The Eric Metaxas Show - John Cooper

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Lead singer of Skillet John Cooper joined Eric in studio to discuss his new book "Wimpy, Weak, and Woke"

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mataxis show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Do you check your bucket list lately? Are you ready to take care of item number seven? Listening to the Eric Metaxe show? Well, welcome.

Tune in and then move on to item number eight, skydiving with Chuck Schumer and AOC. Here now is Mr. Complete Adax's Myles. bucket list at age 12, Eric Matt, Texas. Hey there, folks. Welcome to Monday, November 20th. Yeah, that's right. How can that be? I don't know. Happy Monday. Man, we're just rocketing into the future. I feel like I've been dead for 10 years. Yes, well, we have been, I think. It's really amazing. We're just speeding into the future. Yeah. Okay, so at some point the future ends and you enter eternity, much better.

Yeah. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I just got to tell you, today's the beginning of the week. today, first of all, before I tell you what I did this weekend, which is insane, insane. My guest in a couple of minutes is my friend John Cooper, who some of you know the rock band Skillet, John and Corey Cooper. John Cooper is in here talking about he has a book out. He's a patriot. Not many rock stars are patriots and Christians. Wimpy, weak, and woke, How Truth Can't Save America from Utopian Destruction, John Cooper. Can't wait to talk to him. In our two or talking to Ron Coleman, whose credentials are he's a New York Jew. And I live in New York, and I love the Jewish people and Israel. And Ron Coleman's going to be, no, he's, he has all kinds

of credentials. But the reason I'm talking to him today is because we speak the same language with New Yorkers. He's been a lawyer for Trump. He's an amazing. He's been on the program before. He's amazing. Okay, ready? Before we get to our exciting guests, Chris Himes, I got to tell you. Yeah. This was nuts. It's hard. Honestly, as someone who works with you and for you, I can't keep up with your personal life where you are, what you're doing. It's like every weekend. Again, I've said this before, if you wanted, not that this is a good thing, but like if you wanted to be, you know, one of those serial killers that they write books about. Yeah. You have a good alibi. Yeah. Because I'm everywhere. I didn't do it. I tell you. I didn't do it.

Yes, I hated him, but I did not kill him. No, I got to say, we, Suzanne, and I last Wednesday So drove to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Yes. Three and a half hours from our house. It actually was Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

It's past Lancaster. Why? Hmm. I don't know why. No, because I spoke on Thursday night at a place called the Star Barn, which is on Stone Gables' estate. Now, people are saying, hey, what is this?

Well, that's what I was thinking. What is this? Like you're way out, you're so far out in Pennsylvania that you can almost see the Pacific. Wow. That's very far. It's very far. And you could see the back of Sarah Palin's head. It's unbelievable. She's in Alaska. That's right. And so I, we're out there and you arrive at this place called Stone Gables Estates. Now, we had just met when we were in Colorado Springs with Dr. Dobson, we were in an event in Colorado, Colorado, Springs with Dr. James Dobson that I think I've spoken about. But we met a couple named David Abel and his wife Tierney. And they are the owners of the Stone Gables estate. So we met them in Colorado Springs and they said, oh, you're going to be staying at our place. You're speaking at our Star Barn. And I'm thinking, I have no idea what anybody's talking about, but I'll be there and I'll find out when I get there.

Well, Suzanne and I get there and the story, you don't know where to begin. David Abel is one of these characters like you just don't know where to begin with this guy. He is a profound man of Christian faith, profound. And talking to them, here's the bottom line. The Star Barn was an icon. It was like one of these big deal barns that was historic

and it was falling apart. And it was built in the 1870s, and it just has all this history. And David and Tierney Abel chose, I don't know how many years ago, not too many years ago, to purchase the barn, to save it,

to dismantle it, and to reconstruct it seven miles away on this piece of property, Stone Gables Estates. The barn is so big that you would think I'm kidding, if I told you, like it's the biggest thing I've ever seen in terms of barns. Barn-wise, biggest thing I've ever seen.

