During an interview with CBN News, John Cooper, the frontman of Christian rock band, “Skillet,” has expanded on his reasons for penning a hard-hitting Facebook post, written in response to a pair of former Christian leaders who have openly rejected their faith.
Two high profile renouncements of faith have shaken the Christian world in recent days, with “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” author Joshua Harris taking the atheist plunge first, followed by Hillsong worship leader Marty Sampson declaring that he is “genuinely losing his faith.”
Speaking to CBN News, Cooper explained that he wrote the post “not to attack anybody,” but because he was “sad and depressed” that people who had influenced his life were falling away from the faith.
“I just want to make a call to the Church to grab hold again to the preeminence of the word of God and the absolute truth that Jesus is the way,” he declared.
Cooper admitted that he did not expect his post to get so widely read when he wrote it out of a place of profound disappointment. “I’m just pleading for the church to come back to the gospel,” he said, “to come back to the truth of the word of God that never changes.”
The rocker also warned against the dangers of Christian celebrity culture, which he said too often champions those with talent, gifting them a huge platform and bestowing upon them an enormous amount of power.
“If you look the right way, if you sing the right way, if you sound the right way, you can become an extremely powerful person in today’s culture,” he said, “because, unfortunately, the church is looking to be entertained.”
While freely admitting that he himself is someone who has been blessed with an influential position (Skillet has sold over 11 million records), Cooper was humble enough to recognize his limitations as a leader. “I don’t want to be the person that people listen to, I want the word of God to do that — there are people who are gifted and anointed from God to share the word… that’s who I want to see us elevate,” he explained.
“Everybody is so confused about what truth is,” Cooper lamented. “And the Church is supposed to be invading culture with the Kingdom of God. Instead, we are letting culture invade the church — that’s not the way we are supposed to do it.”
“Jesus is the only thing in this world that will never change. Everything else is gonna fall away and chance, but His word stands forever.”
You can read Cooper’s original Facebook post in full below: