Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 316 ｜ Resisting Woke-ism in the Church ｜ Guest： John Cooper

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far.

00:00:15.160 So today is a little bit different. Typically we do something related to the news on Wednesday,

00:00:21.660 but today we're actually doing an interview and we are doing an interview with the singer

00:00:25.940 for Skillet, John Cooper. He is an awesome Christian, has so much wonderful theological,

00:00:31.180 cultural commentary, and I'm really excited for you to listen to or watch this conversation if you

00:00:36.620 are watching on YouTube. John, thank you so much for joining me. It's so cool to be here. I'm excited.

00:00:44.220 Yes. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you do? Okay, who I am. My name is John Cooper.

00:00:50.920 I sing in a band called Skillet. We're a hard rock band. We are a Christian band. And that's my day

00:00:57.680 job back when the world had day jobs, when the world still was normal. So that's what I do.

00:01:04.880 Right. But you also, you host a podcast, you post videos, several places. I know I have a lot of

00:01:11.420 followers and listeners that send me your stuff. You give a lot of Christian commentary, a lot of

00:01:17.360 cultural commentary from a Christian perspective. Can you talk about kind of when you started also

00:01:23.540 being a public voice that has given so much light and guidance in this crazy, chaotic world that we

00:01:29.540 live in? Yeah. Well, thank you. Well, this is how I know that your listeners are good people

00:01:34.120 because they're sending you my stuff. My podcast is called Cooper Stuff. And it originally started

00:01:42.580 for me, to be honest, probably about 2011, 2012, when I just was like, okay, I've been a Christian

00:01:50.160 since I was a kid. I'd been in Christian music at that point for 13 or 14 years or 12 years. And then

00:01:59.060 I was just like wondering what in the world is happening. Everything just seemed to fall apart.

00:02:03.660 And it wasn't just that the world was confused, which the world was desperately getting more confused,

00:02:08.820 but it was Christians that were getting confused. It was friends that I had that had been saved for

00:02:14.800 a decade, two decades, that were all of a sudden walking away from God. Or we would talk about the

00:02:20.940 faith. And as I would talk to them, I would say, hey, I don't think what you're saying actually

00:02:25.540 sounds like Christianity. I think that sounds like universalism. Are you sure that you're a Christian?

00:02:32.280 And all of a sudden, we went through some really hard times. People in my church that fell away,

00:02:36.500 public figures fell away, as everybody knows. And I just was like, okay, I need to do a real deep

00:02:43.520 dive into culture to understand what is really happening. And I'm not a very smart person. It took

00:02:49.960 me about three years to finally get to it, but I just began to really dig deep. What can I do to help

00:02:56.280 Christian people hold on to the simplicity of the gospel? It's not supposed to be utterly confusing.

00:03:02.980 I mean, the disciples were not the smartest people in the whole planet. They weren't the

00:03:08.380 academics of the time. Certainly the words of Jesus can save simpletons like me. And I saw people

00:03:15.840 falling away. I wanted to do something because in the Christian celebrity world, there weren't really 1.00

00:03:22.860 any voices doing that, and not many. And if there are voices in the Christian celebrity world, to be

00:03:27.660 honest, they tend to be on the other side. They tend to be on more of what we call the woke side,

00:03:33.640 you know, the side that is like, hey, it's okay to have a liberal view of the Bible because God loves

00:03:38.920 everybody. And I was just like, you know what? We are leading people straight into destruction

00:03:45.400 whenever you change the truth of Christ in order to make it more palatable to people. And that's why

00:03:52.260 I started Cooper stuff. Right. And can you talk specifically about some of those points of

00:03:56.840 confusion that you saw and that kind of spurred you to start talking about different cultural and

00:04:05.000 theological issues? What have you seen? Maybe what kinds of thinking, what cultural forces have you

00:04:12.520 seen push people into that point of view that kind of just says, you know what? The most important

00:04:17.720 thing is just that God loves everyone. And beyond that, I don't need to talk about the hard stuff.

00:04:23.420 Yeah, that's really dangerous stuff, isn't it? I should say this, and I saved it. I'm a big fan

00:04:29.100 of your show, and my wife is a fan. And so she bought your book for our daughter. My daughter is

00:04:35.840 going to be 18 next week. And my wife was reading it. She's like, dude, she calls me dude. Dude,

00:04:43.040 this book is so much like the book that I've just written a book. And she's like, it's so much like

00:04:49.660 it. You guys are seeing the same thing. So it's very similar. So I wanted you to know that. Great.

00:04:53.880 Well, thank you.

00:04:54.420 Great stuff there. And I began to look at it. I'm like, yeah, me and Allie, we're reading from the

00:04:58.640 same notes. Well, this might sound silly. But when I was in college, I studied, I love philosophy, 0.68

00:05:06.340 and I love political philosophy. I'm not that smart, but I studied postmodernism.

