Why Skillet Frontman John Cooper Stands for His Faith: ‘Speak What Is True’
By Movieguide® Contributor
John Cooper explained how he became a Christian and why he risks his career again and again to make the name and teachings of Jesus known.
“I have to give my mom credit because my mom taught me about the Lord. When I was a kid, she would read the Bible to me… when I was one, two and three years old, I would constantly read the Bible. My mom would make us pray together, she’d make us Bible study [and] memorize scripture,” Cooper told Movieguide®. “So I don’t remember a day in my life when I wasn’t memorizing scripture.”
“I came to know Jesus when I was five years old, and I tell that story to encourage moms and dads who may be watching,” he continued. “I have two kids of my own, and what you do matters. Teaching your kids matters a lot. What your kids watch matters. What your kids listen to matters. And so, that’s a big deal.”
Having known the Lord for nearly a decade by the time he was a teenager, Cooper’s faith went to the next level at 15 years old when his mother passed away from cancer.
“After she dies, I began fighting with my dad – the darkest times of my life,” Cooper explained. “I began to know Jesus in a much deeper way, you know, I became a Christian when I was five years old, but I began to know Jesus as a friend, as someone who would never leave me and never forsake me.”
“The Bible says that God is close to the brokenhearted. That became real to me in my 15-, 16-, 17-year-old years, and because of that, Jesus became so real to me and so wonderful and so much better than everything the world had to offer,” he continued. “I wanted to write music and tell people that you have to know this peace like I know it. It’s going to change your life.”
This has remained his core mission throughout his life, which is why Cooper is so bold in standing up for truth, even when it may wreak havoc on his career. Now that he has such a large platform – being one of the best-selling rock musicians of the 21st century – Cooper calls others to stand for truth as well and fight for what the Bible teaches.
“It’s easy to look back now and say, ‘I would have been a Bonhoeffer,’ just like it’s easy to look back and say, ‘If it was 1850, I would have stood against chattel slavery.’ It’s really easy to say that, but it’s harder to recognize in your own day what evil is,” he said.
“In my day, 2020, what woke me up to that, and I just said, ‘I can’t stay silent whatever it cost.’ We have to help parents especially,” Cooper continued. “You have to help parents understand the times we’re living in because they’re so different than they were 20 years age.”
“Sometimes Christians are duped into believing stuff out of what they would consider to be good motives, you know,” he added. “‘I just want to be relatable to the world and love people,’ so they end up saying things that aren’t true because they wrongly think they’re loving people by doing so.”
Cooper, however, realizes that sometimes to love people well and to stand up for truth, he needs to ruffle some feathers and confront the evil that has taken root in people’s hearts.
“It is important for Christians to not just sit down in the pews but for them to stand up and fight. We have to speak what is true,” he said. “We see that from the prophets in the Old Testament, we see it in the prophets in the New Testament… We see it with our Lord, Jesus Christ. He stands up against what is evil.”
“What we see all through the New Testament is people preaching with truth and grace, and of course, you have to love people,” he added. “You say things nicely and you say things out of compassion, but you have to speak what is true.”
Cooper explores standing for truth in his newest book, “Wimpy, Weak and Woke.”
“The increasing conflicts in America today are often referred to as a ‘culture war,’ but what is truly happening is an age-old war between gods. It’s a winner-takes-all battle between the living God and the false god of Man,” he said of the book.
“What they don’t understand and what I keep explaining is, I write songs, and I want to help people through chaos,” Cooper told Fox News host Shannon Bream. “I want to help people through darkness. And what they don’t understand is that people in America have never experienced the kind of chaos that we are experiencing right now.”
Check out the rest of Movieguide®’s interview with Cooper here:
Movieguide® previously reported:
John Cooper, the lead singer to the Christian rock band Skillet, authored a book last year called “Awake and Alive to Truth.”
The book highlights Cooper’s testimony and one particular event that changed the 46-year-old’s life forever.
“After a gig, we were on tour with some mainstream acts — very popular acts. We were opening,” Cooper told Focus on the Family. “And we were just beginning to kind of hit a little bit [in fame]. This guy, in his defense, he was being very nice. … And he pulled me aside, and he said, ‘John, I want to tell you this because no one else is going to tell you. You guys, I believe, could be the biggest band in the world. … You guys have the look, you’ve got the sound, you’ve got girls in your band. … And you guys also sing about very spiritual things.’… And he’s saying, people really want spiritual music, and ‘you’ve already got it, you’ve been doing it.’
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