And they reconstructed it. And I think seven other barns that are like smaller outbuildings, like a dairy barn, the hog barn, the da-da-da-da-da. And they reconstructed it. They made a DVD, which we watched last night, which tells the whole story of the reconstructed. But it's a level of craftsmanship. It's insane to take something like this apart and put it back together. I remember Lincoln Logs and barely managing those. And so we spoke at the Star Barn.

So you can go online and look this stuff up. But it's like now it's like a wedding venue. But it's just insane. It's insane. Then David tells us, oh yeah, I own the National Christian Center slash museum. I bought that from this other guy who owned it. What's that? He takes us there.

It's like the largest Christian museum in the world. Christmas Museum. Christmas. And they're going to relocate it to the Stone Gables estate. They're building another barn to house this collection. And they've got half of it on display at the Christian. You can go there. It's Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

I recommend you go there. But it is, it's just insane. In my mind, he's going to reveal to you that he bought Santa's workshop at the North Pole and is moving it down to the estate. And Santa's working. I saw the well-preserved, mumified body of an elf. Wow. It was sick.

It was sick. They dug it out of a peat bog. No, but listen, this is true. So the Christmas Center was next level nuts. Well, so much Christmas stuff, like collections upon collections upon collections that if you're into Christmas, it's just going to blow your mind. But that's nothing. He then tells me, wait until I tell you about our Titanic replica.

What? Now it sounds like you're making stuff up. Only one model that was made of the, like usually when people used to make a gigantic ship, they would have somebody build the model first. The Titanic didn't do that. And like 20 years ago, they hired the greatest model builder in the world to build a model from the Titanic plans. And it had never been done before. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That, it's basically 20 feet long. It weighs 1,500 pounds. and it is the most accurate model. It's like freakish. The deck chairs are perfectly, like, it's just insane. I don't know what to tell you. And it's there, and we saw it. Did no one think to design a replica of the iceberg?

Yeah, you know, I was just going to say that, and I edited myself because I'm older than you. So when you get to my age, you won't correct jokes like that anymore, Chris. I'm praying. So listen, it was, but I mean, everywhere you look, they've just got all this stuff. It's just absolutely nuts. But wait, but wait.

No, there can't be more. We're not done. We're not done. We're not done. No. They have a working railroad. A model railroad? A half-sized railroad?

No. A full-sized railroad. Someone rebuilt a locomotive, like a full-sized locomotive. Like a full-sized locomotive, like from 1860. Yeah. And they have three 1860s replica cars. When you walk in. into these railroad cars, you feel like you're stepping back in time.

It's actually creepy and real and amazing. And then they have, at the end of it, a replica, because the original burned, of Lincoln's funeral car with a replica of Lincoln's casket, with the handles of the casket made by the same, they still had the molds. The whole thing is so real and so many. You know, you feel like a holy hush when you walk in there because this is the car that took the body of the murdered president all across America and people would line the rail lines and whatever.

This is the actual car? No, this is a replica. The actual car was left. He was telling him about how Lincoln was hated for weird reasons after the war. The South hated him. The North hated him further. It was the whole thing. It goes on and on and on.

But this is a working railroad. But the key is that the rail line that they have that we rode on is the exact rail line that Lincoln's actual funeral train traveled on. So it happens to be on their property. Their property happens to be where Lincoln's body on this train traveled. Wow. So they had it. I'm just sketching out the basics. That's crazy.

And I will say I take issue with Lincoln on the pennies that are in my couches. Yeah, exactly. That's why I hate it. But otherwise, he was a great man. But so since we're out of time, you should go to Stone Gables Estate, Star Barn, Lincoln's funeral, car. There's more and more, but we're at a time. Fortunately for the audience, we're at a time.

