Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1397 ｜ The Cult-like NAR Church That Nearly Destroyed John Cooper

00:00:00.000 My apostle stood up in front of the church saying, there's been a third party hired,

00:00:04.660 but I can tell you there has been no sin. I have not sinned at all. He even asked his elder, he

00:00:09.540 said, elders, if you agree that I haven't sinned, would you stand up? There's two that didn't.

00:00:14.400 All the other ones stand up, which is good. We're all sitting down. I'm like, this is the most

00:00:18.160 culty thing I have ever seen in my life. Not a lot of people seem to mind except the people

00:00:22.800 that are leaving. They don't understand that theology matters because it makes you act a

00:00:27.720 certain way. The third party said, yeah, this is abusive. John, thanks so much for taking the time

00:00:44.880 to join me again in person. How are you doing? Good. Thanks for having me again. We've talked

00:00:48.960 so much. You're always so cool to have me on. I appreciate it. I know. I love it. Okay. You just

00:00:53.360 had a marathon episode by the time this comes out it'll be a couple weeks ago with elisa

00:00:58.020 and you talked you and your wife for a few hours just about the betrayal that you had gone through

00:01:05.140 at your previous church and kind of how your new ep that comes out next month has been inspired by

00:01:10.440 some of that suffering that y'all went through so tell us first about the songs that are coming out

00:01:15.640 and then what led to you writing and creating them yeah yeah i'd love to so yeah i did the

00:01:20.940 podcast with our friend, Lisa Childers. And, um, we had been talking about it for about a year and

00:01:26.540 I really didn't want to do it. I was like, I'm trying desperately to go through every biblical

00:01:32.300 process. I know how with my, my church, uh, um, to, to get to a place of some sort of

00:01:40.420 reconciliation or just peaceful leaving. And, and really what it came down to for me, it was

00:01:45.580 basically there was, um, doctrine that wasn't being shared with people. Uh, so it's sort of

00:01:51.660 like not, we're not really disclosed. And as I began understanding it, it was just like, Hey,

00:01:57.480 um, at the end of the day, we don't have to get along. Uh, I don't even, you know, they're not

00:02:02.880 going to repent for the way they treated us. And that's fine. I don't even need repentance, but

00:02:06.320 there does need to be a disclosure of your doctrine to the people still there.

00:02:10.460 and if you will just do that, I will go away. I don't want to go public. And they just refused

00:02:15.900 and for another 14 months. And it kind of came to a place where I'm like, I've got to tell this

00:02:21.400 story. My wife joined me, as you mentioned, Corey joined me. She never does interviews.

00:02:26.260 Probably done three interviews in a decade. She doesn't like being on the microphone, 0.96

00:02:30.260 but it was important to do. So that's why we did that. So people can go and check that out.

00:02:33.920 It is a marathon. It's about two and a half hours. Longest interview I've ever done.

00:02:39.140 So here's what I would say.

00:02:40.180 We have got a new EP coming out.

00:02:41.660 It's called After the Storm.

00:02:43.680 I would not say that this EP is about church hurt.

00:02:46.800 That's not the right way for me to say it.

00:02:49.140 I don't want people to listen to it and be like,

00:02:50.700 oh, this is the record that's all about church.

00:02:52.680 That's not the case.

00:02:54.060 The album is about suffering

00:02:55.540 and that life is really hard.

00:02:59.560 People are suffering all sorts of different things.

00:03:02.740 And sometimes I think it's good,

00:03:05.260 especially with rock music,

00:03:06.760 I would say with any music,

00:03:08.060 but especially rock music is about being real. It's about being authentic. It's about sharing

00:03:13.340 what you're going through because that's music is very kind of therapeutic for a lot of people.

00:03:19.000 And I sing a lot of songs about victory. I sing a lot of sports songs. Like we have a song called

00:03:24.460 feel invincible. You know, I feel, I feel it invincible. You're going to make it all these

00:03:29.340 like finish line. I'm in, in, in very kind of energetic. I'm never, you're never going to get

00:03:34.220 me down. And these are like, whew, I'm feeling pretty down, pretty, feeling pretty down right

00:03:39.000 now. And I'm in a place of recognizing the hurt, reaching out to God at times, feeling like he's

00:03:46.800 not hearing me. And that's okay to admit as well. Uh, we see that in the Psalms and we see that in

00:03:51.660 many places in wisdom literature, Ecclesiastes, you're just like, man, this is pain. You know,

00:03:59.060 you are going in the middle of this pain and it feels like no one's listening, but I'm holding on.

00:04:04.660 I am barely holding on, but I'm holding on and I need you to meet me in this pain. And that's

00:04:10.500 where the songs were written. And I want people to hear it and interpret it through their own

00:04:15.880 suffering, whatever that may be. You know, one of my biggest influences when I was growing up,

00:04:22.300 the preacher, he did youth camps. He used to say, have you ever felt like that God is not

00:04:29.060 listening and he is not showing up and he used to say if you haven't felt that way be patient

00:04:35.100 you'll get there it's gonna happen and and this is this has been our dark night of the soul

00:04:40.420 and i'm on the other side of it and i can attest that god is faithful and he never lets you down

00:04:46.680 he will show up it just might doesn't come when you want it sometimes and it takes a little bit

00:04:52.280 longer and that's what this ep is about a lot of people watch that interview with elisa but there's

00:04:57.960 a lot of people watching and listening now who didn't. And so they actually, they have no idea.

00:05:02.640 So can you take us through this church that you are a part of and what happened? What fueled that

00:05:08.000 feeling of betrayal? Yeah, I think maybe doing a short version or should we do the three? We'll

00:05:12.860 do another four hour episode. You know what? I want to beat Elisa, so let's go with four or five

00:05:17.140 hours. Yes, we got to beat her. You know, the condensed version is basically, there is a lot, 1.00

00:05:25.260 there really is an epidemic it's not in america one of the things that was shocking to me and to

00:05:31.260 elisa she's looking at the metrics of the episode i knew it was happening internationally but um

00:05:37.060 this is not just an american thing this is an international thing the the the widespread amount

00:05:42.840 of people from australia new zealand europe uh switzerland saying oh my gosh i went through this

00:05:49.760 too, is gigantic. It's an epidemic and it's happening in every corner of the church. It's

00:05:56.100 not just charismatic churches. It's cessationist churches. I got a ton of texts from reformed

00:06:02.920 people. I know somebody that Lisa knows texted her who was an elder in a reformed church and

00:06:09.400 he said, oh my gosh, this is my story. Now, my story personally happened in a charismatic church,

00:06:15.360 but I just want to say that because what happens is people can think, oh, Cooper's bashing

00:06:19.580 charismatics now that happens anywhere where you have a pyramidal authority structure, one guy at

00:06:25.880 the top, the Moses model. Some people call it the Moses model. There's all sorts of different native

00:06:30.600 leadership or eldership. He's not truly accountable to anyone. And in a spiritual sense, if you got

00:06:37.680 this guy at the top who is saying, well, I have a special insight from God into this. Even if you

00:06:44.260 do have a plurality of elders, if he's the one with the inside, it's a little bit hard to argue

00:06:48.920 with a guy that says, no, God told me. That's a pretty hard thing to argue with. And so my

00:06:53.880 experience was this, not truly understanding the doctrine of the church I was in. I was there for

00:06:59.900 30 years. What makes it even worse or harder, I should say, is that my wife's dad started the

00:07:07.260 church. He's still a sitting elder in the church. My wife's brother-in-law, who became my best

00:07:13.460 friend for the last 28 years up until a couple of years ago, um, is the quote apostle of the

00:07:19.440 church. Um, and so while I did know they called themselves an apostle, which I've never been

00:07:25.260 comfortable with because that I don't really believe in apostles like that. When we would

00:07:30.100 have the conversations, it would be like, no, all of them, all we're talking about is church

00:07:33.840 planters. We're talking about pioneers and people that go and plant churches. And every church has

00:07:38.180 this Presbyterians have church planters and they, they go. And I say, okay, if that, if that's what 0.70

00:07:42.500 you mean i get i don't you know i don't love it and uh with all the interviews i've done all these

