John Cooper has been entertaining audiences for more than two decades as the lead singer of popular rock band Skillet, but now he’s adding a new mission into the mix: combating cultural relativism.
Cooper, who has been increasingly vocal on issues plaguing Christianity and America, is out with a new book titled Awake and Alive to Truth: Finding Truth in the Chaos of a Relativistic World—and he’s intent on driving home truth in an era of biblical apathy.
“We have gotten so scared about saying things that are true that it has caused a crisis,” the singer recently said on the Edifi With Billy Hallowell podcast. “It has caused a crisis of people believing that they are good and that they can reach heaven without Jesus’ help.”
Listen to Cooper discuss faith, relativism and more:
Cooper has become more vocal in recent months about issues plaguing culture—a move that came after he started seeing friends around him struggle with their faith and make comments that didn’t quite align with biblical truth.
As some of his Christian friends started to say, “I don’t think that Jesus is the only way,” or make other unbiblical claims, Cooper’s fears about the watering down of faith sparked in him a desire to speak out and help others navigate the ebbs and flows of an increasingly chaotic culture.
“There is chaos happening for a reason, and we need to be bold about what those reasons are,” Cooper said. “If you just ground your life in the truth of Christ, you can escape all of this chaos.”
He said there’s a disturbing trend in which too many people have come to believe that “nothing in the world is absolutely 100% true,” saying things like, “your truth” and “my truth.”
“Relativism is something that Christians cannot believe,” he said, going on to note that there are many inside churches who don’t quite realize this reality. “We are in war where the church is losing so much ground within the church … the church is not looking like Christianity anymore.”
Cooper knows that there’s a risk to extending outside of music to address the issues of the day—but he believes the stakes are too high to back down.
“What we are losing is so great,” he said. “If it costs me fans, we have to start trying to save as many as we can. It’s that kind of a time.” {eoa}
