on Puritanism, but really it’s built on Proverbs because Proverbs is basically just wisdom of applying the law of God in the Old Testament, right?

(23:19):
So you apply that and all of a sudden, and this isn’t bragging on me, this is bragging on the Holy Spirit all of a sudden people recognize even if I don’t dig what skill it is into, even if I don’t dig their ideology in this Jesus’ Lord stuff, you cannot deny that Skillet is walking in a strength that we don’t understand.

It doesn’t mean that we’re more famous than ever, the people, because that’s certainly not true. It doesn’t mean we’re even more successful, but we are clearly walking. If you want to use biblical language, you could call it you’re walking in an anointing that other people don’t have, or you could call it you are walking in wisdom. There’s lots of different things you can call it. You’re walking in the spirit while they’re walking in the flesh.

(24:05):
And so people have asked me, frankly, I had somebody call me after a show, full on heathen man, and he calls me and he says, “Hey, do you think that tomorrow we could talk about Jesus?” I said, “I’d love to talk to you about Jesus. Why?” And he said, “This is what he said to me word for word. I’m not bragging on me. Please hear me, not bragging on me.” He says, “I just feel like when you walk into a room.” We were on tour with four other bands. He says, “We’re on catering, but when you walk into a room, you have a power about you that is different from anyone I’ve met on the road and I don’t understand where that power comes from.”

So we got to talk about the Lord and I got to pray with him to accept Christ. It was an amazing thing, but I said to him, “You need to understand that is not the power of John. That is the power of the Holy Spirit that changes who you are.” So that’s a really long answer, but I had to say all of that to get to where I’m going.

Dr. Jeff Myers (25:05):
Man, I love the way you’ve framed all of that and I do think people should be reading the Puritans. They need to, first of all, realize that everything they think they know about the Puritans is wrong. These were fun, loving, amazing, thoughtful, intelligent people who loved life and were successful in the things that they did because they took biblical principles and applied them.

It’s actually more than that. I mean, they understood that truth is real, truth exists and it’s not just a mathematical formula, it’s not just a series of logical propositions, it’s a person, it’s Jesus. And that doesn’t just change us personally, changes everything.

John Cooper (25:50):
Absolutely.That’s really well said. You just said in a shorter version what I took 10 minutes to say, but yes, they really did do that and because I know the kind of listeners that are listening to this program might be interested, really all of the, now we call it presuppositional apologetics, right? Yeah. But that really is what they’re saying. They’re saying the beginning of understanding anything about knowledge is going to be found in the scriptures. It’s the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, Proverbs says.

So understanding that people really get the Puritans wrong because what they think of the Puritans, they were like monks or something, like they went and they hid away, but it’s not true. The Puritans became incredible thinkers, physicists, the Puritans started the first schools in America and even the first like Harvard and things like that.

The Puritans became extremely known for their intelligence, not all of them, but they believed that because of the scriptures, it would be a foundation for understanding knowledge which would give you an understanding of science and physics and so forth. So I would encourage your listeners, if you want to become intelligent, it starts with the fear of the Lord. Amen. Hallelujah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (27:11):
Woo. Oh, I love it. This is so great. You would love being at Summit Ministries. I’ve got to tell you, you would find that you’re among friends of students and professors who all really believe what we’re talking about here and are on their way to the university campus. So they are getting ready to go into a tough, tough spot and go in there with confidence. So it’s fun.

John Cooper (27:37):
I love it. Great work.

Dr. Jeff Myers (27:40):
Hey, I want to talk about the Cooper Stuff podcast. You got the sign right there behind you. It’s great. We listened to this.

John Cooper (27:48):
Wait a minute. There it is.

Dr. Jeff Myers (27:53):
Yeah. You would love the way my wife says, Cooper stuff.

John Cooper (27:57):
Yeah, Cooper stuff. I heard it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:01):
So on that show, you have taken the opportunity to develop a platform and people who are familiar with your band, who like your music, all of a sudden they get drawn to this show where they’re listening to you and you’re not talking about the stuff they expect. Like you’re not just saying, “Here’s what it’s like to be a band, here’s a song that I wrote and why I like it.”

You’re talking about really tough issues, issues of truth, issues of what’s going on in the culture and things like that. What was it that made you want to begin that show and address these topics that you knew would be so controversial?