00:05:10.700 Postmodernism, I never knew anybody would believe postmodernism. So it took me about

00:05:15.080 three years, 2012 to 2015. And I remember telling my wife, 2015, I was like, I finally made up my

00:05:22.420 mind about what's wrong with society. I didn't know that we don't believe in truth. I thought

00:05:27.140 we were arguing about which truth was real. Maybe it's Jesus, maybe it's the Big Bang, or maybe it's

00:05:34.600 Darwin's evolution. I thought we were arguing about absolute truth as opposed to that absolute

00:05:40.600 truth even exists. And once you begin to believe in relativism and your truth and my truth is kind

00:05:47.720 of different, and maybe, in fact, you can't even know my truth because the color of your skin or your 0.69

00:05:54.540 gender or your economic status, what have you, at that point, then we can't agree on anything. So

00:06:01.180 nothing is good. Nothing is bad. There is no way to reach any sort of conclusion

00:06:07.720 about morality, even the way we should treat each other. And what I began to notice was the amount

00:06:13.340 of Christians that were resolute that Jesus is the truth, but also not believe that there is such 0.75

00:06:19.560 thing as truth. And I was just like, what's going on with you guys? And so I think that the

00:06:25.080 influx of postmodernism and relativism in the world has become so ubiquitous, and it's taken over

00:06:32.540 language, you know, it's changed our words. And all of a sudden, Christians are repeating a lot of the, 0.95

00:06:38.880 what I would call postmodern phrases that really don't mean anything anymore, and now they are

00:06:43.860 applying them to Christianity. So now we have a Christianity that Jesus is real, but He's not, 0.75

00:06:49.540 He doesn't have to be the same for me as the same for you, which actually goes against Scripture.

00:06:54.700 So no wonder people are utterly confused. And that is one of the biggest things that I just feel

00:07:01.380 really passionate about. We have to strip that away in order to then begin these discussions about

00:07:07.100 who Jesus is. Is He actually the same yesterday, today, and forever? Is He actually the sinless

00:07:14.320 Savior of the world, or is He not? And other than that, there's no way to have peace without it. So

00:07:19.620 that's something I feel pretty passionate about.

00:07:22.320 And in your study, how have you found that postmodernism seeped into the church and has now

00:07:29.040 taken such a strong hold on what seems like a large chunk of people who identify as Christians?

00:07:36.360 Yeah, it's really scary, isn't it? If I probably had to, if I probably had to take it down,

00:07:41.300 boil it down to one simple thing that I know is going to be oversimplified, but it's what I believe.

00:07:46.060 I believe it's an issue of authority of Scripture and sufficiency of Scripture. If you think about it,

00:07:51.720 it's really about both of those things, because what Christians tried to do,

00:07:55.360 they wanted to become so relevant to the world that they began to say, well, part of being relevant

00:08:01.140 is not drawing lines in the sand, because then you kind of got to view psychology as a little bit on

00:08:08.540 par with Scripture in that sense, right? It's about loving people. And you write in your book about

00:08:15.040 self-love, which is something that I only heard of like three years ago, and I heard a Christian say,

00:08:20.140 well, there's no way you can actually love the world unless you love yourself. And I was like,

00:08:24.680 yeah, chapter and verse, please.

00:08:29.140 And so once you have all these things on the same level of Scripture, I believe there's a lot of

00:08:34.780 good-hearted, wonderful Christian people that had good intentions that thought, I don't want to offend

00:08:40.400 people, so I'm going to say, hey, if that's true for you, I understand. I'm not going to draw a line

00:08:45.360 in the sand. And because of that, we can agree to disagree. But before you know it, you're agreeing

00:08:52.780 to disagree on actual essential issues, things that actually make the, okay, that's not a religion.

00:08:59.840 That's not, excuse me, that's a new religion. That's not Christianity. And you have to define

00:09:04.940 the terms and you have to be, you have to be strong about it or else you will end up with a

00:09:10.620 generation of people. As we've seen now, I look, you quoted this statistic on your show recently.

00:09:15.160 What is it? Three percent of all millennials who claim to be Christians even believe in absolute

00:09:20.820 truth, don't believe in authority of Scripture. That is a product of weak, can I just say the truth

00:09:27.240 here? It is a product of weak pastors that wanted to be so relevant to the world that they forgot to

00:09:33.620 be relevant for the gospel. Hello, I'll start preaching, Allie. I don't even care.

00:09:38.040 Oh, I love it. I love it. I know my audience will love it too. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

00:09:42.460 Can you talk about how you see a connection between the postmodernism that you kind of

00:09:47.800 discovered, you know, five to eight years ago and the wokeism that you mentioned at the beginning

00:09:55.980 of our conversation, you know, critical race theory, intersectionality, social justice that

00:10:02.680 has definitely seeped into the church. Do you see a connection or maybe postmodernism led to wokeism

00:10:08.840 or do you see those things depending on each other within the church?

