Via Breitbart:
“I teach Bible study,” Cooper says in the video. “I’m sort of a substitute. If nobody shows up, I’m the bottom-of-the-barrel guy.”
This is with thanks to Frank Viola, who documents some interesting and fascinating quotes by Alice on Jesus and being a Christian:
“I was pretty much convinced all my life that there was just one God and there was Jesus Christ and there was the Devil . . . You couldn’t believe in God without believing in the Devil. I always tell bands that the most dangerous thing you can do is to believe in the concept of the Devil or the concept of God, because you’re not giving them full credit. When you believe in God, you’ve got to believe in the all-powerful God. He’s not just God, He’s the all-powerful God and He has total control over everyone’s life. The Devil, on the other hand, is a real character that’s trying his hardest to tear your life apart. If you believe that this is just mythology, you’re a prime target because you know that’s exactly what Satan wants: To be a myth. But he’s not a myth, of this I’m totally convinced. More than anything in the world, I’m convinced of that.”
“Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that’s a tough call. That’s rebellion.”
“Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll is easy. True Christianity … that’s rebellion.”
“We have to make a choice. And everybody, at some point in their lives, has to make that choice. When people say, ‘How do you believe this? Why do you believe this?’ I just say nothing else speaks to my heart. This doesn’t speak to my intellect, it doesn’t speak to my logic — it speaks right to my heart and right to my soul, deeper than anything I’ve ever thought of. And I totally believe it. That being said, I’m not a very good Christian. I mean, none of us are ever ‘good’ Christians. That’s not the point. When you’re a Christian, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be good; it means you’ve got a harder road to pull.”
“As a Christian, I don’t declare myself as a ‘Christian rock star’. I’m a rock performer who’s a Christian. ‘Alice Cooper’ is the guy who wants to entertain the audience – it happens that he’s a Christian. Alice (the character I play on stage) began life as a villain and he remains one. There’s a villain and a hero in every Shakespeare play. Alice is no more dangerous than a villain in a cartoon or a Disney film. We have fun with him. He snarls and wears make up. He’s punished for his crime and he comes back on the stage in white top and tails. We put on a good show. I’ve always put limits on Alice because I believe there’s a certain amount of Alice that’s a gentleman. He’d slit your throat, but he’d never swear at you. And there’s always a punchline; he may kill you, but he’ll slip on a banana peel. I get right-wing Christians down on me and I always ask them the question: ‘If I was doing Macbeth, would it be OK?’ And they always say that’s Shakespeare so of course. I say that’s about four times more violent than anything I do on stage.”
Interestingly, Cooper’s father converted to Christ and became a pastor later on his life. Cooper’s wife’s father was a Baptist pastor. Apparently, Cooper and his wife got Christian counseling when they were dealing with intense alcoholism…