John Cooper (28:44):
Yeah. Well, first of all, people can find Cooper stuff on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Facebook, that kind of thing. Just look up Cooper stuff. You know what really started because back in, I would say for my journey to use the parliaments of the time, my journey began, I hate that, but it really is true. 2012 is when I began to first notice that the world was changing and I know that sounds really silly. It especially sounds silly to young people because a lot of young people are 17, 18, 19, and they don’t understand how drastically the last decade has changed. It’s huge, huge.

And in 2012, I started just hearing the weirdest stuff. I was hearing it from not just the world, I’m hearing it from the church as well, people that I would always though were Orthodox people that just traditional Christianity preachers and I was just hearing things I frankly just did not understand and it really threw me and it hit me personally because during 2012 to 15, 16, I started seeing some of my own friends, some people that I went to church with, frankly, Start to fall away from the faith.

(30:01):
And they were using the same kind of language. They were using these same bizarre words and phraseology that I was hearing from without. I was hearing it from within my own church. Not from my ministers, thank the Lord. But I was like, “What do you mean by that? What do you mean when you say, ‘your truth’?” When you say, “Well, I just had to come into terms with my truth, John, and blah, blah, blah.”

And at first I thought that it was just like young people talk. I wrote about this in my book. I wrote a book called Awake & Alive to Truth. If somebody wants to get the book, you can only get it on my website. So go to johnlcooper.com. But I wrote about this in my book. I just thought they were using young people talk like, wow, that’s so weird. People say my truth now, but it wasn’t just young people talk. And so through a series of studying over about three or four years, I began to understand what was going on.

(30:58):
I just so wish that I was aware that there have been people standing up against this. I’m so thankful for what you guys do and there are other people doing it. Now there’s a lot more coming out now. You’ve got Alisa Childers and you’ve got the Dividing Line with James White and Just Sinking podcasts. And John MacArthur even actually in the last year has become a bit more on the scene, I guess you would say.

All of a sudden there are people saying it, but back then I couldn’t find anyone. And I literally felt like if I don’t say it, there is literally no one saying it. Now, I know that’s ridiculous and I feel like, oh gosh, was it Elijah or Elisha that was like, “There’s no one left.” And then God said, “No, no, I reserved. There’s a remnant.” Was that Elijah?

Dr. Jeff Myers (31:51):
That was Elijah. Yeah. Yeah.

John Cooper (31:53):
I thought it was.

Dr. Jeff Myers (31:53):
Okay. I got my old testimony. I got 7,000 guys. Yeah, 7,000 who have not thought. But you have to be able to find them and connect. And you’re calling, you were called to do this.

John Cooper (32:05):
Right. Yes. At the time I couldn’t find anyone else doing it. But what was really alarming was that in my tiny sphere of Christian music, there were voices speaking out, but to be frank, they were speaking stuff that I just totally disagree with. They had come so far from what I considered to be traditional Christianity. Orthodox, like biblical orthodox, traditional interpretations of scripture that I was just, flummox really is the only word I could say. I was baffled.

I was like, “What are they saying?” So I just felt this need that I’ve got to speak out. I know it could hurt my career, but we’re actually at a time that the world has changed so much that I see kind of, I don’t want to get into crazy apocalyptic stuff. I felt that we are beginning to be in this kind of great falling away time when all of a sudden tons of Christians were falling from the faith.

(33:00):
I saw it personally. I saw it in the public’s fear and I’m like, if I could do something to help keep people in the faith, to keep people in the church, to keep people grounded in the truth and to not be deceived by the enemy, I have to do it. And that is why I began talking about all this stuff.

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:21):
Yeah. What are some of the issues that lately you’ve just been really passionate about? Just give us some insight into where your thinking is right now.

John Cooper (33:30):
One of the things that really bothers me is the deconstructionist movement happening in Christianity. I don’t think a lot of people realize that deconstructing is a core tenet of postmodernism. That’s what postmodernism is about. You’re deconstructing traditional thought, traditional ways to see reality. It’s deconstructing that sort of like the principle of, okay, we know that the sun rises every day because we can see it, right? We know that happens.

So why does it happen? That’s your traditional way of viewing reality. Postmodern deconstructionism says, “Well, how do we know the sun? Maybe the sun actually isn’t rising. Maybe the sun doesn’t mean to me what it means to you.” And they begin to deconstruct all these various things. I mean, that’s a bit of an extreme example, but think about it. If you put that into your faith, then what you have is, wait a minute, how do we know Jesus literally died for the sins of the world? Maybe that just means it’s a picture of how much, if there was a God, if there was a God, this is how much he would love us. Maybe it’s just an idea.