00:10:13.720 I think that that's really interesting. I would say yes, because I kind of see postmodernism as a bit

00:10:21.200 of a foundational work for an extreme version of humanism. I mean, I hate to just start throwing

00:10:28.240 around terms all the time, but because of postmodernism, the goal of this, what I would consider to be this

00:10:33.900 woke utopia would be that it's all to do with like, I call it works-based, you know what I mean?

00:10:40.980 It's all social justice driven. It's all that I know what is good and I know what is good because

00:10:46.000 of my own heart. So then when you apply that critical race theory model to it in postmodernism,

00:10:53.560 postmodernism believes that there is no absolute reality. So a good person, if you're not watching,

00:11:00.120 I'm putting good in scare quotes, a good virtuous person, according to the world standards, then

00:11:06.600 would seek to elevate the reality. It's not true reality, it's perceived reality, right? We need to

00:11:13.420 elevate the perceived reality of people who suffer injustice. And so all of that is to do with

00:11:19.980 postmodernism. So I look at wokeism in church life, excuse me, I absolutely look at that as a form

00:11:27.800 of relativism because wokeism is built in Christianity, I'm talking about, sorry, wokeism in the church is

00:11:33.980 built on the idea that what matters most in the world is being a good person because Jesus loved

00:11:40.440 people. And that all of a sudden becomes the reigning attribute of God. So as opposed to traditional

00:11:47.260 orthodoxy, which teaches us that God is always going to be everything that God is, right? He's never

00:11:55.380 going to stop being loving in order to be a God of righteousness or that that's not how it works.

00:12:00.600 When God punishes the wicked doer, he is still being all loving because it is the infinitude of

00:12:06.840 his love that causes that also is matched with his hatred of unrighteousness. So once you go,

00:12:15.180 no, it's all about God's love. God loves people. God, God is love. And so therefore love must also be

00:12:21.340 God. That is the way it works. So now wokeism becomes something that says we need to do whatever

00:12:26.960 we can do to just make love. I believe the idol love is like an idol. Now that we worship, we don't

00:12:33.860 worship Christ. We've created a God and he's 90 feet tall, nine feet wide. And we're like, it's,

00:12:39.560 it's love. And that must be what Jesus is like. And so I do think that wokeism is, I believe is causing a

00:12:46.400 civil war in the church and they are making it seem like it's all about race, but it's not really

00:12:53.020 about race. It's actually about this other thing, which I believe stems from, from relativism. And

00:12:59.700 the reason it's justified is because people think they're doing a good thing. Yeah. So they think

00:13:03.700 they're getting to a good place, even though they're doing something bad. It's kind of like trying to get

00:13:07.780 clean by doing something dirty and it's just not going to work. And so I think that that is part of

00:13:12.980 wokeism. Yes. I always say that critical thinking is the enemy of critical theory. And one part of

00:13:20.000 critical thinking is you define your terms. And that's why people always ask me, you know, how do

00:13:26.260 I talk to my friend who is kind of inundated in this social justice world? She's a Christian, but she

00:13:30.860 seems to be confused, taking on wokeism. And I think the best thing to do in those conversations is to

00:13:37.280 simply ask clarifying questions because so often the people who have maybe unknowingly kind of donned

00:13:44.160 this wokeism as their new lens of the world. And even the Bible haven't actually thought about,

00:13:50.880 okay, I'm talking about justice, but what does God say that justice is? I'm talking about love,

00:13:55.800 but what does God say that love is? I'm talking about, you know, reaching the least of these or

00:14:01.940 reconciliation or unity, but am I using the biblical definitions of these terms or am I using worldly

00:14:08.860 definitions of these terms? And so I often think the best thing to do is to ask people who are

00:14:14.240 positing these ideas and using these terms, well, what do you mean by X? What does the Bible say that

00:14:21.340 love is? Who does the Bible say that Jesus is? How does the Bible define justice? Because so often it

00:14:28.100 seems like these people using these terms have actually been evangelized to by the world rather

00:14:33.100 than the other way around. And so we are echoing words and definitions that we have allowed the

00:14:39.580 secular world to define when Christians should be defining them and championing them. And so I think

00:14:45.840 critical thinking and clarification in defining our terms and saying, okay, yes, God is love. You're

00:14:54.460 absolutely right. But what does God say that love is? The Bible says that God is love, not that love is

00:15:00.000 God. And so we don't, we don't get to, we don't get to redefine that. But so often I think we're afraid

00:15:08.020 to ask those questions and we're afraid to push back because, you know, we don't want to seem like

00:15:13.780 bigots. We don't want to seem like, it's almost like the two options are like you're either a racist

00:15:19.360 bigot or you're a critical race theorist. What is your encouragement for people?

