As the Christian rock band Skillet celebrates a historic streaming milestone, frontman John Cooper is challenging Christians who condemn hard rock as inherently demonic.
“I would say, I just think that you’re misunderstanding something very basic, which is that music does not belong to the devil. Music belongs to God, and it’s the intentionality,” Cooper told Fox News Digital.
“It’s the lyrics. It’s what you do with it. It’s not in a sound. It’s in a heart posture,” he continued. “And I would just say to those Christians, ‘You’re not just getting the issue of music wrong, I would say you’re getting the gospel wrong.’”
Cooper said no musical style carries evil within itself. Instead, Christians should examine the intention and message behind the music.
“I just don’t think that that’s right,” he said. “And I think that God gave us creative expression.”
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Cooper connected that creativity to the biblical truth that humanity was created in God’s image. He described the ability to write a song as an “amazing gift of freedom God has given all of humanity.”
“Talk about a God that says, ‘I’m going to give you a very powerful gift, and it’s up to you how you choose to use it,’” Cooper said. “Man, that is powerful.”
He also warned that pleasant-sounding music is not automatically righteous.
“You can have something that sounds incredibly beautiful that is actually offending God in its intentionality, in its lyrics,” Cooper said.
Cooper understands the objections personally. His mother believed rock music was satanic while he was growing up.
“My mom very much, very much believed that, like, the loud guitars, anything with a drum beat really was Satanic, was from hell,” he said. “She believed that Christian rock music was the devil’s tool.”
Despite that experience, Cooper said he does not resent Christians who still hold those beliefs.
“I don’t hate them. I’m not mad at them,” he said.
His comments come as Skillet’s 2009 hit “Monster” became the first song by a Christian rock band to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify. The achievement underscores the band’s enormous reach—and how Christian artists can carry faith-influenced music into places traditional ministry may never reach.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a journalism background from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and at the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