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wash off with brown soap, folks, with brown soap. If you want to get tattoos off, people don't realize brown soap will take them off. Look, you and I have gotten to know each other, and you're a patriot, and you've written a book called Wimpy, Weak and Woke, How Truth Can Save America from Utopian Destruction. Why did John Cooper, the rock star, with Skillet, decide to write book. Man, I'll tell you what, we are at the brink. I think we are at the brink. Nobody knows that better than you. And if you'll allow me one very small time of brown-nosing, I love what you do, you know, that I think you do a great job. And I'm glad we're in the fun together. This is my show. I'll allow you way more than time than that. Yeah, whatever you, whatever you,

lots of brown-nosing. But yeah, I mean, we really are at the brink. I think that a lot of Christians in particular. It's not written just for Christians, but I think a lot of Christians really don't believe that. I think they still don't think things are as bad as they are. And I wanted to write a book for the everyday person. It's not an academic to say, you don't understand these ideas from Marx, from the neo-Marxists, from Freud, from Wilhelm Reich and the sexual revolution. You don't understand how evil they are and how absolutely destructive of America. Western civilization and Christianity they are. I don't think, I think there are a lot of Christians,

and I have a new book coming out like in April called Religinalist Christianity. And probably, yeah, that's, you know, it's a Bonhofer phrase. But the reason I bring it up is that part of what I see happening, and it's just what you said, I think a lot of Christians today are mostly religious in the negative sense,

and they do not understand Jesus died to save us from satanic evil. He didn't die to make your life a little better, to make your marriage a little better. There is evil in the world, and we've been so blessed that we kind of think, like, well, there's not real evil, evil. And what you write about in this book and what is happening in America, the Lord is allowing us to see actual evil to wake us up.

Yes, that's good. And so what you just said reminds me in a way, that, yeah, there are a lot of people that they don't want to buy that. They want to think, well, if I'm just nice, or if I'm, they don't understand what you're dealing with. If you're dealing with people that are really, really evil or have been taken over by evil ideologies, and you need to be awake to that.

Yeah, I think one of the things that happen is that we have taken for granted Western civilization as if it's, like, justice is a given, people being nice as a given, people not wanting to murder, you, of course, everybody agrees with that. But that's not actually true, as we're seeing right now what's happening in the Middle East. It's not actually the case that people are just kind of good nature. And so I think that we have seen Jesus as a sort of, as you said, as a therapeutic, like Jesus is going to make me feel better about myself. He's going to help me get along with my life. I'm having a bad day, but Jesus will help. By the way, if you go into the airport and

you see those inspiration racks, they're loaded with those books. It's like all about you, all about how Jesus can help you deal with stress or whatever. And you think, it's a little bigger than that. It's sort of like, uh, your family. It's not about stress, you know. Yeah, it's sort of like a self-help, but a Jesus version. So, you know, we have self-help, let's have the Jesus version. We have psychology, but let's have the Jesus version.

Yeah. I think one of the things I really wanted to get across in the book is for the people that say things like, uh, Eric, don't talk about Marxism so much. It's not about politics. We're about the gospel. What they don't understand is that these things are rival religions. They are the end of all things. And they want to absolutely destroy Christ and any reflection of Christ.

I mean, and Marx says that. I just wish that Christians would read literally a paragraph of Karl Marx and find out how much he hated God. And he'd want to destroy the image of Christ in any institution, including marriage. And so when you stand up, against that kind of evil, you are standing on the side of the light. That is a part of our faith. Well, that's, again, part of, to me, that's the Romans 828. The good news is that all of the horrors we're seeing is God's mercy to wake up the church. Yes. That all these things work together for good.