00:15:25.380 I 100% agree with that on every single front. And in my book that I told you about, the book is called

00:15:33.860 Awake and Alive to Truth. And the subtitle is Finding Truth in the Chaos of a Relativistic World. And there's a

00:15:42.900 chapter in there that deals with this sort of thing. You're absolutely right. I think that maybe

00:15:49.340 this is a bit of a way I would say it. I think you nailed it when you say the world is defining

00:15:53.240 the terms. See, when I was growing up, I grew up in the 80s. We believed in my generation in just

00:15:59.800 hedonism, right? It was a hedonistic world. And that just means you live for pleasure. Whatever you

00:16:06.400 can find that's going to satisfy your flesh is the best thing to live for. And that's why the 80s was

00:16:12.080 so materialistic, obviously drug rampant, sex rampant, all of that, right? 80s and 90s.

00:16:18.560 Live for hedonism. Well, living for Jesus in that culture, I would say is actually quite—I don't

00:16:25.700 mean that it's easy, but it's easily defined, wouldn't you say? Because that just means that

00:16:30.160 all you have to do to make a stand for Jesus is to not have sex outside of marriage and not do drugs

00:16:37.380 and not whatever. All those pleasures, you just say, no, I don't do that. And you automatically

00:16:42.640 make a stand for Christ. And you might get made fun of for your faith. We call it persecuted,

00:16:47.780 if you want to call it that. You might get made fun of for that, but the lines were clear.

00:16:52.740 The difference between hedonism and 2020, which is humanism, is that what the world does,

00:17:00.480 as you said, is borrowing our sense of righteousness, our sense of doing the right thing

00:17:07.360 and pleasing God and loving one another, which is actually not a natural thing to do, right? Our

00:17:13.760 selfish nature does not look to, how can I go around helping people? So in our theology,

00:17:19.940 original sin means that you don't naturally look for those things. It is the Spirit of God

00:17:24.580 that changes you in the inside and gives you a love for people that you begin to have the fruits

00:17:30.940 of the Holy Spirit. Well, the world is kind of like taking that on. And so now what you have is a

00:17:37.240 world who believes that they are more virtuous than Jesus Christ himself. And that is, that's really

00:17:44.140 weird. And so now you have Christians confused because they are being now called bigots by a world

00:17:50.720 who thinks that they are more loving than Jesus. Whereas in hedonism, my generation, nobody ever looked

00:17:56.740 a Christian was like, I'm a better person than you. They look, they didn't like Christians because

00:18:00.560 they thought Christians were like no fun or they were do-gooders. They were, they were goody goodies

00:18:05.680 and we ruined the party. Now it's like, oh, you're actually a bad person because I have more virtue than

00:18:10.980 you. So now we live in a time, this is how I would encourage Christians. The Bible is still the same.

00:18:16.760 You should count it joy when you are persecuted for your faith. You just have to get used to the idea

00:18:22.360 that you're going to be persecuted with lies as opposed to because you stood up against hedonism.

00:18:28.720 You're going to be called a bigot. You're going to be called somebody who you don't care about the poor.

00:18:34.040 Even though by all statistics, everybody knows that religious people give way more charity than

00:18:38.900 non-religious people. Conservative people give more charity than non-conservative people. We all know those 0.89

00:18:45.040 things, but you're still going to unjustly get called something. And my encouragement to Christians is,

00:18:49.880 does that still not equal joy? Because you're being persecuted for what you believe, even though

00:18:55.940 it's unpopular. So I think if we understand the worldview and we define the terms, then we just

00:19:02.320 have to say, Hey, I'm counting it all joy. I'm getting a chance to stand for my faith in Christ.

00:19:06.920 And by being honest with people, I am actually speaking the truth, which is what my responsibility

00:19:12.900 as a believer is.

00:19:13.960 Yeah. You make such good points that it's a, it's a different kind of line in the sand today

00:19:20.080 because secular people and people who identify as Christians, but really are universalists,

00:19:26.520 like you mentioned earlier, they have co-opted Christian terms. Whereas that, you know,

00:19:31.480 that didn't used to be the case. We weren't even using the same language as the world,

00:19:34.920 but now you have people who don't know God at all using terms like justice, using terms like

00:19:43.160 compassion and love, and even citing Jesus, even though they don't believe Jesus is the way,

00:19:48.980 the truth and the life. And so I think that's part of also why Christians are confused because

00:19:53.600 you hear people in the secular world using Christian terminology and you're thinking, Oh shoot. Okay. 0.51

00:20:00.960 Well, that, that sounds right. That sounds godly and good and righteous. So maybe, maybe that is

00:20:07.520 how, how I am supposed to be. But again, not going to the word of God to define those things, but

00:20:13.080 allowing people who hate God to define those things, who don't believe people are made in the image of

00:20:18.500 God to tell you what human dignity actually is. It's kind of like when I say, okay, you know,

00:20:23.540 you hear pro-choice people saying, Oh, to be actually pro-life, you have to agree with all of my

00:20:29.120 different social programs and social issues and whatever. And I say, hang on pro-lifers,

00:20:34.100 actual pro-lifers, people who believe in the legalization of dismembering babies in the womb

00:20:39.160 do not have the moral authority to define what is pro-life and what is pro, what is not pro-life.

