John Cooper, author and frontman for the Dove Award-winning Christian rock band Skillet, addressed the controversial appearance of Derek Webb wearing a dress and accompanying self-proclaimed Christian artists Semler (Grace Baldridge), who is openly queer, and drag queen Flamy Grant (Matthew Lovegood) at last week’s Dove Awards.
The Dove Awards is a public event held at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN that allows people to purchase tickets to attend its 54th annual Christian music award’s show.
A couple days later, Webb posted an explanation as to why he wore a dress to the awards’ ceremony that has named him winner more than once.
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“As a cis, straight, white man, I walk into a room like that (and any room) with an incredible amount of advantage and privilege,” Webb said in his posted video. If I’m attending as an ally of friends and colleagues, I should do everything possible to surrender that privilege at the door.”
Adding, “If the way you look at my loved ones isn’t the way you’re looking at me, I’m not truly standing *with* them.”
Webb proceeded to quote progress Christian pastor Stan Mitchell, “If you claim to be someone’s ally but aren’t getting hit by the stones thrown at them, you aren’t standing close enough.” He then concluded his video, that now has more than 2.4 million views, saying, “Plus, I have amazing legs.”
Earlier this year Webb released what he described as his “first Christian and gospel album in 10 years,” and featured a song with Flamy Grant, titled “Boys Will Be Girls.” In the lyrics for the song, Webb says, “I heard Jesus loved and spent his life with those who were abandoned by proud and fearful men. So if a church won’t celebrate and love you they’re believing lies that can’t save you or them. ‘Cause you’re so beautiful by any name.”
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The song’s video shows Webb dressing in drag and performing alongside Flamy Grant.
Both Semler and Flamy Grant have topped the iTunes’ Christian music chart within the last couple of years and had hopes that their accomplishment would be recognized by the Gospel Music Association (GMA).
Last year, Semler campaigned on social media to be nominated for the GMA’s New Artist of the Year award at the 2022 Dove Awards, and described her disappointment when she didn’t make the list.
This year, a week before the Dove Awards were to take place, Lovegood posted on social media that “tickets to the Doves are now sold out, but if you snagged one a couple months ago in the nosebleed section with us, can’t wait to hang!”
Lovegood shared that the reason they were attending the event was “to have a good time as out and proud queer Christian musicians,” and claimed that it wasn’t “a protest.” Explaining that “at least no more of a protest than queer people existing in spaces that don’t often welcome us is by default.”
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“We’re there to represent, take up our little bit of space, and bring our queer joy to an awards show that, frankly, needs it,” Lovegood added. “A lot of us grew up listening to CCM and watching the Doves. While we’re not interested in asking for acceptance or approval from the GMA (we accept and approve of ourselves, thank you very much!), this little queer expedition party is about planting a metaphorical pride flag in territory that hasn’t been willing to wave one for us.”
Concluding, “Queer people have always been in CCM, and we’re inviting allies to join us in making it a safer place for us to exist as we are. And to PARTY! See y’all at the Doves.”
Dove Award-Winner, John Cooper Addresses Derek Webb Wearing a Dress to the Dove Awards
ChurchLeaders reached out to Skillet’s Cooper, who was awarded Rock/Contemporary Album of the Year for their latest release “Dominion: Day of Destiny” last week at the Dove Awards, to get his opinion on Webb, Flamy Grant, and Semler’s attendance at the Christian awards’ ceremony.
Cooper shared that he was hesitant to respond because he didn’t want to fuel the fire of a situation that didn’t need it, but was encouraged by friends and pastors to speak out.
He said that there are “lots of Jesus followers in the industry that may not know the best way to speak,” and wanted to stand for biblical truth “as opposed to being compromised.”
“Obviously they’re just trying to get attention, they’re trying to disrupt, and they’re going about it in a clever way,” Cooper said as he addressed Webb and company’s dress attire at the Dove Awards. “And the truth is they are being the aggressors in this.”
They’ve been trying to antagonize the Christian music industry, including Christian artists, and have attempted to get them to affirm their views on the LGBTQ+ movement for years,” Cooper said.
“The truth is,” he added, “they would not show up at a Muslim music celebration to do the same” because they would claim that they would be “a little bit too insensitive. You don’t want to go in and just start stomping on somebody’s religion. The laws of intersectionality would apply.”
What believe happened is that “they know that Christians are so wimpy and weak. And that they know that Christians are then going to somehow feel intimated by them and not know how to act.”
Cooper believes that the Christian music industry should recognize that Webb and the others are being the aggressors in the situation and said that he feels “like the industry has set the groundwork to make people feel like they can bully us because we are so wimpy and weak” which in turn makes us “apologetic about what we believe” and calls the reality of it an “absurdity.”
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Cooper was unable to attend the Dove Awards this year, but said that had he been there and saw Webb and company that he would have “ignored them” like the Apostle Paul instructs Christians to do in 1 Corinthians 5, because they claim to be followers of Christ. If they weren’t claiming to be Christians then it would a totally different story, Cooper said and shared that he would have compassionate, gospel conversations with them as the scriptures command Christians to do.
“When you’re dealing with people who claim the name of Christ, who then refuse to stop these patterns of behavior that the Bible condemns, then we have responsibility not to associate with these people. So I would just ignore them,” Cooper said.
Furthermore, he added, “that if there was clarity in the Christian music industry about what it truly meant to be a follower of Jesus, I think that people wouldn’t feel comfortable to come and express queer joy. I think they would be like, this isn’t for us.” Cooper said that he believes that he thinks that people “are sensing that the tide is is turning and it’s turning towards compromise.”
“Those who still hold to biblical sexual ethics are getting more afraid to say something because they feel bullied, and they feel like the minority,” Cooper said. “And they’re not sure what’s gonna happen if they do and they’re not sure if there’s going to be anyone in Christian music that has their back.”
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The veteran rocker of 26 years warned fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to never take anything people like Webb, Flamy Grant, and Semler say very say seriously.” Cooper said that’s “because they are delusional and they hate the truth. They are moral relativists. They don’t believe that there’s such thing as absolute morality.”
ChurchLeaders asked Cooper to share how he’s witnessed the Christian industry change over the years since he start back in the mid-90’s.
Cooper said that the Christian music industry is a reflection of the church and that he never thought he’d see one of the “most famous mega pastors in the nation,” referring to Andy Stanley,” basically just become queer affirming—or to some degree is— or be so unclear on the issue it appears to most that he is.”
“I never thought I would ever see a Christian artist much less a Christian pastor march with Black Lives Matter (BLM) and not condemn the actual violence that was happening, and then criticized Christians who did it,” Cooper continued.
“I never thought I would see pastors and Christian artists conflate the murder of the unborn with not giving women childcare after birth,” he shared. “I never thought I’d see it in a million years.”
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Cooper went on to say that he “never thought I would see pastors or Christian artists say that someone that’s loud, you know, whether it’s me or anybody else, about truth, say that we are doing more damage than good because we’re not being compassionate enough.
This has led us to witnessing “Derek Webb, a grown man, who is apostate—says he doesn’t believe in God—spends his time being an accuser of the brethren and someone who consciously hates Jesus, but still sings in a Christian band, go on and say nonsense and have Christian people in the industry go, ‘He does kind of have a point.'”
“I don’t even know what to say. I’m literally speechless,” Cooper said.
Cooper’s new book “Wimpy, Weak, and Woke” releases November 15.