All these horrible things are having the good effect of waking up those who can be awakened. Some don't want to wake up. But what you're talking about, you know, I just get the impression a lot of Christians would say to Elijah, Elijah, don't talk about bail so much. Yeah. You know, like just, just focus on, on the good stuff, you know, and it, there's, that's not biblical. It's not biblical at all. When you're dealing with a satanic enemy, you have to be aware of it, and you have to understand what is happening, and they're trying to destroy your faith. They're not just nice, unsaved people. They're trying to wipe out your ability to talk about Jesus. Yes. I would say that the,

the philosophies that are ruling our day, all the way from Marx through Freud, you've got the neo-Marxists, of course, Mark Hughes, and you have the postmoderns, Foucault. You have all these people. The thing they all have in common is this. They are all atheists, and they all believed that Christianity is the biggest thing oppressing the world. It's the number one thing that's got to go. All of them say it. They're not shy about it. But I think Christians, we just don't believe people when they say what they want. It's like sort of like the people this week that went, why is there

kids on TikTok saying that maybe Osama bin Laden had a point? Maybe he was okay. I feel bad for him. It's like, why don't you believe that these people mean what they say? Well, by the way, let's be clear. Osama bin Laden said many things that were true.

Adolf Hitler said many things that were true. Joseph Stalin said many things that were true. Satan quoted scripture in the world. Just because you say some things that are true, they're using that as leverage for the big lie, for the big satanic lie. And so you have somebody like Osama bin Laden, like he criticized the West. He was right on many of the stuff that he said. His solution was from the pit of hell. Absolutely. There you go. There's a chapter in my book. You'll like it. It's called

empathy. One commandment to rule them all. Wow. And the idea is sort of like, We have been so captured by this idea of empathy that we go, well, Osama bin Laden, I mean, he had a bunch of good points to make him. We need to recognize he had good points. It's like, no, sometimes you need to lay down a line and say, it doesn't matter if I can, quote, unquote, understand where he's coming from. I was arguing with a pastor, a friend of mine, who I love. And we're arguing about this critical race theory. There was a church he was working with. And I kept saying, this church is saying racist stuff.

can't do and he said yeah but you got to understand i can see where they're coming from and i said you just said i said i said brother i can kind of see where hitler's coming from i can see where the devil's coming from i can see where the devil's and it doesn't mean that i'm going to go along with him yeah you you have to you have to tell some truths to sell a lie there's no such thing as a pure lie right so they basically play on our christian and american empathy we care about the downtrod and we care All of that is Christian, and they take that and they do the satanic inversion of it. And that's exactly what we're talking about. And a lot of Christians are taken in by it.

They're taken in. They go, oh, it's about caring for the downtrodden. Yeah, caring for the downtrodden the way God tells you to do it, not the way the devil tells he do it. Because guess what? He actually doesn't care about the downtrodden. He's just blown smoke. And either did Marks. So I guess people are like, yeah, but Marks actually got some things right because he cared for the poor.

and you say, no, he didn't. He hated the poor. He really hated them. He hated everybody, to be fair. But what you just said, that's what I mean when I say weak. But wimpy, weak and woke. The weak part is the we are not understanding the philosophy. We're weak intellectually to understand these philosophies might sound good to you

because they've been packaged a certain way. But we've got to wake up. We've got to get a little bit stronger or get some grit. Well, a lot of people know you obviously is the front man for skillet. but they don't know the intellectual side of you that I've gotten to know. Very impressive, patriotic and intellectually robust. You have a podcast. How can people find your podcast?

Because you're just doing great stuff. Well, thanks. Cooper Stuff Podcast. It's on every- Cooper Stuff? Cooper Stuff podcast. And you can get my book at John L.Cupert.com. Unfortunately, at the moment, it's the only place to get it.

You can get the Kindle on Amazon. So JohnL.Cooper.com is where you want to go. Cooper's Stuff Podcast is on pretty much wherever you find them. Cooper Stuff Podcast. I've been on your podcast. Yeah, you have. But you talk about really important stuff. We're talking about it right now.

And I think that there are some that are waking up and there's some that they don't get it yet. They're still buying this lie. They're still buying. It's like there's enough truth that they kind of get sucked in emotionally, usually younger people, because I remember when I was in college, I got sucked in to this, a lot of this thinking. Yes.