00:07:49.700 years on all my reform thing if i would ever talk about them i would say my church leader you know

00:07:54.820 or my head pastor i i don't like the word apostle but they just mean it this way but come to find

00:08:00.180 out always have kind of an issue with that or was it at some point that you started thinking about

00:08:04.780 it like you're like i'm not so sure about that term i never liked the terminology and i came

00:08:10.020 from a church in Memphis that used that terminology and I didn't like it. And so I thought I was kind

00:08:16.320 of going to something that was going to see it in a different way. So I probably won't get in the

00:08:22.880 weeds of that because I know there's some people like, they're going to be like, dude, he called

00:08:26.340 himself an apostle Cooper. Why were you at that church? I get it. But I think that one of the

00:08:30.540 things we're seeing, we see this in leftist ideology. You see it with the BLM. Oh, I know

00:08:36.060 I'm about to ask you, do you remember? Of course you remember, but hopefully

00:08:38.980 no, it feels like it. I know you were there because I learned a lot from you, but people

00:08:44.460 listening, I hope you all remember 2020 having these conversations about what do you mean when

00:08:50.460 you say systemic racism? Are you just talking about this or that? And then you'd have these

00:08:56.520 big arguments and they'd say, all I'm saying is, is there still is racism in America. And then

00:09:01.640 you'd be like, well, of course I agree with that, but that wasn't really all they were saying,

00:09:05.720 but some of them didn't know it wasn't all they're saying. And some of them did. Some of

00:09:09.200 us nefarious and some of them were just useful idiots that didn't know. They didn't know what 1.00

00:09:13.560 was going on. And it just, it would be that loop, that loop where you're going around and you're

00:09:18.340 like, oh my gosh, can we just define our terms so I can know if we agree or not? Yes. That's

00:09:22.900 exactly what is happening. Again, I'm not bashing on charismatics. I'm not saying it's only in

00:09:29.020 charismatic churches. I'm not saying that at all, but it is happening a lot, especially in the new

00:09:34.140 apostolic reformation, NAR movement, we call it. It's happening a lot. My story is basically this,

00:09:40.620 not understanding that until I began to rub against authority in the church.

00:09:48.060 And when was this?

00:09:49.200 That first started happening in 2020. And that was because I began speaking out about a lot

00:09:55.260 of the things that we all experience. And I was assuming my church would be on board. I thought

00:10:02.100 there going to be like, yeah, that's awesome. Cooper, go for it. And y'all were, I mean,

00:10:06.060 y'all were close to Kenosha, right? Yes. We were in Kenosha. Okay. In Kenosha. So a lot of the

00:10:10.660 chaos and the craziness was happening there. Yeah. So people listening might not know. So

00:10:14.700 like Kyle Rittenhouse shot people three blocks from my house. Um, they burned the, you know,

00:10:20.440 the, the, the, the storefronts in that sort of downtown area is, uh, you can see the street

00:10:27.020 from my street, you know, that I lived in. So yes, it was very close to home. Uh, we were right

00:10:32.860 in the middle of all of those things. And, um, you know, the church I was a part of just acted

00:10:38.240 like it, it didn't happen. Like it wasn't even a thing. Well, like what, what rise, you know,

00:10:43.160 it was like, we're just not going to mention it and keep talking about revival, man. Woo. We need

00:10:47.640 that good. We need that good Holy spirit fire revival. And it just never got mentioned. And I

00:10:53.700 is like, this is really strange. Quick pause to tell you about our first sponsor for the day and

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00:11:59.420 Allie. And so I was speaking out and I began to have with my best friend who was my quote unquote

00:12:10.800 apostle. I never called him my apostle, but that was his position. And we started kind of

00:12:16.980 butting heads a lot. Because you were like, okay, I feel like this needs to be addressed. People

00:12:22.460 need clarity. You were talking, I remember, about social justice ideology at the time and that kind

00:12:28.160 of false theology. So you were kind of fired up about this in a good way. And you were hoping that

00:12:32.780 they would be on board with that or just, you know, from his position, give the clarity that

00:12:37.800 was needed to the congregation yeah absolutely people were very confused right and so i think

00:12:43.420 part of what happened because we it was a small church we were in and i think what happened was

00:12:48.140 that there was a lot of people in the church not everybody that appreciated it but there were a lot

00:12:53.000 that did that were like you know thanks for doing this yeah i think in hindsight i think what was

00:12:58.220 happening was there was probably more people that like that than i than i i'd known and i think that

00:13:04.140 in order to diminish my voice kind of came this, this constant head-butting, constant head-butting,

00:13:11.460 but I never knew why. And I was always like, Hey, I love you. And I really respect you. I have a

00:13:17.460 fear of the Lord. If I'm saying something wrong, I need you to explain to me why I was very

00:13:22.000 teachable. I'm actually, I'm actually, people might not know because I'm so passionate, but

00:13:26.560 I'm quite a teachable person. I'm not arrogant. I don't think I know everything. I am extremely

00:13:31.740 like, am I wrong? Tell me why I'm wrong. But it just kind of basically what would happen was just

00:13:37.080 a shut me down. They just needed to shut me down. And I would keep asking, can you explain it to me?

00:13:42.620 And there were never any explanations. So we would just go round and round.

00:13:45.680 So what was the response when you were saying, okay, we need to talk about what's going on

00:13:50.340 three blocks away. People are confused about it. What did they say?

00:13:54.420 Yeah. There was never anything that made any sense. So it would be like talking to your

00:14:00.740 progressive friends about what do you mean when you say systemic racism and never actually getting

00:14:06.380 to the bottom. Like you never have any resolution. And like for me, I have progressive friends. Like

00:14:12.440 I would be fine if the only resolution was we agree on the definition. And I know why my buddy

00:14:18.780 thinks there is systemic racism and that America is bad and all the structures of our country were

00:14:24.820 created to put people of color down and to lift white people up. Can we just agree on that? And 0.59

00:14:30.240 And if you, Joe, my progressive friend that I love, if you think that I can be friends

00:14:36.320 with you, but I don't think that I would like you to understand where I'm coming from.

00:14:40.520 To me, that's just true friendship and we can still be mates.

00:14:43.600 You know, it's like, but you didn't get that in 2020, right?

00:14:48.200 Not often.

00:14:49.280 It was usually like you're still living in the, they're just mad at you and they just

00:14:53.560 keep telling you're a racist over and over and over.

00:14:56.180 But they weren't.

00:14:57.200 the people that you're talking about in church leadership weren't necessarily progressive,

00:15:01.780 right? No, they weren't progressive. They just, I think they just didn't want me talking about it

00:15:07.200 because their structure. And again, I know that not everybody can understand this. You can't

00:15:12.760 really understand it until you're in it. And I get that you can't understand it, but it's because

00:15:17.420 in their structure, unbeknownst to me, because I'm reformed. And so I'm, I'm thinking, why aren't we

00:15:23.600 having a Bible disagreement about this based on the word of God. I think that I'm being a good

00:15:30.260 friend to you, even though you're my church leader, that's what we're supposed to do.

00:15:33.860 I didn't know that's not actually what they believe. So they would say that, but in reality,

00:15:38.460 if you've got a guy at the top that says, God is giving me apostolic wisdom to lead,

00:15:44.080 it would just basically what he would, I didn't know this and he never said it this plainly.

00:15:48.260 it would be basically, God's given me insight to lead, not you. So I don't need to give you

00:15:54.000 a biblical argument. This isn't about you and all of your exegesis and all of your,

00:15:58.420 that's not what you're here to do. God gives me the role of leadership. So at one point,

00:16:03.680 I remember him saying to me, John, I just got to say, like he said to me, he said, John,

00:16:09.160 do you not think I'm an apostle? And I was like, what the actual crap is wrong with you? 0.99

00:16:17.240 Like I was, I don't, I was just like, I don't, I said to him, I was like, I don't know what 0.99

00:16:22.060 you, like, I said, you saying that to me is like, you might as well be saying, do you

00:16:26.260 not, do you not think that I'm male?

00:16:28.840 Yeah.

00:16:29.160 You know what I mean?

00:16:29.580 Like, I don't know what that has to do with anything.