00:20:43.940 And I say the same thing to Christians, Christians, people who hate God, who according to the Bible are

00:20:49.880 enemies of God, who are under the influence as Ephesians two says of the prince of the power of the air

00:20:54.320 do not have the authority to define justice or injustice. They don't have the authority to

00:20:59.320 define human dignity. They don't have the authority to, to define right and wrong. God has that

00:21:04.320 authority. And so I think we have to be careful. Whose authority are we under? Who are we allowing to

00:21:11.320 define our terms? And we have to resist the redefinition of terms. There was a, sorry, I know

00:21:17.540 I'm ranting, but there was a post the other day. That's not ranting, Allie. That's called preaching.

00:21:21.720 Oh my goodness. Well, I feel like I'm ranting, but I would love to hear what you think about,

00:21:27.280 think about this. Cause I got into a conversation with someone about it on Instagram. There was a

00:21:31.740 post that said, you know, um, supposed to be from a Christian perspective saying that only white people

00:21:38.680 can be racist because racism is prejudice plus power. And I posted, you know, this is wrong. This is

00:21:45.440 a redefinition of terms. God doesn't distinguish between the kinds of hate that he prohibits in the

00:21:51.620 Bible. And I had a Christian, you know, message me and say, you know, I've got my MDiv from Fuller

00:21:57.140 Seminary and you're wrong about this. Um, and I think a lot of Christians are allowing the world to 0.97

00:22:03.720 redefine those terms. What is your, what is your advice to people to resist that who fear being called

00:22:12.380 a bigot, who fear being called racist, but know that they have to stand strong and outwardly speak

00:22:19.260 out about what is actually true and what these terms actually mean? I think, yeah. Uh, so, so many

00:22:26.320 good, good things. Okay. Um, I like what you said. I'm going to rewind only a little bit and then I'm

00:22:33.320 going to hit that because you're absolutely right. One of the things I wanted to share,

00:22:37.680 where should I start on this? There's so much, you know, what's really annoying. I was going to say

00:22:44.080 what's really annoying to me. And it goes directly at what you just ended with is that I expect the

00:22:50.160 world to be deceitful. That just makes sense because our flesh is deceitful. And if you don't

00:22:56.220 know Christ, there you go. What's really annoying to me is that the world then has, has kind of co-opted

00:23:02.840 Christian terms. They have twisted those terms to mean something different. Then what happens next

00:23:08.600 is that our, as you said, MDiv class, our pastor class, our preacher class, then co-ops the new

00:23:18.100 definitions of the terms and defends them. And I don't, I do not understand how that's what really

00:23:26.160 makes me mad. I expect the world to do nasty stuff when preachers begin to do it because they're,

00:23:31.180 I don't know, maybe they have good intentions. Maybe they're trying to bridge the gap.

00:23:34.660 Maybe, I don't know what their intentions are, but it's, it's wrong and they need to be called

00:23:39.520 out for it. And they're, they're trying to say, Hey, I kind of know what the world's saying. And

00:23:44.380 we're kind of on their side. If you think about it. And one of the things that's really scary about

00:23:49.780 that, you're right, is that they're redefining all of the terms and on a foundation of something that

00:23:57.020 we just do not believe. And it is causing utter confusion. Maybe I'll give you an example because

00:24:02.880 a story kind of speaks to it more than me yakking about a philosophy. A good friend of mine who I

00:24:09.440 love, who's, who's black. When George Floyd died, he had a bit of a breakdown. We don't live in the 0.89

00:24:15.420 same city. He had a bit of a breakdown. And on Instagram, I would say on Instagram stories,

00:24:20.760 probably 20 times a day, he was reposting black lives matter stuff. He's a Christian black lives 0.95

00:24:27.920 matter. Ibram Kendi quotes about, as you said, prejudice and power being anti-racist means,

00:24:34.160 you know, showing up for, for a protest and reparations. And if you don't show up for protests,

00:24:40.720 then you're actually a racist. He was posting all this stuff. So after about a week, I gave him a call

00:24:45.940 because I just wanted him to vent, go ahead and vent. I don't mind. We're friends. I called him and I said,

00:24:50.320 hey, how are you doing with things? And we talked, we had a great conversation.

00:24:54.300 And he said to me, he goes, you know, what's weird, John? He said, what's weird is that I have

00:24:58.720 some of my, my great white Christian brothers calling me, repenting for their white supremacy.

00:25:05.480 And he said, John, I got, I just tell him, why are you calling me? I don't think you're a racist.

00:25:09.220 Why are you doing this? And I had to explain to him, he doesn't understand what he's posting

00:25:15.380 means that all of his white friends are actually racist, according to the definitions. And he's

00:25:22.140 like, what are you talking about? And I try to explain that. Look, I'm not offended. I love you.

