By Laura BennettTuesday 27 Feb 2024Hope AfternoonsMusicReading Time: 3 minutes
Six years since their last tour in 2018, American rock band Skillet are finally returning to Australia and, according to lead singer John Cooper, bringing with them a renewed urgency for fans the world over to find stability and peace in chaotic times.
“Whether people are religious or not religious, everyone can relate to feeling a little crazy since 2020,” John told Hope 103.2.
“People are very much looking for stability and they’re feeling very vulnerable.”
The band’s latest single Psycho in My Head speaks to the internal madness we can feel we’re facing at the moment, “touching a nerve with people who feel like they’re losing their mind”.
Between the pandemic, evolving social landscape and international political crises, the “rapid pace of change” has driven John “deeper into wanting to know what the one thing is in my life that will never change.”
“I’ve found stability and peace in the Bible,” John said.
“People are very much looking for stability and they’re feeling very vulnerable,” John said.
“No matter what technology happens, no matter what new war occurs, no matter what new social justice initiative takes place, [the] one thing I know that’s not going to change is the Word of God.
“That’s so comforting [to know] that if I build my life upon The Rock, I’m not going to be shaken.”
Judging the band purely on appearance and genre, it’s ironic that in recent years Skillet have become a bastion of traditional Christian values and ethics, when they’ve also been considered rebellious by panicked parents who think they’re too dark to be Christian.
“No matter what technology happens, no matter what new war occurs, no matter what new social justice initiative takes place [the] one thing I know that’s not going to change is the Word of God,” John said.
“I get the irony,” John said.
“It’s hysterical because we look progressive, our music sounds progressive [and] then here we are espousing such traditional Christian theology.
“I don’t think we’ve ever really changed, that I know of, [but] I would say we’re not only a guidepost for traditional values, but traditional culture.”
As the deconstructionist movement, or “deconversion” movement as John calls it, has taken off in America he felt an increasing responsibility to champion Biblical worldviews and affirm enduring ideas of truth.
“I felt like I just had to use the platform for the Lord,” John said.
“It’s a very post-modern idea of truth that truth is not fixed, truth is not absolute, truth is basically your personal view of reality,” John said.
“[Increasingly] there’s a redefinition of what truth actually is.
“That’s why the church is very confused right now about who Jesus is [and] what it means to be loving and compassionate.
“If we don’t preach the truth and the entirety of scripture, we’re not actually helping people.
“The world is trying to rebrand what truth is, and it’s a very post-modern idea of truth that truth is not fixed, truth is not absolute, truth is basically your personal view of reality.
“In world that’s gone mad, in a world of confusion, Jesus brings stability, and he brings answers.”
Skillet will be performing at The Enmore in Sydney on April 4.
Feature image: Photo supplied.