00:16:31.720 Do you not think that Dr. Pepper is good with ice cream in it?

00:16:35.500 Like, I don't know what you mean.

00:16:37.120 And also you had been told that, well, by apostle, we just mean church plan.

00:16:41.880 Yeah.

00:16:42.500 And so, but now that's like an authority flex.

00:16:45.160 Yes. I'm like, what does you have being a church planter have to do with this conversation? And that was like a conversation stopper. And I was, and I, but I keep pushing and I'm like, oh, I'm realizing he's done with this conversation. I do not know why he is this. And, and, and, and I still don't know what he's saying.

00:17:05.400 And so then behind the scenes begins the Cooper's just all about politics.

00:17:11.460 Now it's not really about the gospel.

00:17:13.240 And then I'm, I'm asking people like, I don't know what I've done wrong.

00:17:16.840 Why am I being treated?

00:17:17.940 This went on for about three years.

00:17:20.160 And so by 2023, I had decided that I've got to get out of this place.

00:17:27.500 I can't live here anymore.

00:17:28.760 I hate this. 0.99

00:17:29.920 I hate this church. 0.81

00:17:30.740 It used to be the place I loved with all my heart, love the people in the church.

00:17:34.500 they're the best ever. I love the people in this church. But I just was like, I got to get out of

00:17:39.800 here. I don't know how to function in this. I still didn't understand the apostle thing. I just,

00:17:46.160 I knew I was being controlled, but I didn't understand the doctrinal reasons behind it.

00:17:51.780 But I knew the control was real. And I had come to a place when I just was like, they're not

00:17:56.480 really reformed. They say they're reformed. They're clearly not because this is how reformed

00:18:01.100 people deal with things. You have a biblical argument and I have a responsibility to be a

00:18:05.800 Berean and to do my research. I'm not just going to take it because some jags up there saying,

00:18:10.680 and it's like, that's not how we do it. Um, in the reform, there was a guy called Martin Luther

00:18:14.940 read him. And so, um, I was like, I got to get out. And I also had decided that by that time

00:18:21.880 I was being spiritually bullied as well. And I didn't know all the language for it,

00:18:26.080 but I'm like, he's just spiritually bullying me because, um, I don't think he knows what

00:18:29.940 he's talking about. I think if he had a good argument, he'd give me one. And he actually

00:18:35.700 doesn't know what he's saying. He's just used to bullying people and them falling in line.

00:18:40.360 And was it just the disagreement over what was happening in Kenosha, the social justice stuff,

00:18:45.340 you wanting him to speak up about that? Or did the disagreement kind of blossom into

00:18:49.820 other areas as well? It began to blossom in other areas because I began writing papers.

00:18:55.480 At one point, he got upset with me because I was like, this is going to be a bridge too far, this social justice stuff.

00:19:03.460 He began working with a church in town that was going to be a multi-ethnic church.

00:19:08.620 And I said, great.

00:19:09.840 I love it.

00:19:10.400 I want to go.

00:19:11.300 Let's see what this is all about.

00:19:12.720 And I went.

00:19:13.780 And I told him, I said, dude, this is just social justice.

00:19:18.280 This is not kingdom.

00:19:19.440 This is bad.

00:19:21.240 And finally, he said, this isn't how we do it, Cooper.

00:19:23.580 We write papers.

00:19:24.500 If you have an issue, you write a paper.

00:19:26.360 And I said, all right.

00:19:27.600 I never heard of that.

00:19:28.760 Okay.

00:19:28.960 Yeah.

00:19:29.440 That's how you're doing it.

00:19:30.680 So I started writing papers.

00:19:33.160 And for three years, I wrote five papers that not a single one ever got answered.

00:19:38.460 Okay.

00:19:38.840 And you submit it to him?

00:19:40.100 Submit it to him and the elders.

00:19:41.740 No, excuse me.

00:19:42.440 It was him and his team.

00:19:43.360 He had a team around him.

00:19:45.200 And I said to four guys and three guys at the time, then four, eventually.

00:19:50.700 Nobody would ever answer my papers.

00:19:52.400 And so it did begin to expand into other things.

00:19:54.800 So what would happen is we would all be hanging out for family times because we're all family.

00:19:59.520 And I would say something thinking that we would all agree.

00:20:04.120 And what would happen in front of my kids, he would just demean me in front of my kids,

00:20:08.020 just absolutely demean me in front of my own children, in front of his children,

00:20:12.880 who I was very close to.

00:20:14.240 And I would be like, what's going on with this?

00:20:16.740 And I would be like, what do you mean?

00:20:18.420 Am I wrong?

00:20:19.320 We said, we're moving to Nashville.

00:20:20.960 love you think you do good work for the kingdom and uh we're we're moving want to leave on good

00:20:28.820 terms don't want our friendship to change and uh the the the climax is he said well you need to

00:20:34.480 know our relationship he said i love you too but our relationship has already changed you no longer 0.56

00:20:40.320 hold to the vision uh you're tearing down my life's work you're not going to be under apostolic

00:20:45.960 covering then kind of came all these other things later about yeah apostolic covering in these

00:20:51.940 movements is basically if you're familiar with bill gothard i'm familiar yeah there in other

00:20:57.940 words this is not just within apostolic movements but basically what they're saying is is there's a

00:21:02.720 leadership at the top that god is anointed and you need to submit to them submit to their whatever

00:21:09.460 And if you leave there covering their church, if you disobey them, if you're no longer submitted

00:21:16.820 to their leadership, then you now are not covered.

00:21:20.440 Bill Gothard used to call it an umbrella.

00:21:22.440 They were called umbrellas.

00:21:23.720 You're no longer the umbrella.

00:21:25.300 So you might get wet by all the demonic stuff that's out there.

00:21:29.160 You could lose.

00:21:29.900 I think that the guy at my church, the leader at my church used the analogy.

00:21:34.220 He would call it root and fruit.

00:21:36.080 Say there's really good fruit in your life now from the Holy Spirit.

00:21:38.800 that comes from me. I'm the root, basically. I'm your spiritual root. And if you cut me off,

00:21:45.480 you're not going to have that good fruit. And I was just like, dude, I don't even know what

00:21:50.000 you're talking about. That's not the gospel. You're not a mediator. It became this whole big

00:21:54.680 thing. Simultaneously, he did a sermon called, They Devoted Themselves to the Apostles' Teaching

00:22:00.780 simultaneously after we had decided to leave. And I listened to it and I just said, I said,

00:22:06.520 brother, this is the most frightening thing I have ever heard in a church before.

00:22:10.740 I've never heard anything like this, which is basically, remember the scripture in Acts,

00:22:16.060 they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the breaking of bread and to prayer.

00:22:21.080 And he's basically saying, yeah, that.

00:22:22.900 So you devote yourself to my teaching.

00:22:24.940 That's basically what he's saying.

00:22:26.520 So it was basically a sermon on submission to him.

00:22:30.000 Yes, and to his teachings.

00:22:31.860 Right.

00:22:32.140 So it changes authority of scripture to authority to my interpretation of scripture.

00:22:38.620 Does that make sense?

00:22:40.440 You're creating a new category that actually is a little bit more papal, funny enough,

00:22:46.440 except that all these apostles want to be their own popes without any accountability

00:22:50.280 and their own, instead of tradition, it's their Holy Spirit revelation or something.

00:22:57.880 I never heard any of that taught at our church.

00:22:59.960 I didn't know they believed that.

00:23:01.960 And so long story short, that's what happened.

00:23:04.340 And I just said, no, that's crazy.

00:23:06.180 That is absolutely crazy.

00:23:07.860 And so I started talking to other elders saying, do you know that he believes?

00:23:12.780 And I started going to my elders saying, this is what he said.

00:23:15.360 And all the elders kept saying, he didn't believe that.

00:23:17.600 You just have a bad attitude.

00:23:18.780 You just have sin in your heart.

00:23:20.040 You have bitterness in your heart.

00:23:21.060 You were going to them about specifically this idea of him having supreme authority

00:23:25.480 that people need to submit to.

00:23:27.120 And they were just kind of denying it.

00:23:28.980 Yeah.