You know, one of the things I would probably mention about it is this, when I say how we can save America from utopian destruction, it's because young people are really suckered into the idea of utopia. Because we all go, man, I'd love to live in the perfect world where nobody's hungry ever. Yeah, just give a homeless people. Give peace a chance. Get rid of your guns and give piece of chance. And when they cut your throat, you'll say, oh, maybe we made a mistake. This is real, folks.

I'm talking to John Cooper, John L. Cooper. dot com. Check it out, John L.Cuperer.com. We'll be right back. With the overturn of Roe v. Wade, lots of companies are coming out saying they'll pay for employee abortion travel and expenses. Most of you've heard about some of these companies. You've decided to stop shopping or doing business there, but did you know that you most likely own stock in those companies through your 401Ks, IRAs, and other investment accounts? Folks, this is a huge problem, and we need to do something about this to send a message to Wall Street through our investments. You need to go to inspire.

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Welcome back. I'm talking to John Cooper. John L. Cooper, who is the frontman for Skillett, the rock band, and has a podcast, Cooperstuffpodcast.com. We're talking about some really important stuff. And you, I would assume, because of your music, you're reaching a lot of young people to try to help them to understand where they're getting this wrong, because we were just talking about this idea that, you know, when people say, just give peace of chance, who doesn't

want to give peace of chance? I mean, that's just silly to me. Like, of course you want to give peace of chance. But if somebody's coming for your family with a gun, you've got to deal with that. If somebody is ultimately wanting to destroy you and your way of life, you need to be aware of that. And I think that they're people that they're so blessed that they haven't been forced to see evil. They haven't been forced to see some what you're talking about. I mean, I want to talk to you about everything. So where do we go from here? Because you say, like, first of all, let's talk about utopia.

Yeah. We all say, oh, I want utopia. But it's kind of like wanting heaven without the cross. You don't get the resurrection without the cross. You have to be realistic. We're living in a world of sin. Yes. And just to say, like, give up your guns and love on people, that's naive. That's not biblical. Yeah, I think that's the idea of utopian. Why young people are so, they're just so drawn towards it, which we understand we all want, I want the best for people. I don't want people hungry. I don't want people suffering and this and the other.

I think what it is is that we, we are so weak intellectually. We've had it so good. We just don't believe that anybody would think these evil things. Now all of a sudden people are going, wait a minute, 51% of Americans age 18 to 24 are pro Hamas. They think Hamas was justified. Now, this is the most tolerant generation of all history saying, well, yeah, but what other choice do they have? You've got to go rape women and butcher babies. You've got to gouge people's eyes out. Yeah. You've got to cut women's breasts off, right?

It's some of the demonic stuff ever. is so demonic that I don't even want to talk about it on this program. It is so evil. And the only thing that can account for young people in America saying this stuff is ignorance. They do not believe that what Hamas did was satanic, evil, cruel, sadistic. We're not talking about taking somebody out with a gun, folks, which would be murder. We're talking about really wanton, cruelty and evil. And what are people saying, John?

A lot of them are saying exactly what the Nazis said. Oh, it's Jewish propaganda. Never happened. It didn't happen. It's just Jewish propaganda. Well, I wish it were. I really wish it were. But it's not.

Yeah. And I think that I think what we're dealing with and what I writes about so extensively in the book is for people to understand that whokeness is a totalizing worldview in opposition to the Western worldview. you. And it is so, it is, you know, the academics, what they call it. They call it a grand narrative, right? You always hear that in post monitors. It's a grand narrative. And what they mean is it's a story of the world that tells you everything. Christianity, we have a grand narrative. There's a God who made a world. He tells us how we are supposed to live in it. He tells us who we are. The grand narrative of wholeness is power, oppressors and oppressed people. And the only thing that we're supposed to do is fight for the quote unquote oppressed. So therefore, any

thing you do that is for the victim is moral. If that means gouging eyes out and doing the most heinous demonic things we've ever heard of, you're still fighting for the victim. So you're looked at as the moral person. So you've got 51% of 18 to 24-year-olds thinking, we are the good people in this story. We are the moral people. Now you've got these kids on TikTok. They're not even kids, they're young adults, saying Osama bin Laden was actually the victim. And now we're going to be the good people by being on his side. Whokeness is a totalizing worldview and it encompasses everything.