00:25:26.380 I know you're hurting and I feel you. And I'm mad about what happened to George Floyd as well. I'm

00:25:31.620 really mad about it. Um, but you have to understand the philosophy, what you're saying means that your

00:25:38.680 white friends are actually prejudiced against you. And so what this means now, I don't know if you've

00:25:44.480 seen this alley, but I'm sure people watching have seen this. Have you seen things online where you

00:25:49.920 have some, a spouse married to someone else that's a different color skin, repenting to their spouses

00:25:56.680 or their biracial kids? They didn't know they had white supremacy and all. I'm like, oh my gosh,

00:26:03.200 you've been married for 20 years. This is not what love looks. That is a twisted version of love.

00:26:09.020 Yeah. When in the Christian worldview, we have already been reconciled in covenant to one another

00:26:15.740 because we are reconciled to Christ. It is the best news that there is. It's the great news of

00:26:22.700 Jesus Christ. So I agree with you. I think that's like maybe a story to put it in perspective of how

00:26:27.320 critical race theory will destroy the world. And for all those preachers that are going,

00:26:32.340 I don't believe in critical race theory. I'm just want to use some of the terms in order to reach the

00:26:37.280 world. What you end up with is this confusion about saying that, I read just this past week again,

00:26:44.980 that Jesus had privilege. Jesus laid aside his privilege in order to identify with the oppressed.

00:26:52.500 As soon as you get into that language, what you are saying is that Jesus died for minority groups.

00:26:59.020 Yeah.

00:26:59.280 And the only way for majority groups to come to Christ 0.99

00:27:02.500 Christ is through identifying with a minority group. And now the minority group becomes the 0.96

00:27:07.720 mediator. And that is not the gospel. We celebrate one mediator in Christ. So I would encourage people,

00:27:13.900 you know what? You probably are going to get called names. It is going to be unpopular,

00:27:18.780 but in doing so you'll be rewarded. It's so much better to be rewarded by King Jesus. That's what I would say.

00:27:24.960 Yes. Amen. I say, blessed are those who are canceled for Christ. If Jesus said, blessed are

00:27:30.440 the persecuted, blessed are those who are canceled for Christ. I have a few things to say about what

00:27:36.360 you just said. You're absolutely right there. Pastors say, no, I don't believe in critical race theory,

00:27:41.420 but I do feel like I need to renounce my white privilege. I do feel like I need to preach a different

00:27:47.680 gospel to my white congregants than I do to my black congregants. And I think that is an eternal 0.98

00:27:53.180 disservice in particular to your black congregants. If you love, which I know these pastors do,

00:27:59.940 if you love the black and brown people that are in your congregation, and if you love God, then you

00:28:06.200 know that their deepest problem, their deepest problem is everyone else's deepest problem, that they

00:28:12.340 are a sinner that will stand before God one day and that they need to be reconciled to a holy God by

00:28:18.780 the blood of Jesus Christ. That is the same biggest problem that your white congregants 0.98

00:28:23.080 have. And so when we only preach repentance to white people, but we preach, I'm sorry, only 0.98

00:28:29.440 to black people, then we're not preaching the gospel to the very people that we are saying 0.87

00:28:35.320 have, have, have, have bared the brunt of prejudice. That is another form of prejudice. And it has 0.83

00:28:42.680 eternal implications when you are too scared to preach repentance and preach the good news of Jesus 0.96

00:28:48.660 Christ to your black congregants, but because you think the only thing they need to hear about is 1.00

00:28:53.880 white privilege. That is actually a form of racism. And that is where critical theory brings us to new 0.98

00:29:00.020 forms of racism, to coddling one group and to castigating another group, not based on actual

00:29:07.060 responsibility, not based on actual actions or attitudes, but based on immutable characteristics that

00:29:13.120 the world has told us categorizes people as the oppressed versus the oppressor. Another thing that

00:29:19.320 I wanted to know is that you said, you know, people are saying Jesus put aside his, his privilege to care

00:29:25.060 for the oppressed. What people seem to conveniently forget is that yes, Jesus certainly did spend time

00:29:32.720 with the marginalized in society. He certainly did spend time with the societally oppressed. He also paid

00:29:38.800 attention to what critical theorists today would call the societal, societal oppressors. He paid

00:29:44.740 attention to the Roman centurion. He certainly befriended the tax collectors. He even shared the

00:29:49.760 gospel with the Pharisees. What about Nicodemus? What about the greatest oppressor that we see in the

00:29:54.240 New Testament, which is Saul? I mean, he paid special attention, Saul who became Paul, uh, the, he paid

00:30:01.900 special attention to these people who were considered societal oppressors because the commonality between the

00:30:07.840 societally oppressed and the societal oppressors is that we are all oppressed by sin. And that is what

00:30:13.520 Jesus came to liberate us from. And when we forget that we're no longer preaching the gospel. We are

00:30:18.920 preaching the gospel of critical race theory, which ultimately deconstructs and divides, but within its