00:23:29.580 We don't believe that.

00:23:30.620 we don't teach that and so and you're like okay what do we believe yeah and i'm like well i'm out

00:23:35.000 of here and they're like you just have a you just have bitterness and you need to stop talking so me

00:23:39.320 going to elders they started saying was gossip so it's gossip for me to go to an elder my elder

00:23:45.420 and say are you aware of the teachings of the guy who is over you like do you believe this and

00:23:51.320 they're like why are you gossiping and so it created this chain reaction and so eventually

00:23:57.720 people started leaving the church and I started telling people like, you just need to understand

00:24:02.100 what this guy believes. This is not good. And, uh, and I kept, but the whole time I kept saying

00:24:06.960 to my elders and to the apostle, I love you. And I don't want to be at war. Yeah. We can be friends

00:24:13.160 with you believing this. I'm not saying you're not a Christian, but people in your church need

00:24:17.660 to understand what happens to them when they disagree with you, because that is actually,

00:24:22.840 this is not Protestant. That's the issue, but they refuse to do it.

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00:25:37.300 And so this has gone on for over two years.

00:25:40.760 I wrote a paper about it.

00:25:42.680 We ended up having a third-party investigation

00:25:44.460 because so many people started suffering spiritual abuse

00:25:47.300 because they were going to be leaving the church

00:25:49.040 and the church leaders started lying about us.

00:25:52.480 They were making up stories about us.

00:25:54.240 They said in public on multiple occasions that we were acting from the devil.

00:25:59.620 The devil was the one who was influencing us.

00:26:02.600 Because they saw you as trying to sow division within the church.

00:26:05.540 And they saw you as to blame for all of these people saying, yeah, I've experienced the

00:26:09.600 spiritual abuse too.

00:26:10.740 Yes.

00:26:11.420 Yes, that's right.

00:26:12.460 All of this was from the devil.

00:26:13.780 This was the plan of the devil.

00:26:15.460 Then they started having prophetic words where they would go up and we feel the Lord is just

00:26:19.360 saying they're little foxes you know and these foxes are distortions of truth that are ruining

00:26:25.780 the garden and stay away from any of them it just went on and on and you're like sitting there and

00:26:31.820 you're like uh are you talking about me yeah i'm the little fox you know yeah uh you know anyway

00:26:36.660 uh foxy maybe what's up just kidding uh that's a joke um but anyway uh so you gotta have the

00:26:44.520 comedy because it gets so heavy comic really and so you gotta remember during this whole time this

00:26:48.660 is my wife's family right it's your brother-in-law it's her family she's gone to that church her

00:26:53.580 entire life no no her brother-in-law it's her brother-in-law okay of course which is mine too

00:26:58.540 but it's on her side right right yeah and her dad is still a sitting elder and so i'm i'm saying the

00:27:04.020 elders why are you why are you guys saying we're from so i kept trying to do the biblical process

00:27:08.840 why are you saying we're from the devil i kept going back to them like this isn't right you've

00:27:14.260 got to repent for this stuff. And so this went on for two and a half years, eventually had a third

00:27:18.540 party investigation report came out. They said, this dude is longstanding spiritual abuse. He

00:27:25.460 needs to be out of ministry for good. There needs to be repentance. And so that went on.

00:27:31.240 They released it. And for six months, all the elders and all these churches haven't said peep,

00:27:36.840 they've acted like it didn't happen. Nobody ever repented. Nobody ever explained anything.

00:27:42.200 And so it just got to a point, and this is the worst part, is that I had known, so this

00:27:49.320 has been for the first year and a half, they kept saying, Cooper's lost his mind.

00:27:55.400 He made up all this stuff that we teach that we obviously don't teach.

00:27:58.800 Not even some of the elders believed and blah, blah, blah.

00:28:01.120 Well, I had known that about eight months after I wrote my paper, even while they kept

00:28:06.840 saying they didn't believe this and I was making stories up.

00:28:09.440 I knew that the apostle wrote his own doctrinal paper in response to mine,

00:28:15.200 but would not release it.

00:28:16.920 And what was this paper about?

00:28:18.380 This paper was about apostolic authority.

00:28:20.560 Okay.

00:28:21.540 Namely, a couple of other things, but namely apostolic authority

00:28:26.000 and kept it within his little group and nobody would release it.

00:28:31.560 And I knew this because eight months after my paper,

00:28:34.360 I got a call from one of the elders and I was like, why is he calling me?

00:28:38.240 and I said, what's up? And he says, dude, I just want to say, I'm really sorry. I had no idea he

00:28:43.820 believed this. I didn't believe your paper. I thought, I thought you were exaggerating. I had

00:28:48.580 no idea. I have the apostles paper and it's everything you said and worse. And I said,

00:28:54.220 well, send it to me. He's like, I can't do that. You know, that would be lying or that would be

00:28:57.820 gossiping. And, and I was like, no, it's not dude. And so he resigned, but this remained

00:29:03.060 under wraps until about five weeks ago. That's the reason I went public. Um, I saw, I saw something

00:29:09.380 online today of somebody, they did a, they did a podcast on reaction video to me and Elisa's

00:29:15.520 and, and he was for us. He was on our side, but at the beginning, he said, he said, you know,

00:29:21.860 there's a cynical part of me that can't help thinking that maybe the reason the Coopers did

00:29:26.080 this now is because they're releasing this record and, you know, and blah, blah, blah. And, uh,

00:29:31.120 that stuff makes me so mad, you know? So I, I, I, I'm just want to say like the reason we did this.

00:29:40.960 So skill that has sold 22 million records and we're doing fine. I don't need to come up with

00:29:47.460 some, the hardest thing we've ever gone through to help me sell more records. That's like,

00:29:53.900 I just want to say, if that guy's watching, love you. Don't say stupid crap like that. That's 1.00

00:29:59.320 stupid. You can keep your stuff to yourself. You know what I mean? Sometimes you just got to keep 1.00

00:30:03.640 the cynical side of you on the inside. Keep the cynical side to yourself before you start saying

00:30:08.320 things like that. So we're just fine. It was really that that was released or you got to see that

00:30:14.220 paper five weeks ago, even though it happened a little while ago. Yeah. So it's six months after

00:30:18.880 the third party report. The elders haven't said anything. And then a whistleblower finally gives

00:30:24.560 me this paper that this apostle wrote 16 months ago that affirms everything I wrote. And it's even

00:30:32.240 scarier. And what were some of the things that you found scariest? The thing that was the scariest

00:30:37.100 is that he taught that. Do you remember when Paul says, I'm the least of the apostles because I

00:30:43.020 persecuted the church? Yeah. Which is obviously a statement of humility. And we know it's a

00:30:49.380 statement of humility because it's within the same thing when he's saying, I am a true apostle

00:30:54.240 of Christ. Yeah. Have I not seen him? Because he saw Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Have I not seen him? Have

00:30:57.860 I not? Have I not suffered? Have I not planted? Have I not? Am I not a father? You know, he's

00:31:03.840 going through all these things. And then you see this humility. I'm the least of the apostles

00:31:08.180 because I persecuted the church. But Christ saved me. It's this amazing humility, right? Those are

00:31:14.420 the leaders we need. This guy says, because Paul says he's the least of the apostles, that proves

00:31:19.940 that Paul is not as great as the 12. He's on a lower level of apostles, which means that Paul

00:31:30.700 is actually not greater than modern day apostles. So this means Bill Johnson and all these people,

00:31:38.760 the people that call themselves apostles, they're just like Paul. They can't write scripture,

00:31:43.880 but they're just like him. Paul is not a greater apostle than them. And that really blew my mind.

00:31:49.080 another thing that was in the paper, he was quoting someone else, but says this, I want to

00:31:55.780 say the quote fairly, and then we can explain in case people are like, well, what does that mean?

