John Cooper Links Teen Mental Health Crisis to a Society That ‘Has Just Thrown God Away’
- Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Updated Sep 04, 2024
The lead singer of the rock band Skillet says he wants the group's music to give hope to an angst-filled younger generation that is bombarded daily with unbiblical messages and desperately needs the "hope we found in Christ."
Frontman John Cooper and his bandmates on Nov. 1 will release their next album, Revolution, a 10-track high-octane project that includes counter-cultural messages that have defined the group's music. The single Unpopular encourages fans to oppose the world's insanity. The title track, Revolution, bemoans the world's hopelessness but declares: "I believe that there's time to save us." Another track, Not Afraid, urges fans to "keep the faith" and "never back down."
The album, Cooper said, is calling for a revolution "against the sadness, depression, angst, demonic stuff that we are experiencing in our culture every day."
"The amount of people suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts and who think that they don't matter is so overwhelming to me. It just breaks my heart," Cooper told Crosswalk Headlines, referencing what he reads on social media and on Skillet's feeds. "That's one of the things I really, really care deeply about, is people that are struggling with suicidal thoughts and mental health -- those kinds of things.
"I believe it's a result of a society who has just thrown God away [and] who has said, 'We don't believe in God. There's nothing but the material world. There's nothing but the way I feel.' And if there is no God, they really find it hard to find a reason to live.
"And so it's a revolution against those things to say, 'You matter. There is a God. He loves you. There is hope in the Earth.'… The song Revolution is speaking specifically to that depression, that angst, the fact that people feel that there's nothing left to live for. And so the chorus of the song says, 'Sing a revolution song. We've got the fire of hope in our hearts, march to the beat of love.' We have to tell people about the hope we found in Christ."
Skillet is one of the most successful crossover bands in music history, having toured with mainstream bands and Christian groups as they have received awards across the spectrum. The band has sold 22 million units worldwide and has 24 billion global streams. It was nominated for two Grammys and won a Billboard Music Award.
Cooper, the author of Wimpy, Weak and Woke and the host of a podcast, Cooper Stuff, said he wants the tracks on the new album to be truth-filled anthems for the new generation. In fact, he originally wanted the album's title to be "Anthems for Revolution."
"The song Unpopular [can be] not just an anthem for a younger generation, but maybe even an anthem specifically for a younger generation of Christians to not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ," Cooper said. "Because we're living in a time where to even say that you believe in God … you really won't be taken seriously, especially if you're talking about terms of academia, or if you're in a college course. My daughter's in college, and so if she even says, 'Well, yeah, but what about the existence of a higher power?' -- she's laughed at because, really, the university now is one of just stark materialism.
"And so this song is going, 'Hey, if it's unpopular to say that you believe in Jesus Christ, then today's a good day to be unpopular.'
"The commands of Christ in the Bible lead to such peace. And there's such a stark difference between the peace of Christianity versus the chaos of what the world is giving our children. Today is a really good day to be unpopular."
Photo Credit: ©Skillet
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
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