00:30:24.660 nature does not have the ability to reconcile, does not have the ability to build up the church. It only

00:30:31.600 divides, it only creates resentment. It only creates more prejudice. And I, I think that you're absolutely

00:30:37.780 right. It leads to a deconstruction and destruction that, um, that is going to be scary to watch if we

00:30:45.560 don't reverse course. Do you agree with that? I absolutely agree with that. I think we're in the

00:30:50.640 middle of a, a semi church split in America over, uh, again, I don't really think it's over race. I think

00:31:00.160 it's over this issue, which is what you're saying. And, and, and maybe I could give a little bit of a word

00:31:05.500 of encouragement of something. Me and my brother, uh, were talking about this. This isn't like,

00:31:12.060 you know, this isn't a prophetic word. This is just what I see. This is what I think is happening.

00:31:17.420 Remember how you said a second ago, there's the guy with the MDiv. And the reason I'm saying this

00:31:23.080 is I have a good friend called James White. I know, you know, James White is right. Um, when I first began

00:31:29.280 being friends with James White, I remember saying to him, Hey, I want to speak out on an issue. And it was to

00:31:35.140 do with critical race. I said, the problem is, is if I speak out against this, that means that I am

00:31:40.580 going against people that are way, way, way smarter than I could ever be. Okay. I could never hold a

00:31:48.980 candle to the intellect of some of the people that I'm disagreeing with. There's no, it's not possible.

00:31:54.960 And what, you know, what I, the conclusion I came to, and this is what I want to encourage your

00:31:59.060 listeners in is that I believe that there is a bit of a rebellion happening, not with the MDiv class,

00:32:07.200 not with the preacher class, but with the lay people. We are the lay people. We're not the smart

00:32:12.520 people, but there is a, a bit of a revolution happening because all of us normal people are

00:32:17.840 going, wait a minute, you guys are saying things that you didn't say five years ago that you didn't

00:32:22.900 say 10 years ago. You're confusing me. And now they've been looking into it enough. And there's

00:32:28.440 more and more people saying it on the internet, like yourself and, and whoever Votie Balcom who

00:32:33.320 you had on, who I love. And there are more and more people saying it and more of the normal people

00:32:38.860 are going, this doesn't sound right. And I believe we're going to see a lot of these preachers held to

00:32:46.220 account because it doesn't matter how smart you are. If you, if you have a philosophy that you stand up

00:32:54.780 against the word of God, it is going to fall because the word of God is supreme and the word

00:32:59.960 of God, the word of God is the word of God, whether a simpleton says it or whether an intellectual

00:33:05.360 brilliant person says it. And I think that we just need to have that courage. I had to have that

00:33:10.780 courage, frankly, because I thought, man, am I, I'm going to say something against Tim Keller, who's a

00:33:16.320 genius and is very much spoken to me and changed aspects of my life have been changed from this

00:33:22.880 person. But I disagree with this. And what it comes down to is that we don't speak because of our own

00:33:28.960 intellect. We speak the word of God, which is wisdom, right? So it is wisdom that changes. It's

00:33:35.520 not about intellect. And so I want to encourage people, if you think, well, I'm not really a smart

00:33:39.920 person, join the club. I'm not either. I'm, I'm an average student at best, but God will increase,

00:33:46.740 increase your knowledge of the scriptures. That's what the Holy Spirit does, right? He leads you into

00:33:50.780 all truth of the scriptures and you get more and more understanding. Jesus becomes so much more

00:33:56.420 delightful to you, the more you get to know him. And then you begin to recognize truth. And when we

00:34:01.960 don't recognize it, we have to stand up against it. But what I see happening is more and more people

00:34:06.800 saying, this isn't right. I'm not going to put up with this any longer. And I just encourage people

00:34:11.840 to stand strong. Hold the line. That's the word. Amen. Amen. And we'll end on this question. You

00:34:17.860 recently talked about on your podcast, the importance of unity, but only unity under truth,

00:34:24.720 not necessarily unity at all costs. Can you talk about how, what we should be pursuing is biblical

00:34:31.200 unity, not just agree to disagree when it comes to these core truth, theological issues?

00:34:39.680 Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the idea of having unity at the expense of essential truth

00:34:48.160 is, I mean, clearly that that's no unity at all. It's like, it's like right now in America in 2020,

00:34:56.500 I don't think we're going to have unity if all of us actually want a completely different country.

00:35:01.660 There's no way to have unity if there is no actual commonality. And so if the scriptures are not the

00:35:08.680 foundation of the truth, then we will never reach unity in Christ. That doesn't make any sense at all.

00:35:14.420 So I think, I do believe, I heard Votie Balcoms said, I know you had Votie on your show. I'm a huge fan

00:35:20.040 of Votie. I think he said it best. He was saying, the sad thing is, is that a lot of people are

00:35:26.180 causing a lot of this damage because of their love for their brothers. And I think being a

00:35:31.900 gracious person, that is a good way to look at it. That, that, that the people that are just are

00:35:37.060 bringing all this division in and saying things that aren't true, according to the word, best case

00:35:42.080 scenario, they are doing it because they love people and they want to see people be brought together.