He wasn’t actually God incarnate. He’s just a really good man that showed us a better way. Maybe he didn’t actually rise from the dead. And they go, “Why do I think that? Oh, I know why, because a bunch of old white men told me that.” That’s kind of where the thinking goes. That’s exactly where it goes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:11):
Yeah. I mean, you can see people deconstruct. You see it in church. I think George Barna said only 19% of churchgoing born again Christians have a biblical worldview. So eight people out of every 10 are sitting there thinking, “Oh, well, I wonder if the pastor’s story will help inform my story.” They’re not asking, “Is what the pastor’s saying truth?”

John Cooper (35:33):
100%. That’s frightening. I read a statistic that might have been the same one that said that out of professing millennials that only 3% believe in absolute truth. So they’re professing to follow Christ but don’t believe in absolute truth.That is such culture shock to old folks like me and you. So that deconstructionism within Christianity is, I don’t even know where to start. That’s something I’m really passionate about.

So it’s the reason that we are so adrift and it’s the reason that we are thrown around on every wave of doctrine. It’s the reason that even Christians are divorcing pretty much kind of like the world is. It’s the reason that Christians are having extra marital affairs, sort of kind of like the rest of the world is. It’s the reason that there is no proof of regeneration in the church. And what I mean by that, of course, is sanctification.

(36:43):
In other words, our lives aren’t really proving that we believe in Christ because a lot of us don’t believe in Christ. So I’m very passionate about that, explaining what postmodernism is to the layperson and where all those philosophies like just how brutal like a critical race theory, how much that is tearing people apart and how dividing that is in the kingdom of God, that it is actually a really ugly worldview that will lead us not into oneness in Christ. It will lead us into dividedness in Christ. So I’m very passionate about some of those things, authority of scripture and maybe that’s a good enough answer for you. Those are the things I try to talk about if I can.

Dr. Jeff Myers (37:31):
Yeah. Yeah. So the whole worldview, buying critical race theory, the Marxist idea that you only advance history through conflict means that you have to divide people up and make them fight each other in order to make progress in society. And what God’s called us to do in the church is to be one body, to find ways to be together because not just for the sake of being together, but for the sake of having that kind of influence on the world for good and for what is true, for what it’s beautiful.

John Cooper (38:07):
Oh, absolutely. I’ve been trying to encourage Christians that the biblical resolve for our race problems, okay the biblical picture is so much better than any humanistic or Marxist or anybody’s good idea. Anybody’s, I say, good idea. I put that in dreaded air quotes. They are not good ideas. They think they’re good ideas, but it leads to such an ugly place.

But the biblical resolve for it is A, recognizing the image of God on every single person that’s born and B, realizing our, oh gosh, in theology, you would just say the fact that we all come from the same daddy. We all come from Adam, right? We all come from Adam. In theology, anthropological, really. We all come from the same Father. We’re not actually a different race. It’s beautiful that we look different and we have different cultures and different ethnicities, but we all come from Adam.

(39:17):
And in Christ, he has made us all to be one brand new man and in the color of your skin and where you come from, male and female, rich and poor, no matter what kind of music you like, all of that stuff is on the cross and now you are a part of one new man That is the only true oneness that there will ever be. And the biblical version is almost too good to be true. That’s how great God is. So I’ve been encouraging Christians, don’t get caught up in this other stuff, believe in what the Bible says because it’s so beautiful.

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:55):
That’s amazing. I love it. Well, we’ve got to stay in touch. So we want people to check out Cooper Stuff podcast. We want everybody to go to johnlcooper.com to get the copy of Awake and Alive. Then I want to just ask you one kind of final question because a lot of people who are listening now are young adults maybe in their 20s and they’re kind of looking around saying, “Okay, I can see the trajectory of other people who were in the previous generation when they were my age and it’s not looking really good for me for my generation right now.” What is your word of encouragement to them?

John Cooper (40:36):
Oh man, great. That is a fantastic question. There’s some things that we did well and there’s a lot of things that we did not do well. I guess I would give this encouragement. I would say A, it’s very unpopular right now, very unpopular to believe that the Bible is the source of all truth, but that is what the Bible teaches.

