Skillet Wants New Album to Spark ‘A Spiritual Revolution.’ It Starts With Love.
Movieguide® Contributor
Skillet released its twelfth studio album, Revolution, on Friday, and lead singer John Cooper hopes it will encourage its listeners to speak out “against evil” with love.
The album’s name refers to “a spiritual revolution,” Cooper told Church Leaders. “A revolution of love. A revolution of going back to the things that used to hold us steady, things we used to put our feet in concrete to keep us from wavering all the time, things you could trust in.”
“Those things are things like faith, family, freedom,” he continued. “American values, absolute truth — there is right and wrong. You treat your neighbor the way you want to be treated. Golden Rule type stuff, which is the words of our Lord found in the book of Matthew.”
He told The Christian Post that the U.S. is at the turning point of becoming “very dangerous” and explained that the church should be more valued in America.
He said churches should be valued as “a good thing for society instead of closing them like we did during the pandemic but allowed strip clubs to remain open,” adding that it’s “something I will never get over in my whole life. I’m gonna keep saying it. People accuse me of cherry-picking that, but it’s worth cherry-picking. That’s the craziest thing I ever saw.”
The album cover features 1 Corinthians 13:13. The verse says, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Cooper prays that the album will “speak hope to people who are hurting” and that Christians will “speak truth into the problems that our society is facing. Don’t remain silent for the fear that people will think that you don’t love them.”
Cooper knows the importance of speaking truth in love, which contrasts with others’ views of love.
He said:
Many Christians in our society say, ‘We love them so much. We’re not going to speak against evil. We love them so much. We’re not going to say, hey, you can’t shut my church down while you keep the strip club open. We love them so much that we’re not going to say, hey, you can’t teach young school children radical gender theory. You can’t let boys in girls’ restrooms just because they identify as girls. Or we love them so much, we’re just going to let everybody do whatever they want.
“It’s truth that sets people free,” Cooper added.
Skillet frontman John Cooper hopes that the band’s new album will help combat the ongoing mental health crisis and direct people towards God…
READ MORE: WHY SKILLET FRONTMAN WANTS TO START A ‘REVOLUTION’ FUELED BY HOPE
Cooper doesn’t advocate for rudeness or harshness but simply wants everyone to know the truth, even if it’s not comfortable.
“The reason we should speak the truths of the Bible is because God’s ways work,” he said. If Christians “want to see things change in our society, then we have to explain to these young people that the reason they are depressed is because they’ve been told there is no truth, there’s nothing to live for — there’s no hope. They’re being told that you can know your own truth based on your feelings.”
“Yes, Christian, be polite. Yes, love people,” he added. “Love demands an action, which is speaking the truth. Live the truth. Speak against evil in the most loving, understanding way that you can.”
His two favorite songs on the album are “Not Afraid” and “Showtime.”
The latter is “fun” but “very Skillet,” he says. “I don’t know if we’d quite done one like it before.”
“Not Afraid” is similar to fan favorite “Whispers in the Dark.”
“I think that there’s going to be a nostalgia for a certain amount of fans when they hear it,” the artist explained. “That they can be, oh yeah, that sounds like old Skillet, because it’s heavy and it’s got some screaming in it.”
Per CCM, critics call the album a “hard-rocking freight train,” “fantastic” and “exactly what fans want” right now.
