Skillet’s John Cooper says the devil didn't create Rock music: 'Belongs to God’
John Cooper, the frontman for the Grammy-nominated Christian rock band Skillet, said during a recent interview that listening to secular rock music doesn't conflict with his Christian faith and urged Christians not to let the devil commandeer the music God created.
"I really don't want to use Scripture cavalierly, but I will throw some scriptures out there that I think they mean something to me, and maybe it's applicable, maybe it's not," Cooper shared in a recent interview with Pastor Shane Idleman about why he has always loved "loud music."
Cooper cited Titus 1:15, which reads: "To the pure, all things are pure."
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"One of the things that that scripture, as I've understood it to mean, is that sometimes there's going to be something, it may be attached to something that's really negative for someone, but maybe it's not negative for someone else," he said.
The platinum recording artist likened his point to food sacrificed to idols. Food within itself is not evil, and people who come to Christ no longer offer things to idols.
"As we see in the scriptures, somebody's, like, 'Hey, that's not me anymore. I gave my life to Jesus. I don't want nothing to do with that meat.' Then you may have somebody else that's a Christian that's like, 'I didn't even know this was sacrificed to idols. I just thought it was meat. I was thankful that God gave it to me. I didn't know anything.' Music was a little like that for me," Cooper described.
"I never understood the roots of rebellion in Rock' n' Roll — sex, drugs and Rock' n' Roll," he continued. "That didn't mean anything to me. I just liked the way it sounded. And I understood God created music. The devil doesn't create stuff; he distorts, right?!"
Cooper stressed that "the devil comes in to steal and kill and destroy."
"But he wants to steal something that God made that was good, and he wants to mess with it and change it to where he tries to get glory," the 47-year-old said.
The lead singer maintained that he always believed that music glorifies God.
"I was pure, and I didn't know anything about rebellion," he asserted.
Cooper grew up listening to rock music and said it helped him get pumped for his basketball games as a kid.
"I never got ready for that basketball game and was, like, 'Man, I feel like this is making me love the devil.' It was just loud music, and it was cool. So some of it was for that," he testified. "But I will say, on a deeper level, for me, I absolutely believe music belongs to God. There's something of eternity with music."
"The Bible doesn't talk about music a lot. But there is something eternal. We know that the angels were singing before we were ever created. We know that music is singing and worship. We know that's going to be for eternity — it's one of the few things we have here that in some form is going to exist before the throne for always and always and always, when time has ended."
Cooper encouraged Christians not to let Satan "steal something that God created."
"It's like that great old Christian song, 'Why should the devil have all the good music?' But we're not going to let the enemy steal something that God created. He may have distorted it, but we're bringing that back under the lordship of Christ, where music and art belongs because everything is the Lord's. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. Everything in it is His. So that's kind of the way that I view it."
While some Christians may argue that Satan has the tendency to work through Rock music, Cooper shared in a 2021 interview with the "Undaunted.Life: A Man's Podcast" that "Satan can work through just about anything."
"So instead of thinking that the devil owns a genre of music, I would say capture that music and bring it back into subjection under the lordship of Christ," he stated.
Cooper also has a popular YouTube series and uses that platform to speak about his faith. He regularly shares his thoughts about current events. Since its inception, the musician has faced backlash for biblical stances.
In an interview earlier this year with The Christian Post, the rocker, who's also a graphic novelist and video game creator, noted that many atheists and LGBT activists aren't afraid to share their beliefs or protest against traditional marriage and Christianity. Christians, he said, should be more outspoken too.
"They'll tell you what they think about everything, and they're not shy about it at all. Why should we be shy about what we believe?" he posited. "It's the truth. We celebrate freedom in Christ no matter what happens. And if the worst ever happens, then we celebrate Jesus Christ in the gulag, and the Holy Spirit will do an incredible work, I believe, just like He did in the New Testament."
Cooper urged Christians to be unashamed and vocal about their faith, not out of pride but because of Westerners' great privilege to freely worship their God.
"You cannot stop the move of the Holy Spirit. And you cannot stop the Gospel of the Kingdom from invading people who do not expect it because they see it," he concluded. "So we celebrate that freedom in Christ, even if the extreme worst happens. And I don't think that's going to happen, by the way. I'm just saying, no matter what happens, the Gospel cannot be quenched."
Jeannie Ortega Law is a reporter for The Christian Post. Reach her at: [email protected] She's also the author of the book, What Is Happening to Me? How to Defeat Your Unseen Enemy Follow her on Twitter: @jlawcp Facebook: JeannieOMusic