That's the reason that the unborn child, the unwanted unborn child is victimizing the mother. We, as a population, are victimizing the earth. That's where the environmentalism is something. Everything is about this

totalizing vision. Okay, so let's be clear. This is Marxism, folks. If you want to know when we say Marxism or cultural Marxism. That is the lie at the heart of Marxism and cultural Marxism. It divides the world into oppressed and oppressors. And as with every lie, there's just enough truth in it to suck people in. But notice how it cannibalizes Christianity. Why would you care about oppressed people? Oh, I'm a good person. That's basically that comes out of the Bible. In history, people never cared about the powerless. They cared about getting power. So the Christian faith coming into the West

gave us all this idea that, oh, we should care about those out of power. We should care about those who are suffering. We should care about the hungry. Yes, that comes from the scripture. But then they take it and they do what I called a satanic inversion and they make it work against God's purposes. And that's what you write about. In the book, I want to say, the title of the book is Wimpy, Weak and Woke. And again, they talk. about utopia as though we could just have utopia. There's no evil in the world. That's not a biblical idea at all. Yes. And that's why I say, I've had people say, utopian destruction, because that's the subtitle, how truth can save America from utopian destruction. They say,

utopian destruction, what does that mean? Because there's never been utopia. Every time they try it, it ends in dystopia. That's what they tried in Germany, Nazi Germany. It's always going to be an inversion and you get people, for instance, shout your abortion. That's a great example. They're excited about it. We should be happy that we're killing children in the womb because this is what justice is. Everything is always going to be the inversion of the biblical idea. Now, biblical morality, God says, this is right, this is wrong, and it's always going to be so. We're going to go to a break. Go to johnL. Cooper.com. John L. Cooper.com. The podcast is cooperstuffpodcast.com.

Welcome back talking to John Cooper. The book is Wimpy Week and Woke, How Truth Can Save America from Utopian Destruction. John, you talk about how these bad ideas, these are satanic ideas, atheistic ideas, how they have entered the church and how many pastors, I talk about this all the time, many pastors have opened the door to these bad ideas

and said, oh, there's, you know, you have a point. A lot of people know, worked for Veggie Tales. And Phil Vischer, who created Veggie Tales, who was a friend for many years. He got on this bandwagon about white oppressant or white nationalism or really about systemic racism. And he put out this video.

And there's a lot of truth in the video. But the larger idea is, to my mind, mistaken. and a lot of Christian leaders have opened the door to these things. They don't seem to see where it goes. Yes. I think that's to do with the grand narrative that we're talking about because they are both totalizing worldviews. So the kingdom of God is a totalizing kingdom.

So God is going to tell us what is right and wrong. He's going to tell us the way we're wokeness does the same thing. Social justice or critical social justice, wherever you want to call it. Does the exact same thing. and I think what you have was a lot of probably good-hearted Christians, I'm assuming, good-hearted pastors, who want to reach people and they want to say, I also care about racism. I also care about this. And so they began to let some of it seep in.

And it cannibalized Christianity because they actually are different. They're coming from a different place. And I think the thing that's tough is that they don't come from static morality. So the Bible gives us static morality. The law of God is perfect, reviving the soul. what the Bible says. God's way is right. The morality of wokeness is always changing. It's changing with the fads. And you've got to keep up with the trends. Well, that's one of the ways you know it's satanic, folks, is that ultimately there's no, you just said it's static morality. They're basically