00:32:00.080 But they're talking about the way that, that hermeneutics, the hermeneutics should work in

00:32:04.680 the church. And they say in, in each individual church, the only Orthodox hermeneutic is the

00:32:11.220 apostolic hermeneutic, which means the only right understanding of the Bible in each church

00:32:17.640 is defined solely by the way that apostle reads the bible wow we're not consulting church history

00:32:23.980 people infallibility yeah definitely but even worse yeah because the you know the pope also

00:32:30.140 there there is accountability there you know there is the magisterium there is tradition there is

00:32:35.460 whatever this this is totally disconnected from the creeds confessions from everything in church

00:32:42.880 history because he's the new Paul. Right. And I read that and I was like, I didn't even write

00:32:49.580 that in my paper. I would think that's too far. There's no way he believes that. Right. Okay. So

00:32:55.820 the third party finding and the release of that paper of basically saying, I'm Paul for my church.

00:33:04.320 This is the interpretation that you have to adhere to. By the way, John Cooper didn't. And so

00:33:08.940 that was a big problem. I'm assuming that those two things kind of went hand in hand for you.

00:33:14.300 You're like, okay, well, the spiritual abuse findings make sense because we have this guy

00:33:19.580 over here who claims that he is basically an impenetrable authority. What did the third party

00:33:26.860 find? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, for one thing, you get it. A lot of people, even the elders in the

00:33:32.500 church there still don't understand. The connection. They don't understand that everything

00:33:36.820 you do comes because you believe something. I don't know why they don't, but they, you know,

00:33:42.060 a lot, a lot of churches, again, this is not just a charismatic problem. Okay. Um, so any

00:33:48.600 charismatic is getting offended. I've been in a charismatic church for 35 years. I love you. Okay.

00:33:52.760 It can happen anywhere in small town churches, anywhere, but in a lot of charismatic churches,

00:33:59.060 there's just not Bible training. And that kind of has worked into the DNA of, of charismatics a

00:34:04.340 little bit, which is churches have become too hedonology. They can quote all the creeds. They

00:34:10.040 can quote all the systematic theology, but they don't have the passion for God. And what really

00:34:15.420 matters is passion. And it's like that thing. A lot of charismatic churches are like that. Not all

00:34:20.620 of them. Somebody's going to say, mine's not love you. I believe you. But a lot of them are.

00:34:25.080 This one is. They don't understand that the things you believe result in actions, which is why

00:34:30.880 my apostle stood up in front of the church saying there's been a third party hired but i can tell

00:34:38.180 you there has been no sin i have not sinned at all he even asked his elders said elders if you agree

00:34:44.140 that i haven't sinned would you stand up in the middle of the thing and and the old there's two

00:34:50.260 that didn't all the other ones stand up which is good the other ones stand up and we're all sitting

00:34:55.260 And I'm like, this is the most culty thing I have ever seen in my life.

00:34:59.580 And nobody, nobody seems, not a lot of people seem to mind except the people that are leaving.

00:35:05.180 So they don't understand that theology matters because it makes you act a certain way.

00:35:10.340 The third party said, yeah, this is abusive.

00:35:13.580 And yes, I think he thinks this is okay because he believes he has some special, like, like

00:35:20.560 Nobody can, nobody can really disagree because of the apostolic wisdom or something of that

00:35:25.480 nature.

00:35:26.340 Um, and just personal flaws, which we all have, we all have personal flaws, massive

00:35:32.040 defensiveness.

00:35:33.220 You know, anytime you come and say, I've got a problem, um, I've got an issue.

00:35:39.160 You have hurt me.

00:35:39.920 He will flip it on you.

00:35:41.940 They will flip it on.

00:35:43.180 You're the problem because you didn't used to be like this until you started becoming

00:35:48.040 critical.

00:35:48.520 you didn't used to be like this till you started a friendship with this other person that was

00:35:52.780 critical of my ministry it's like always flipped you know there was a time when you trusted me and

00:35:58.140 i just have to ask you this is one of the things they always say like do i have your heart that's

00:36:04.340 one of the ones they'd ask all the time i'd never heard this but a friend of mine says dude he was

00:36:08.260 like do you have my heart and i was like jesus has my like i don't understand the question yeah he's

00:36:13.640 like, that's why I left. This is just culty. So people, but when you're in it, you're more

00:36:18.760 confused. So it puts you on a, you start spinning and you can't make sense of it because there was

00:36:24.320 a lot of good things in the church. There's a lot of good times. Wouldn't be my best friend

00:36:29.020 for 28 years if he had been spiritually abusing me for 28 years. I loved him and I still love him

00:36:35.580 today. And I forgive him now. You know, I've kind of placed forgiveness. Don't want a friend,

00:36:40.820 don't want a relationship can't do it you know yeah so i think that that that kind of explains

00:36:45.780 that thing i think pretty well i remember in 2020 this was used a lot but i'm sure it is still used

00:36:53.460 today it's just wielded as a weapon this accusation of being divisive that if you spoke up to your

00:36:59.620 pastor at the time and this also happened after charlie was assassinated and maybe the pastor

00:37:04.580 said something totally weird both sidesy or maybe someone felt like oh gosh i really wish that he

00:37:10.340 He would have given me clarity on that, and he didn't.

00:37:13.000 And you have some congregants who are willing to go to church leadership and say,

00:37:16.740 humbly, like, you know, I just was disappointed in this.

00:37:20.360 Or this is what I read in scripture, and this is what you said,

00:37:23.940 and here's where I see the daylight between those two things.

00:37:26.920 And very often, not always, the accusation towards that person to silence them

00:37:31.160 is you're being divisive.

00:37:32.860 You're being divisive.

00:37:34.300 And especially for someone who really doesn't want to be divisive,

00:37:38.720 for me, I'm like, I don't care. Like, I don't care if you think I'm divisive, but that's also

00:37:43.220 because of like what I do for most people, that's the last thing they want to be called. So it is

00:37:48.280 an effective silencer for people who are like, okay, well, I'm supposed to be a peacemaker

00:37:52.620 and I'm supposed to bring people together. And yeah, this person is, whether it's a prophet or

00:37:58.240 an apostle could just be their seminary trained. They've been a pastor for 25 years. And so it's a

00:38:04.500 very effective intimidation tactic when someone is being told that speaking up about something

00:38:11.920 is sowing division within the body. Yeah. That's the, you know, that whole like root of bitterness

00:38:18.840 thing is, you know, it's always used in every, every situation like this, when people are leaving

00:38:25.840 church or because they ask questions or they push back on something, it's always, you're being

00:38:31.420 divisive. I mean, I was told that so many times. And no matter how much Bible I would come back

00:38:38.940 with them on, it wouldn't matter. Next sponsor is Hillsdale College. We know that the university

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00:39:15.540 to combat these deceitful ideas that we see in the media that we see in the world. They will learn

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00:39:25.140 but it's not just for, uh, teens and 20, 21, 22 year olds. It's also for you. They've got these

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00:39:54.500 relatable. 12 months ago, after, uh, after the thing, when, when the apostles got up in front

00:40:06.480 of the, everybody said, I haven't even sinned and all the, you know, I sent an email and I said,

00:40:10.020 guys, I'm going to have to go public. Cause you're, you're, they were lying. They were all

00:40:14.640 on stage, still lying about their doctrine. And they're, and they were like, well, I don't know

00:40:18.400 what the, I don't know what he believed, you know? And I said, you guys are lying about it.

00:40:21.840 And it just, it is not right for people to give years of their life to something that

00:40:27.800 they don't understand that you haven't disclosed.

00:40:30.700 We're not, that's not right.

00:40:32.860 And tithe money.

00:40:34.080 Tithe money.

00:40:34.580 You're giving your resources, like you're giving everything, everything you have is

00:40:39.200 given to this.

00:40:39.800 It was that kind of community.

00:40:41.180 This wasn't like a Sunday and Wednesday night sort of thing.

00:40:44.060 This was a, we are all in.

00:40:45.900 This is our church family.

00:40:47.540 So I just said, I'm going to have to go public because you won't say.

00:40:50.620 So I finally got the apostle to write three paragraphs on, on something he believed on

00:40:58.260 a very particular thing on what he calls apostolic foundations.

00:41:01.100 It's what he calls it.

00:41:03.300 And I said to him, I said, thank you so much.

00:41:06.180 I said, if you will release this to all your churches, I will go away.

00:41:11.900 You will never hear from me about this again, not going public because I don't want to go

00:41:16.740 public.

00:41:17.140 I just want your people to know we can all be friends and just go away.

00:41:22.580 They refused for 14 months.

00:41:25.920 They just won't tell people what they believe.

00:41:29.280 So what is Epistolic Foundation?

00:41:31.180 Oh, man.

00:41:31.680 Just the authority structure?

00:41:34.260 I don't even know if you want to get into it because this is so specific to that particular movement.

00:41:39.960 it, but maybe a better way to answer, if you don't mind, would be to answer what are the

00:41:45.680 defining, in terms of apostolic foundation, how do a lot of these kind of new apostolic

00:41:52.000 reformation style churches, what does that even mean?

00:41:55.860 What is the danger of that?

00:41:57.740 What is the thing that defines it?

00:41:59.360 Which is kind of an adjacent topic.

00:42:01.340 You don't mind me talking about that, right?

00:42:02.960 I think there's a better way to answer it rather than my specific church so that more

00:42:07.840 people understand.

00:42:09.580 Basically this, NAR, New Episodic Reformation,

00:42:13.800 it's sort of like BLM in that everybody has a different understanding of what BLM is.

00:42:20.300 We don't have BLM, the website, or are you talking about the local thing?

00:42:23.320 Well, but they don't have, you know, they have regional authority,

00:42:27.180 not somebody over it, and they could all be doing it.

00:42:29.620 You remember all of that.

00:42:31.100 Everybody watching probably knows what I'm talking about.

00:42:33.760 Some people will have the BLM shirt, but they don't know anything about the website.

00:42:36.960 It was so frustrating, but you know it when you see it.

00:42:41.000 The thing that really categorizes these new Apostolic Reformation churches is this.

00:42:46.280 It is that God is restoring apostles and prophets to be authoritative offices over the church.

00:42:54.360 And that is the blueprint.

00:42:56.240 That's a word that most of them use.

00:42:57.680 It's the blueprint for how the church is supposed to act.

00:43:00.740 In my opinion, what they're trying to say is we need one church again.

00:43:06.960 We need the Catholic church again, the universal church.

00:43:09.360 We need that. 1.00

00:43:10.520 All these splinter denominations are really bad.

00:43:13.160 Charismaticism has always been against denominationalism, which is why all the rise of all the non-denominational churches.

00:43:20.440 They're like, we don't want to be a denomination. 0.73

00:43:21.760 It was the pain of what the Protestant Reformation did that a lot of us believe was necessary, but it came with some pain now.

00:43:31.700 Now we're splintered into a million different beliefs.

00:43:34.660 how are we going to come back together and be one? And the idea is that it's because God

00:43:39.720 instituted apostles to bring unity, because that's what Ephesians 4 says. As Christ is ascending,

00:43:47.560 he's given apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists, pastors for the unity and maturity

00:43:52.540 of the faith until we grow up into the head of Jesus Christ, the full stature of Jesus Christ,

00:43:59.640 whatever the scripture is. And so that's the idea. That is what, that is kind of the common

00:44:04.820 denominator. It's not just that there are church planters. It's that there are people at the top

00:44:10.340 that say, no, we are actually the, the rightfully anointed and appointed offices of the church.

00:44:18.120 And we bring God's special revelation in to organize the church, to know what God is doing.

00:44:25.540 Now, when we say they teach new revelation, they don't mean new revelation like the Book

00:44:30.540 of Mormon.

00:44:31.320 So it's not the same.

00:44:32.480 They're not bringing a new Bible or God gave me new revelation that contradicts the Bible,

00:44:37.580 but it's more like, no, God's giving us revelation to understand the correct interpretation of

00:44:44.320 the Bible as it applies today.

00:44:47.500 And that is why you can see some of these guys teach the Bible and it's wacky.

00:44:52.360 and you're like, that's not what that scripture means at all. They would say, well, that's only,

00:44:58.340 that's because you don't have the apostolic revelation. So what you get into funny enough 0.87

00:45:03.900 is a little bit of a postmodern, I would call it literary deconstruction, you know, a very much like

00:45:10.500 the Bible can mean anything. And when people like John MacArthur would, or Votie Bauckham would be

00:45:19.200 like, no, there's a correct interpretation of this. We need to, we need to continue to always

00:45:25.000 reform to find out what that correct interpretation is, but there is an objective meaning. A lot of

00:45:30.280 the apostles and prophets today, what they're saying is, is, okay, there may have been an

00:45:34.960 objective meaning then, but we need Holy Spirit prophetic movement to understand how it applies

00:45:41.500 today. And that is how they get around. They can use the Bible in the wildest, wackiest ways ever

00:45:48.420 to, because they believe they have prophetic direction. 1.00

00:45:51.500 That's the thing that brings the kind of NHR churches together.

00:45:55.640 And fair enough, some of them would be like, we're not Gnar.

00:45:58.280 We just believe this and this and this.

00:46:00.080 But you might say, yeah, but some of those characteristics are.

00:46:03.520 Yeah.

00:46:03.720 Does that make sense?

00:46:04.280 Right.

00:46:04.520 Yeah, it totally makes sense.

00:46:05.700 And you can see how that structure, again, I'm not picking on charismatic,

00:46:09.360 although I'm not a charismatic myself.

00:46:11.780 You can see how that structure, though, would lend itself to a lack of accountability.

00:46:15.420 and all lack of accountability is vulnerable for abuses and manipulation and false teaching and

00:46:20.820 all kinds of things. When we've talked about, it's not exactly the same as NAR, but maybe you've

00:46:26.840 heard of Catherine Crick. She calls herself a prophet and apostle, and she's been appointed

00:46:31.520 an apostle by this other person who considers himself an apostle, George Davey. And a criticism

00:46:37.780 that I've gotten, and I would say this is a form of spiritual manipulation. Not only are you

00:46:42.480 divisive for saying, okay, she's doing these things, asking for your money to accomplish

00:46:46.840 these things that's not the way of Jesus. It's not what we see in scripture. They will go so

00:46:51.180 far as to say that's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Well, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit

00:46:55.240 is the only unforgivable sin. And so if you really want to silence someone, then you not

00:47:00.980 only tell them they're being divisive, you tell them you're going to hell. You're going to hell 0.97

00:47:04.400 if you keep speaking up against these things. So the silencing manipulation tactic can be strong

00:47:10.300 for anyone, but I imagine especially for someone who had a personal relationship with this so-called

00:47:15.060 apostle. These are your family. These are your friends. This is people, you know, people that

00:47:19.520 you hung out with forever. And I just imagine that that was not only emotionally painful,

00:47:24.880 but we were talking before, you also felt like physical pain and physical manifestations of

00:47:30.680 all of this conflict that was going on in your life. Yeah, it's really important what you just

00:47:35.900 said about the, uh, unforgivable sin. You're, you're speaking against the work of the spirit

00:47:42.260 kind of a thing. So if you go against the apostle or his teachings or this, it's almost like you're

00:47:47.500 going against God and God is, um, going to do something bad to you maybe. So this, this,

00:47:53.800 it's this very transactional kind of horrid picture of God, actually, if you think about it,

00:48:00.780 it's anyway that's that will exist at a much lighter level so so in other words I would say

00:48:10.440 that's a very extreme thing to say but that kind of spiritual manipulation and and and spiritual

00:48:15.920 threats I mean I would call them spiritual threats almost like a spiritual curse almost

00:48:19.620 that exists in in in a lot of these churches and that those kind of things existed a little bit

00:48:25.160 into ours um sorry i forgot oh physical pain yeah and so i kind of put two like big questions into

00:48:32.300 one no no you're good i did experience a lot of physical uh physical manifestations of of great

00:48:39.280 pain in my body and um now some people in these churches will be like that's right because you

00:48:46.180 left the apostle you said like you left his cover you left his covering and so of course you did

00:48:51.620 I suffered depression over the last couple of years because these people made me feel

00:48:55.900 insane. It will make you break with reality to where you don't even know what is real anymore

00:49:03.140 because I'm like, but I'm looking at what you said and now you're saying you didn't say it.

