During a recent appearance on the "Conversations That Matter" podcast, John Cooper, the frontman and bassist for the Grammy-nominated Christian rock band SKILLET, weighed in on "queer theory", a field of study that challenges existing traditional ideas about identity, sexuality, and gender particularly that of heteronormativity, or the belief that heterosexuality is the natural, moral, or "normal" expression of sexuality. The 48-year-old musician, who is promoting his recently released second book, "Wimpy, Weak And Woke", said in part: "I believe that queer theory is literally the end of all things. There will be no meaningful conversations even able to have in the world if queer theory actually becomes as ubiquitous as it seems like it is already becoming. There will be no distinctions between anything. If you embrace queer theory, and you embrace the idea that men can be women and women can be men, or you can be both, or neither, blah, blah, blah, then you will end up having to accept that there really is no difference between mankind and beast. It just follows. And in fact, the queer theorists would probably be, like, 'Yeah, that's right.'"

He continued: "Sexuality, to me, that's the key. If the church does not stand our ground on sexuality, we lose everything. We absolutely lose everything.

"This is just so upsetting to me. A lot of Christians just do not believe that it's as bad as it is They just refuse to believe it. And they keep saying, 'Guys, there's nothing new under the sun. It's always been this bad. You're making it seem like it's worse.' That's just not true. It hasn't always been this bad.

"Transgenderism is the most civilizational-shifting thing that has happened in I don't even know how long. You're talking about something that could change the trajectory of human nature forever. And, of course, if anybody's done the reading, I'm not gonna get into this, and I don't write about this in the book, but if anybody knows what transhumanism is, we're one step away from transhumanism, which we won't even get into," he added, referencing the position that human beings should be permitted to use technology to modify and enhance human cognition and bodily function, expanding abilities and capacities beyond current biological constraints. "And transgenderism sort of makes that possible. It's a sort of Gnosticism that really will bring us into a man-and-machine kind of thing coming in together. It's absolutely horrifying."

Cooper previously warned against transgender ideology earlier this year in an interview with The Daily Signal.

"We don't even believe in objective reality now," he lamented, referring to American society. "We are saying you can be a Christian as you want to, as long as you privatize it. You can be a Christian at your home. Just don't go around telling people. But in the public sphere, [where] we used to be able to talk about religion and objective reality In the public sphere, we are going to make peoples personal subjective feelings be public truth.

"So if you say, 'I'm a boy, but I know I'm actually a girl, and I believe it in my heart,' the public has to say your inner feelings are true," he added. "But if somebody says, 'No. I can see objective reality. You are a boy,' that's not publicly true, though it can be a privately held belief if you want.

"That's the way to end all things," Cooper said. "That is the destruction of objective reality."

In various interviews over the years, Cooper has said that he "always had faith in God" and that his mother was a "Jesus fanatic." He also claimed that he was willing to put his career on the line to take a stand for Christ.

In 2021, Cooper was asked by the "Undaunted.Life: A Man's Podcast" what he would say to someone who says that Satan works through rock music, and thus Christians shouldn't play rock music. He responded: "I would say Satan can work through just about anything. I would say that music is created not by the Devil; [it is] created by the Lord. All things were created by God. 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."

As for what he would say to someone who says it is sinful for Christians to have tattoos, Cooper said: "I understand why Christians think that, because of the Old Testament. I would say it probably takes a little bit of a longer explanation of Old Testament law and what it meant. But a short version would be there are some things in the Old Testament that were a picture of something in the New Testament. There are some things that are not pictures, like murder we don't murder, we don't steal, so and so forth. Dietary restrictions, things like that, were a picture of something.

"Here's what God wanted: God wants to make his people set apart and holy unto his name," he continued. "And I don't think that God does that any longer from the way that we look; he does that now because of Christ's work on the cross, his resurrection, and he sanctifies us, which sets us apart from the sinner and the pagan."

SKILLET's latest album, "Dominion", was released in January 2022 via Atlantic.

"Wimpy, Weak And Woke" was released on November 14.

John's debut book, "Awake & Alive To Truth", has had over 10 printings and won the Book Impact Award at the 2021 K-Love Fan Awards. His podcast, "Cooper Stuff", continues to grow rapidly as well with over four million downloads and more than two million YouTube views.

John Cooper press photo courtesy of The Media Collective

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SKILLET's JOHN COOPER Explains Why He Believes 'Queer ... - BLABBERMOUTH.NET