willing, it's like dealing with a person who keeps changing their story. And you say, wait a minute, something's wrong. Yes. Because I'm agreeing with what you're saying, but you're changing your story, you're moving the goalposts. You don't, and then what you realize is that their goal is power. They will say whatever they need to say to get you to come along with them because they're trying to get power. They will never say, yes, we've made racial progress in America. Yes, we abolished slavery. Yes, we abolished Jim Crow. Yes, we elected a black president. They will never say we've done anything good. It's always not enough. Not enough. Not enough. And something very sick about that. Like if you have a kid who you're trying to help him along,

but it's never good enough. And the parent keeps telling him you're no good. It's not good enough. It's not good enough. You're sort of cursing them. Yeah. It's like these voices have been cursing America and cursing the West for all the good that has been done, never celebrating that good, always saying it's not enough. It's not enough. Well, this kind of shows you that it's not really a good faith exercise that's happening. This is not in good faith. And they're ideologues and they're activists so they know where they want to go and they will use any argument. In fact, Foucault even says this, he's the postmodern philosopher. He even says, we use different lines of attack, even contradictory line. We don't, we don't

care if it's true because there is no truth of postmodernism. They don't believe in truth. They don't believe in truth. So they use any argument. If that doesn't work, then they jump to the next argument. And so in the book, I talked about that. I talked about Hegel a bit, who was a really confusing philosopher, but really what we're dealing with now is a world where they are trying to make all opposite things synthesize into this kind of like fake oneness. You know, it's a fake version of Christianity. Right. And that's why everything is the opposite, and they don't mind, for instance, they'll say,

America is patriarchal, we abuse women. What is a woman? We can't define a woman. You know, a man can be a woman. Right. There's no such thing, but also you're oppressing them. It's like everything is opposite, but they don't. actually care because they just want to create utopia.

Well, yeah, they just say they want to create utopia, but what they really want to create is they are in power and you're not, whatever they need to do. You talk, I mean, there's so much to get into. The book is Wimpy, Weak and Woke. You talk about a philosopher. A lot of people aren't familiar with magic, alchemy. Talk about that. Yeah, I think what, all right, so Marx was a group in a college group called the Young

Higalians. It was like a club of him and his friends that idolized this philosopher Hagle, who's a German philosopher. And Hagle is the one that created the dialectic we hear. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. And what a lot of people don't know is that this idea actually comes from alchemy. It was very mystical. And it was the idea that you can take an element, you take another element, and you meld them together, but neither one is ever burned up. They both burned together, but they both coexist. And so Hegel said, nothing is false in its own. Everything is part of the truth. It's just evolving, just like God is evolving, because he was a mystic. So God is evolving. Truth is evolving. Nothing is false on its own. And that's where we get,

for instance, critical race theory says that it's anti-racistialism, but also it's race essentialist, right? Critical race theory, basically. The most important thing about you is your skin color, it defines your outcomes, but also there's no such thing as race. So they put all of these things together and they try to make it synthesize. It's the same reason we have queers for Palestine. Queers could never go live in Palestine. They'd be put to death. Well, why are they standing up for this?

Because they believe, as long as you're in this oppressor, oppressive, you get it, saying we're fighting for the victim eventually it's all going to unfold into the perfect world. It's going to be hell on earth once they get what they want. Don't fall for it, ladies and gentlemen. Don't fall for it. Well, no, it is, it's so important that people understand this so they can deal with it. First of all, what you just said, what the goal is ultimately, when you're talking about critical theory, critical race theory, when you're talking about all these things, ultimately, or I should say one of the ultimate goals is to confuse you enough so that you just go along with that. Yes.

It will never make sense. So their goal is just to get you to shut up. They'll throw whatever they can at you because they don't want you to understand it because you can understand it. And if you understand it, you're going to realize, you're going to see through it. You're going to say, excuse me, this doesn't make sense.

A man cannot become a woman. And by the way, what is a woman? You can't tell me what a woman is. So if you can't tell me what a woman is, how can a man become a woman? How can a woman become a man? If it sounds confusing, it's because it is utterly confusing, and that is their goal, is to confuse you enough that you just shut up and you go along with it.