00:49:07.440 And I've known you to be a really good man for 30 years, but I have it written down. And so

00:49:12.000 you're denying it's written down. And maybe I'm the crazy one because all of my former friends

00:49:16.520 that were elders are saying Cooper's just being a divisive person and root of bitterness. He's

00:49:21.060 being used by Satan. And you're like, maybe I am being used by Satan. Like this stuff is real.

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00:50:20.340 free ground beef bundle, four pound ground beef bundle when you use my code Allie. Goodrangers.com

00:50:26.700 code Allie. I have a friend who, who left this church in a 2018, same, same church and was told,

00:50:41.560 you know, basically you're leaving the covering, you know, hope things go okay and blah, blah,

00:50:45.720 blah. And, you know, unfortunately they suffered a lot. Um, his, his daughter had mental health

00:50:53.920 issues, um, ended up having a suicide attempt. And, um, you know, one of the family members

00:51:01.100 of the apostle told the mom of the person who tried to kill herself. This is because you left

00:51:09.400 the apostle. This is why this happened. That stuff will ruin people's lives. That is some

00:51:16.340 evil, wicked stuff right there, right? So I was so stressed out and so angry and just a break

00:51:25.860 with reality that I just suffered a lot of pain. My knees were killing me. My feet hurt so bad.

00:51:31.940 Now, I'm an athletic person, so I run a lot. I work out. I play concerts, which are also kind

00:51:37.600 of quite energetic if people have ever seen videos and I would play a concert and I couldn't sleep

00:51:44.500 and on my feet were hurting so bad and they would just I could feel my heart beating to my feet you

00:51:50.340 know and stabbing pain I'd get up in the morning I couldn't walk for the first few minutes I was in

00:51:54.760 Europe touring and it hurt my back so bad I could I couldn't take my clothes off Corey had to help

00:52:01.280 me change them I was like honey I can't like I I can't remove my pants you know and I was just in

00:52:06.920 agony for a while and trying to work out. And, and I was running about three miles, you know,

00:52:13.040 a couple of times a week and I was just suffering. I just, I was like, well, I guess like my age

00:52:19.100 finally hit me, you know, and that's the way it is. And two months ago, when the Lord finally

00:52:24.660 broke me through all of this stuff, this spiritual warfare and this agony, I had a clear picture of

00:52:33.500 what was going on. I knew that I was doing what God called me to do. I was standing on the word

00:52:39.120 and I'd been praying for months, God, I need you to deliver me. And he finally delivered me and

00:52:45.080 I've got no pain. It just went away. And I run about six miles a day now. And I wasn't able to

00:52:53.040 lose weight. I was just suffering. And now I feel great. And my feet never hurt, literally never

00:52:59.880 hurt. And I'm like, I talked to my counselor and she's like, this is what it's like when people

00:53:06.280 leave a cult. If you leave a high control group, this is normal. Like you're not abnormal. It would

00:53:12.060 be abnormal for the level of fighting you did. It would be abnormal to not be suffering some sort of

00:53:18.540 major physical illness. It's like that Psalm, not that David was leaving a cult, but he is

00:53:24.960 warring against someone who is such, you know, that he knew well as Saul was pursuing him. And

00:53:32.060 he's like, my bones are wasting away. You know, that's what it reminded me of. That's the first

00:53:37.040 thing that came to mind is like, you know, that Psalm has always been kind of strange to me. It's

00:53:41.800 like, well, you're talking about your emotions. Your emotions are sad. Why are you talking about

00:53:46.160 your feeling like your body is wasting away? But as you're explaining that, I'm like, wow,

00:53:50.220 those things are inextricably intertwined. As you were carrying that burden, it was almost like you

00:53:54.760 were physically carrying it. Absolutely. I mean, there was one time in the middle of this thing,

00:53:59.220 you just reminded me of it because you're talking about David, uh, in the middle of this whole thing

00:54:03.280 that there was a couple who was leaving that, that met with the apostle and, uh, for their exit

00:54:12.240 meeting, they'd already told him, they'd send him a text where, Hey, we're going to be moving to

00:54:16.020 Nashville and would like to just get together with you and say, you know, thank you. Met with

00:54:21.060 them and said, Hey, just want to say it's been a great 10 years or 12 years. Um, we appreciate

00:54:27.140 everything you put into us and served us. We love you. We're going to be moving on. And it became

00:54:32.760 a really bad meeting in which the, the apostle was, was like, I hear you, but it's, it's pretty

00:54:39.380 tough to hear the, the, I love you thing when I have lost your heart and when you have lost trust

00:54:46.280 in me and you wouldn't be doing the things you're doing if you had not lost trust. And it became a

00:54:51.600 very abusive meeting. So a few months later, this woman, it was a couple, but the woman sent an

00:54:59.360 email to all the elders after she moved saying this was a really abusive meeting. And the apostle

00:55:05.000 ends up writing and says like, I don't know how, but we happen to have a recording of that meeting,

00:55:10.880 a secret recording. And he's like, I don't know how it happened. And he's like, you know, if you

00:55:16.060 don't take this back. I'm going to send it out. And so he sent it out to all the elders to prove

00:55:21.320 that he, he, he did it. And I was on the thread. She copied me on that. I told her, I said, you

00:55:26.740 copy me on that thread because they spiritual bully people. And there's anything I hate in 0.99

00:55:31.880 the world as a bully that that's my guiding light. I don't care how big they are. We're,

00:55:36.860 we're going to go at it. Okay. And I said, copy me on that. And I was, and I responded to when I

00:55:43.180 I got, when they sent the thing, I listened to it and I sent an email back and I timestamped

00:55:48.560 all the claims that she had made.

00:55:50.920 I said, they made all these things.

00:55:52.460 I timestamped it.

00:55:54.100 One of the elders emails me back in the thread with all the elders, which includes my family

00:55:59.460 members, my father-in-law, praying the imprecatory Psalms against me, praying the lions are coming

00:56:06.900 against your anointed one, like the enemies of God thing.

00:56:11.160 And you saying, David, reminded me that is the level.

00:56:14.900 I'm like, I'm waiting for my father-in-law to speak up for me. 1.00

00:56:19.580 Like you don't start praying in Pregatory Psalms against brothers in the Lord, you idiots. 1.00

00:56:24.920 Nobody will stand up for me. 1.00

00:56:26.720 And it makes you think, am I great?

00:56:28.260 And so we just went to war.

00:56:30.340 They've lost 40% of their church.

00:56:32.480 And another reason why I finally spoke up is because the rumor is, is now the third party

00:56:37.480 has been done.

00:56:38.900 They haven't said anything.

00:56:41.160 and the apostles coming back into ministry business as usual no repentance necessary for

00:56:47.160 the actual spiritual abuse that happened no disclosure of theology and doctrine back to

00:56:54.680 business baby and that's why i went public not because i have a new album coming out yeah wow

00:57:01.320 because i mean there are sheep in that congregation that they're i mean you're basically claiming they

00:57:07.000 have a wolf not a shepherd yes and you care about their spiritual well-being like you said you love

00:57:13.320 those i love them all i want for them to do is to know the doctrine and if they stay we're still

00:57:19.240 friends yeah this is not a you're kicked out of the kingdom if you believe this thing it's

00:57:24.360 it's definitely unusual but uh yeah you know what i mean it's like yeah yeah it just drives me nuts

00:57:32.840 Yeah. You mentioned Martin Luther earlier, and I always think of that quote of peace if possible,

00:57:38.460 truth at all costs. And that basically, I mean, whether you consciously were thinking this or not,

00:57:43.500 it sounds like that idea was your guiding light. Peace if possible, that's ideal. That's what we

00:57:49.660 want. But truth at all costs. And what people don't realize is that it's not the person that

00:57:57.000 is trying to align with scripture that is being divisive. Lies are divisive. I mean,

00:58:01.280 the truth is divisive too but in a good way the truth divides but like social justice ideology

00:58:07.260 is divisive false teaching is divisive side b christianity is divisive and so someone's saying

00:58:14.600 well hang on the word of god says this is not the one who's sowing the division it's like

00:58:19.400 no i would love you would love nothing more than for everyone to be united on sound doctrine based

00:58:24.980 on the bible that's like your hope and your goal but if false doctrine is leading people astray

00:58:30.840 and into these abusive situations, well, then peace or compliance is actually not the right

00:58:39.200 move.

