John Cooper has been known for years as the frontman for Skillet, the popular rock band with a Christian lyrical bent. But in recent years, Cooper has also become an outspoken commentator about the state of the nation — and the church.
His new book, “Wimpy, Weak, & Woke” examines “increasing conflicts in America” and explores what he says is truly at the core of cultural angst: “a war between gods – the living God and the god of man.”
“I wanted to write this book about utopianism … for anybody whose eyes are open — and you don’t even have to be all that smart to see our world is crumbling,” Cooper told CBN Digital. “Western civilization is on the brink of just collapse.”
He continued, “I think every week people go, ‘OK it can’t get weirder than this,’ and then the next week, wrong, it just got weirder.”
Cooper said it’s time for people to confront the fact that too many Christians have elevated winsomeness over truth, subjugating the latter to a point that has made some churches ineffective.
“They die the death of a thousand caveats, because we don’t want to hurt people’s feelings,” Cooper said. “And, obviously, we should be gracious and loving towards people but we have to tell people the truth. And, so, we’ve become wimpy, we’ve also become weak.”
Cooper believes worldly philosophies and ideals have infiltrated the church to a point that some feel embarrassed by and about who God is, leading to weak theological stances and woke ideologies.
In the end, Cooper said it’s all about going back to God’s word to determine what’s valid — and what’s not, regardless of what one emotes or feels.
This is particularly true, he said, when it comes to assumptions about oppression and the ways in which issues like transgender players in sports are handled.
“As a Christian, you have to go back to the Bible and say, ‘Wait a minute, is this a true category of oppression or is this something that the world is saying that we have to do?’” he said. “And I think the answer to that is kind of quite obvious.”
Caving in and giving up the biblical definitions of things, Cooper said, is what it means to be “wimpy, weak, and woke.” In the end, he believes the war raging against the U.S. and American ideals is really a “war against Christianity.”