If you want to understand the way God’s world works and what is righteous and what is justice, you have to see it through a biblical worldview as opposed to going to the secular worldview and defining justice or love or goodness or righteousness and then bringing it into the Bible, into the words of Christ, right? That is the wrong way to do it because you will have a wrong, it will bastardize the true definitions of the words. I would encourage people A, do the unpopular thing and realize that the Bible is the source of all truth.

(41:43):
What my generation, I think, did not do very well is that we saw a, oh, I can use big words on your program. I’m happy because a lot of times I try not to. We had a bit of what you would call pietism. Pietism is kind of an idea that we don’t need to get involved into culture. We don’t need to get involved necessarily into the world or politics because we are of heaven. We are not of this world, so we are uninvolved in culture and we will purify ourselves within our realm, but we’re not going to go into that realm.

And I think that that was wrong. I think Francis Schaefer had it right all those years ago, but in the 60s and 70s I think that we are called again, like the Puritan said, to make all things holy, to bring the entire world under submission to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ.

(42:43):
If we are to do that, we have to understand what is happening in the world, not so that we can just amen all the crazy ideas that they have, but so that we can speak to it. And so in other words, I would encourage Christians two things, get involved in the world. I don’t mean that means you have to go to political rallies. I’m not saying that. Okay.

I’ve never been to a political rally, but to understand what is happening in culture, in film, in academia, in your kids, if you have kids, in your kids’ schooling at the PTA meetings, have a voice into it because if you do not have a voice into it, it will be overrun by atheism. It will be overrun by humanism. It will be overrun by enemies of truth because if they’re enemies of God, that means they’re enemies of truth, right?

(43:31):
Right. So it will be overrun with that. But I believe not all Christians believe this because there are a lot of incredible, wonderful Christian people who are pietistic. I’m just not one of them. So my encouragement is rather than staying out of culture, I would say, let’s go into culture and I would base that on the scripture that says that the gates of hell will not prevail.

That to me means that it is the gates of hell that are static while the kingdom of God is moving into this world, this present darkness, if you will, and overtaking it with the kingdom of God and bringing it into submission.That’s what I believe. So that’s my encouragement to people.

Dr. Jeff Myers (44:15):
Yeah. So you’re not telling people, go out there and grab power. You’re telling them, go out there and bring the blessing of Christ to every aspect of society because that’s where reality is. That’s where truth really is in the world that’s searching.

John Cooper (44:31):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (44:32):
John, thanks.

John Cooper (44:32):
Amen. I’m glad you said that because maybe it sounds like I’m saying, I’m not talking about political revolution and I’m certainly not talking about aggression, but yes, it is through love. It is through the principles, but get involved and I think it’s good to be a voice into those things for the gospel. I mean, why not? I mean, we have the answer because of Christ, so go for it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (44:58):
Yeah. John Cooper, thank you for being with us on the Dr. Jeff Show today.

John Cooper (45:04):
I loved it. Great to chat.

Dr. Jeff Myers (45:07):
I’m so glad that you could join John Cooper and me for this discussion on the Dr. Jeff Show today. I hope that you’ve come away with the understanding that your faith as a Christian applies to every area of life. And just in case you didn’t catch it, John Cooper has a book, you need to get this book. It’s called Awake & Alive to Truth and you just go to the website, johnlcooper.com. That is the only place you can get that book, johnlcooper.com. Then you can also follow him on Twitter and Instagram and check out the Cooper Stuff podcast to find a guy who is engaged in the world and who is speaking out on the issues that concern us all.

Ryan Dobson (45:49):
Hi, everyone. I’m Ryan Dobson from the Rebel Parenting Podcast. When my parents, Jim and Shirley Dobson sent me to the Summit Ministries Worldview Conference when I was 17, we had no idea the impact it would have on my life. It changed me so much in two short weeks, I’ve returned every summer for 34 years. This summer, your student can attend an in-person conference. That’s right, in person.

Summit Ministry’s Worldview Conference challenges students ages 16 to 24 to think deeper about their convictions and their faith by engaging with today’s top worldview thinkers and apologists. Can you imagine in person with other students learning about the Christian worldview? If not, they can attend Summit’s virtual experience and it’s amazing. Change your students’ life forever by partnering with Summit Ministries Worldview Conference today. Find out more by clicking the link in the show notes.