00:58:40.360 Absolutely.

00:58:41.840 That's what's been so frustrating about it is saying, we can have peace if you just disclose.

00:58:47.280 Like, I don't want to be here.

00:58:48.540 I think your doctrine is bad.

00:58:50.480 Disclose it.

00:58:51.560 And I think this is good for people listening if they're in a church of what any sort of

00:58:55.440 flavor.

00:58:55.800 I think they just need, I want to remind you that disclosing your doctrine is the first thing you're supposed to do as a shepherd.

00:59:06.400 Yeah, should be on your website.

00:59:07.620 It's on the website.

00:59:08.600 Like, it's all there.

00:59:09.860 We don't have hidden doctrine.

00:59:11.200 That's when you get into culty things or esoteric things.

00:59:15.000 That is a danger.

00:59:16.020 and and knowing who you are to appeal to if there is a conflict meaning a plurality of elders or

00:59:24.960 whatever your ecclesiology is there's got to be a system to appeal to that stuff should be there

00:59:29.960 and if they're not giving it to you that is a huge deal yeah you know that's a really big deal so

00:59:34.320 yeah for me i just wanted the people to know that and i am experiencing a great measure of freedom

00:59:41.720 now. I feel like I've come through it and my, I never gave up on Jesus, but there were, I was

00:59:48.080 just like, God, I don't like, I don't know where you are. I can't find you. And I am having a hard

00:59:52.820 time reading my Bible. I don't know how to pray anymore. You know, I bought a Matthew Henry book

00:59:56.960 on prayer because I'm like, I need to start over like a little kid. I don't know what to do.

01:00:01.660 And, um, it was quite difficult doing that. And I think that has given me a far greater compassion

01:00:08.940 for people who leave the church or on that kind of deconstruction path or gone through that. Maybe

01:00:16.600 they went progressive or maybe they left the faith or whatever their story is, there is a much

01:00:22.700 kind of greater compassion for me for like, your stories matter. You matter. Your stories are

01:00:28.400 legitimate. I'll be the first person ready to hear your story. In reality, one-on-one, I was

01:00:34.080 always ready to hear those stories. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. But in the way

01:00:38.420 my posture, especially publicly towards like, no, those are real stories. And I want to hear them

01:00:43.380 and you're not going to, you're not going to offend me. You're not going to scare me. There's

01:00:46.520 nothing going to tell me that I haven't felt myself. I get it. If you feel like you hate

01:00:50.620 Jesus, you come talk to me about it. I can hear that story and have compassion for you and be

01:00:56.160 your friend. And we can try to walk through it together. I want those people that might have be

01:01:01.920 on the fringe or they left the faith. I want them to come back to the faith. I want so desperately

01:01:06.940 for them to come back to the loving arms of the Savior

01:01:10.120 and the men that misrepresented him,

01:01:14.140 they shouldn't have done it.

01:01:15.520 I'm your guy, you know, come talk to me.

01:01:17.540 So I think that gives you a greater compassion

01:01:19.600 for those folks as well.

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01:02:08.640 Go to everylife.com. Use code Allie10 to get 10% off your first order today. Everylife.com,

01:02:14.240 code Allie10. And separately, I am bringing this up. You do have an EP coming out next month that

01:02:27.040 we talked about. And that is After the Storm. And we touched on it a little bit in the beginning of

01:02:31.500 our conversation, but that's not just about church hurt. That's about any suffering, any betrayal.

01:02:36.240 So whether you're someone who was just described by you, someone who has been betrayed or someone

01:02:41.060 going through something else, like these songs are in the midst of that suffering for them, right?

01:02:46.120 Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, again, you don't want to make a record that is about a thing. I want

01:02:51.180 them to hear. I mean, this is kind of my mindset going into this record. All right. I would say

01:02:56.940 that i would say it like this you um you you come to the place like after all the uh the fun and the

01:03:05.120 games and the uh it was very we lived you know very much in a culture over the last 10 12 years

01:03:10.640 of like everything is awesome you know i know you have kids you were the everything is awesome

01:03:16.160 yeah that might have been a little bit before yeah i can't remember anyway everything is awesome

01:03:22.460 is a great Lego song, but you know, all of the like, life is amazing. You're amazing. After all

01:03:28.220 that's gone away at the end of the day, what do you do when you go to bed at night? The fun is

01:03:34.580 over. The texting is over and you realize that you don't matter. Your life doesn't matter.

01:03:43.580 No one sees you. If you were gone, would anyone care maybe for a little bit until you're forgotten

01:03:51.860 people won't remember you generally speaking people got stuff to do you there's not really

01:03:59.420 anything to live for and the like you're you're a you're an accident you're a cosmic accident

01:04:06.300 according to darwin's universe you just happen to be here and so whether you do things right or

01:04:12.300 wrong it doesn't even really matter if you feel love if you don't feel if you're faithful to

01:04:18.340 your spouse or unfaithful is, but at the end of the day, does it even matter? And you come to a

01:04:24.940 place of just the only thing I want is just to not feel pain. And you just avoid pain at all costs

01:04:31.580 and whatever that, whatever it takes, that's it. I don't want to feel pain until you come to that

01:04:37.760 place of, of so much numbness that you can't take it anymore because to feel is to be human.

01:04:44.520 And then you go, you know what? Maybe I just want to break something beautiful. You know,

01:04:50.080 and that was the line. That was the, the opening line that I had for this. When I was writing this

01:04:56.420 on screen, I just want to break something beautiful just to feel again. You got to,

01:05:02.260 we have to understand that is the world that young people are being born into today. Nihilism.

01:05:08.820 There is no God. There is no transcendent beauty. There is nothing to live for. You're a cosmic

01:05:14.200 accident. And so just live for whatever makes you feel good for God's sake, because there's

01:05:20.600 nothing left. I wanted to enter into that space to write an album, especially for young people

01:05:28.940 to say that like all of those feelings make sense to me. All of those feelings, I get you,

01:05:36.620 I've been there and they are real. They're even logical. They're actually logical conclusions

01:05:42.760 to the world you have been raised in, but it's not true.

01:05:47.500 You do matter because God created you in his image.

01:05:52.000 And that means you have value because God says you do.

01:05:57.360 And that means the things you do matter and the people you touch matter.

01:06:01.640 And you are part of a cosmic drama that is happening right now for the God of the universe

01:06:08.120 to make himself glorious and to make himself the center of everything and to have a family

01:06:16.460 of people who glorify him that he will be in communion with forever.

01:06:22.900 It's almost too good to be true, except it is true.

01:06:26.100 The gospel message to tell these people, I know you feel like you don't matter, but you

01:06:30.820 do, and you got to keep fighting.

01:06:33.560 You got to keep fighting to find that hope.

01:06:35.640 it's the hope we have in Jesus of course that is the place I want to enter into with this EP and

01:06:42.120 that is why yes I wrote based on the things I was feeling from the pain I was experiencing

01:06:48.200 but the overall message the EP is called after the storm the overall message is we're still here

01:06:54.960 yeah the storm hit now we can come up from the bunkers and see how much you know how much the

01:07:00.260 tornado how much the twister took how many houses did it take how do you rebuild after the storm

01:07:05.620 it's time to do that. I just want these young people to know you've been lied to. The Darwin's

01:07:12.120 world that you were born into is a lie. The sexual gender confusion world you're born into, it's a 0.97

01:07:18.340 lie. And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You do matter. There's a God who is merciful, who is 0.55

01:07:24.900 reaching out to you. And if you ask, if you seek him, you will find him. Amen. Amen. So good. When

01:07:31.420 does it come out? October something. Next month. Be on the lookout every day. Wake up. First thing,

01:07:38.840 check Spotify. Go check Spotify. Our song Scream is out right now. Yeah. Go check it out. Awesome.

01:07:44.960 Thank you so much. All right.

01:08:01.420 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 18, 2026

Ep 1397 ｜ The Cult-like NAR Church That Nearly Destroyed John Cooper

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