00:35:47.740 But you cannot have, you, you cannot have unity unless we believe in truth. So the way that I view

00:35:57.000 that is, hey, there's going to be things we disagree with on the Bible. I don't care if we agree with

00:36:01.400 eschatology or not. If you, somebody's post-millennial and somebody's pre-trip, that, that's not an

00:36:07.520 essential. Our essential is that Jesus Christ is the son of God, but he always was. He is the eternal

00:36:14.840 son of God. Jesus Christ came to earth in the flesh in order to pay a sacrifice, a sinless sacrifice for

00:36:24.760 the penalty of all of our sin. And if you don't believe, just one more thing, I'm amazed at how

00:36:30.740 many Christians don't know that they are sinful to start with. It's the weirdest thing. How Christians 1.00

00:36:36.000 don't believe in original sin is just amazing, but they don't. We are guilty of sin and we deserve for

00:36:42.220 the earth, as Jonathan Edwards said, for the earth to open up and swallow us into hell right now as we

00:36:47.820 speak, except that Jesus paid the price for that. And we know who God is from the Bible. And once you

00:36:54.300 take that away, there will be no unity. And now you've just bastardized the gospel because the gospel is

00:37:00.260 no longer anything unless we have a foundation on the word of Christ. So I think my encouragement is

00:37:06.200 I want unity really, really bad, but unity at the expense of the truth is, is, is just, that's not

00:37:14.920 the God, that's not the gospel. Jesus either is the way, the truth and the life, you know, he's not the

00:37:21.200 way, the unity, he's not unity over truth. That doesn't make any sense. So that's my encouragement

00:37:27.080 to Christians. I know it seems harsh. I know it sounds hard. Final thing, my final promotion for my

00:37:35.120 sweet new book coming out. I have a chapter in the book. It is called Jesus, the lion. And I wrote it

00:37:41.960 because all we ever hear about is how nice of a person Jesus was. And obviously I believe that Jesus

00:37:47.400 is nice, but Jesus said some hard stuff. And I share in my book about when I was growing up that I was

00:37:54.620 ashamed. I was doing my own Bible reading and I was ashamed to tell anybody that Jesus doesn't always

00:38:01.900 seem all that nice to me, but it's true. I'm like, they're like, he's so nice. And I'm reading this

00:38:07.900 like, man, I mean, if your eye causes you to sin, it'd be better to pluck it out. I mean, that doesn't

00:38:14.340 sound, that doesn't sound so tame to me. This sounds like a guy that believed in truth over being polite.

00:38:22.520 All right. This is a guy that was like, truth is what matters. And if it makes people mad,

00:38:29.160 that's the way it has to be. And I wrote in this chapter about Jesus, the lion. He has words of

00:38:35.740 life and words of love. And he's the same Jesus, of course, that says to, you know, the woman in sin,

00:38:43.920 the prostitute or whatever, however you view that particular scripture, he said, I don't judge you.

00:38:50.940 Go and sin no more. That is Jesus. He is welcoming, but he is also the Jesus that says,

00:38:57.480 you know what? Depart from me. I never knew you. I don't know you. Get out of my presence.

00:39:04.480 And we have to swallow everything that God is if we're to actually follow Christ. That's what it

00:39:11.300 means. Yes. And amen. Okay. Where can people pre-order that awesome sounding book? Where can they

00:39:17.980 follow you and listen to your podcast? Okay. Uh, you can pre-order the book please at

00:39:25.000 John L Cooper.com slash awake. So my website is called John L Cooper.com and you can see stuff on

00:39:34.340 there and whatnot. My podcast is called Cooper stuff podcast. You can get on iTunes, uh, you know,

00:39:40.280 Spotify, YouTube Cooper stuff podcast, and I'll have add some ads, I hope up for my book on their

00:39:46.020 Instagram, uh, John L Cooper. And, uh, yeah, follow me and we'll keep this thing going, baby.

00:39:54.280 Awesome. Well, we will make sure to include those links, uh, in the description for this podcast

00:39:59.300 episode. So people can easily navigate there. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I know

00:40:05.080 this is going to be so edifying to the people who are watching and listening. And, um, I, I pray that

00:40:12.080 God continues to bless your endeavors, whether that's music or teaching the world about culture

00:40:17.000 and theology and, uh, viewing the world through a biblical lens. And I just know that your book

00:40:23.080 is going to be a huge blessing for so many people and add so much wisdom and clarity. So thank you so

00:40:28.840 much for everything that you do. Well, thank you so much, Allie. So cool to talk to you.

00:40:33.260 Yes, definitely. Thank you so much.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 21, 2020

Ep 316 ｜ Resisting Woke-ism in the Church ｜ Guest： John Cooper

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript