SKILLET's JOHN COOPER: 'When I Was Five Years Old, I Gave My Life To Jesus In My Bedroom'

In the latest episode of the See The King podcast, host Adam Ross sits down with John Cooper of Christian rockers SKILLET to talk about rock music, faith, and what it means to follow Jesus when your calling doesn't fit into everyone's expectations. John shares how growing up in an environment where rock music — even Christian rock — was viewed as dangerous shaped his perspective on conviction, disagreement and grace. He opens up about watching his mother battle cancer for three years and losing her at just 15 years old, and how her unwavering faith influenced the way he learned to trust God through suffering and also reflects on how SKILLET's music reaches people struggling with addiction, depression and hopelessness, and why walking through life is often a one-day-at-a-time decision for so many.

Speaking about his early life, John said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "I was raised with Christian parents. My mom was a Jesus fanatic — in all the best ways — a Jesus freak. And let me explain what I mean by that. Everything was Jesus for my mom… I just remember learning as a very young kid — [when I was] four —going to the grocery store means going to get food and talking to people about Jesus. That's what the grocery store is, and everybody's family must be like that, because my mom's witnessing to everybody. Going into the grocery store, she comes to somebody and says, 'I just felt, as I passed you, I felt the Lord telling me that I needed to come pray for you. Have you lost someone recently?' And then some woman's crying in the grocery store, 'cause she just lost her child or this or the other. And I just kind of grew up like that."

He continued: "My mom read us the Bible every day before school. I had an older brother who was four years older than me, so I just remember that, ever since I was a kid. We have breakfast, we read the Bible, we pray, and my brother goes to school, and that's just how life was. So I was raised in a Christian home. My dad was a Christian as well. I would say not as fanatical as my mom was. And so I gave my life to Jesus as a young person. I was five years old. But the funny thing is, is that I actually gave my life to Jesus in my bedroom at night. I was alone, actually. And I can never remember a time in my life when I did not believe in God. I think just being raised like that, that's just the air you breathe. And God created the world — he created everything. He is everything. And he's listening and he cares for me. And I believe that Jesus was the son of God. I believe he died on the cross and [I] understood that to some degree. And when I was five years old, I just gave my life to Jesus in my bedroom."

John added: "Of course, some of those people say, 'Yeah, if you become a Christian as a kid, you don't always understand it.' And, obviously, you're gonna get deeper in that as you get older, as you begin to understand a lot more about the world, but I will say, I disagree with that notion. I had a very real — basic, but very real — understanding that I was a sinner, that I exist to please God, that he's the boss. Whatever he says goes, and that's it. I understood that, and we raised our kids like that as well. But my kids gave their life to Christ as very young people and had a real sense of the presence of the Lord and the fact that we don't deserve his love, but that he, as the theologians say, he condescended to us. He came down to where we are at to make a way for us. And so that's my testimony. Thank God.

"I don't have a testimony of backsliding for years and years and going into sex, drugs and rock and roll," Cooper explained. "I don't have that testimony, by the grace of God. I've known him since I was a kid. [I] certainly did not always live for him, but I never had those extreme doubting times. A lot of people do, and God's faithful to bring them out. And those are amazing testimonies. That's just not my testimony. My testimony is I can't believe I've known God since I was a kid. And it's wonderful. I'm blessed."

Cooper, who regularly speaks about his faith in secular spaces and voices his opinions on hot-button social and political issues, has written in depth about his views in the two books he has released so far, "Awake & Alive to Truth", which came out in December 2020, and "Wimpy, Weak, And Woke", which became available in late 2023.

In an interview with Baptist News, Cooper said that he is "always an open book" when it comes to the way he speaks to the media. He said: "We are outspoken about Christ because we're outspoken that he is the only way to heaven, but not just about Christ. We're also outspoken about moral issues. I speak about the abortion stuff all the time. I speak about the transgender theory being taught in schools. I stand for biblical traditional sexuality. We say them proudly, we say them boldly, we say them with compassion toward people who don't agree with us, but we do speak the truth."

Cooper told Baptist Press about how his faith directs him to speak out on cultural issues: "If Jesus is the truth, then that means He has something to say about culture, politics, abortion and sexuality. The Bible has something to say about these things."

In various interviews over the years, John 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 April 2021, Cooper told the "Undaunted.Life: A Man's Podcast" that it was perfectly fine for Christians to play rock music. "I would say that music is created not by the Devil; [it is] created by the Lord," he said. "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."

SKILLET's latest album, "Revolution", arrived in November 2024 via the band's Hear It Loud imprint.