And many in the church, they just go, well, I don't need to understand it. I'm just going to go along with it. My heart's in the right place. I just want to love on people. That is not called being wise as serpents, which is what Jesus commanded us to be. We'll be right back talking to John L. Cooper. The whining and dine and the menu is blood, sweat, and tears. Everybody ready.

Hey, folks, talking to John Cooper. Front man for the band Skillet. Why do I call you frontman? I don't know why. Because you're described that way. You're the front man for the band called Skillet. When did you come to faith, John? I was a kid.

My parents were Christians. My mom was a fanatical Christian. Talked me about the Bible ever since. I don't remember a day where my mom was not reading the Bible and explaining it to me. Man, that's crazy. No, seriously, that's pretty cool. And then you go into, you know, rock music and you have been faithful as a Christian. But at what point did you start waking up politically and realize I need to speak out that we're in trouble as a nation?

And I need to use my voice because you've been doing that. Yeah, I would say that was more in the – once we started seeing all this social justice stuff happened, 2013, 14, the rise of BLM, some of my fellow Christian musicians are friends of mine. we're saying what I thought were extremely bizarre leftist things on their social media. Christian music has never been known for being political. All of a sudden, Christian music is very political, and it's all leftists. And I was like, I don't even know what this stuff means. I've never heard of this.

And I had to start looking into it, and I became convinced around 2016 that this was really a godless move. This is where I started understanding. They're trying to tear down America, but they're not. They also, that is tied to tearing down Christianity ultimately. Oh, yeah. It's the thing. And a lot of Christian pastors don't want to say that because they think it sounds idolatrous, as if what I mean is, in the mind of God, America and Christianity are tied together.

That's not what I mean. In the mind of the secular left, they are tied together to tear one down as to tear the other. So 2020 is when I said, I believe we're on the brink of losing this country. It's evil. What is happening? I live in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which got burned to the ground by people. BLM. Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people, three blocks from my house. I began to speak up, and the pushback from Christians was outrageous. And that's when I said, I can't, I just can't be

silent. And maybe God can use some dumb rock star like me for people that don't listen to intellectuals and preachers and theologians. Maybe they'll listen to me. I'll do my little part. Well, it is heartbreaking. I mean, it happened to you. It happened to me. I had my friend Keith Junta on here. the other day. You know, you're trying to speak about things, and when Christians don't understand, and then they attack you. Earlier I mentioned Phil Vischer. These are like good people who have a different view, but then they come after you like you're saying wicked things. You don't understand it. And the divide in the church is, it's kind of mind-blowing, how there's been this bizarre divide in the church. And my prayer is that some of these people who got some of this stuff wrong that they would wake up,

that they would eventually see, well, okay, maybe I was wrong on that. Maybe I was wrong on that. Because the fruit is not good fruit. We're not seeing good fruit. No, isn't it unbelievable that activists and utopians never learn from their mistakes. No amount of bad fruit seems to be able to weigh people up to go, maybe we shouldn't have had schools closed down during COVID. Like they just had this stuff come out like two years, two years later, two years after we all knew this, yeah, you shouldn't have closed these school downs.

And it hurt the poor more than it hurt the rich. It hurt the people of color, more than the white people. We all said this and we were canceled for saying it. No amount of bad fruit. 29% rise in homicides in America since 2019. The BLM movement has done nothing but terrible. things for people of color in this country. But the people that support it

will never apologize. And the Phil Vishers of the world will never say, sorry, I attacked you. I was wrong. I hope he would. I hope he would. There's something. Well, I mean, listen, it's heartbreaking to me. It is heartbreaking to me. They were accusing me of spreading

lies and disinformation. It's like, believe me, folks, I would not do that. I'm a Christian. I get the idea that we're supposed to speak the truth. But we're living in a weird times. Hey, when we come back in our two, we're going to get the, how do we fix this? John L. Cooper.com.