{"id":30308,"date":"2015-07-14T23:17:38","date_gmt":"2015-07-14T23:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/?p=30308"},"modified":"2018-02-23T04:27:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T04:27:21","slug":"who-is-vincent-damon-furnier-alice-coopers-faith-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/the-truth-about\/who-is-vincent-damon-furnier-alice-coopers-faith-journey","title":{"rendered":"Who is Vincent Damon Furnier? (Alice Cooper&#8217;s Faith Journey)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jvsDZvaed_8?rel=0\" width=\"853\" height=\"480\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>By <a class=\"username\" title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnsnews.com\/author\/michael-w-chapman\">Michael W. Chapman<\/a> | December 31, 2014<\/p>\n<p>Alice Cooper, the shock-rock megastar who makes Marilyn Manson look like a choir boy, stopped his hard-partying ways and returned to his Bible Christian roots in the late 1980s and today, still hugely popular and touring, says he isn\u2019t shy about discussing his faith, says his early songs always warned against choosing evil, and contends that the world we live in \u201cdoesn\u2019t belong to us, it belongs to Satan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe world doesn\u2019t belong to us, it belongs to Satan,\u201d said Alice Cooper. \u201cWe\u2019re living with that. We\u2019re bombarded with that every day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-4.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-30331\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-30331\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-4.jpg?resize=370%2C350\" alt=\"19 (3) (735x413)\" width=\"370\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-4.jpg?w=370&amp;ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-4.jpg?resize=300%2C284&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-4.jpg?resize=250%2C236&amp;ssl=1 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 370px) 100vw, 370px\" \/><\/a>\u201cMost everything I wrote was good and evil,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t pick evil. Even when I wasn\u2019t Christian, I was saying that. God and the Devil. Don\u2019t pick the Devil. It\u2019s a bad idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier) shot to mega-stardom in the 1970s and early 1980s with hits such as \u201cI\u2019m 18,\u201d \u2018Schools\u2019 Out\u201d and the 1973 album,\u00a0<em>Billion Dollar Babies<\/em>.\u00a0 He also was notorious for his demonic makeup and costumes and macabre theatrics on stage, which included simulated suicide and the decapitation of baby-dolls, among other dark antics.<\/p>\n<p>Alice Cooper was nominated for two Grammy Awards and he and his band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. He has played roles in several movies, including\u00a0<em>Wayne\u2019s World<\/em> with Mike Myers and Dana Carvey and, perhaps most ironically given his shock-rock music career, Cooper is an avid and skilled golfer.<\/p>\n<p>Cooper scored a two-over par 74 on The Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., a world-class course; he played in the All Star Cup in Newport, South Wales; he has appeared in commercials for Callaway Golf equipment; and he is the author of\u00a0<em><i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Alice-Cooper-Golf-Monster-Becoming\/dp\/0307382656\">Alice Cooper, Golf Monster<\/a><\/i><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview posted on YouTube about his Christian roots, his Prodigal-son waywardness in the 1970s and early 1980s, and his reversion to Bible-based Christianity and his life today, Cooper explained that despite all the wealth and fame he attained early on, there was a huge emptiness in his life.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-2-2.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-30315\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-30315\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-2-2.jpg?resize=287%2C500\" alt=\"19 (2)\" width=\"287\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-2-2.jpg?w=287&amp;ssl=1 287w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-2-2.jpg?resize=172%2C300&amp;ssl=1 172w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-2-2.jpg?resize=250%2C436&amp;ssl=1 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 287px) 100vw, 287px\" \/><\/a>\u201cI grew up in a Christian house,\u201d said Cooper. \u00a0\u201cMy dad was a pastor, he was an evangelist for 25 years, and I used to go up and do missionary work with him with the Apaches in Arizona.\u00a0 My grandfather was a pastor for 75 years. I grew up in a Christian home. And my wife\u2019s father is a Baptist pastor. So, I was like, we were PK\u2019s \u2013 preacher\u2019s kids \u2013 so we married each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I always refer to myself as the real Prodigal Son, because I went out and the Lord let me do everything,\u201d said Cooper. \u00a0\u201cMaybe didn\u2019t let me but allowed it, and then just started reeling me back in. You know, you\u2019ve seen enough. Let\u2019s bring you back to where you belong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you get out there and realize you\u2019ve had every car, every house, and all that, you realize that that\u2019s not the answer,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s a big nothing out there at the end of that. So, materialism doesn\u2019t mean anything.\u00a0 A lot of people say that there\u2019s a big God-sized hole in your heart. And when that\u2019s filled, you\u2019re really satisfied, and that\u2019s where I am right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cooper then explained that his return to Christianity occurred when he tried and eventually quit drinking alcohol in the mid-1980s.\u00a0 (He also had a dangerous addiction to cocaine, which he discussed in the 2014 movie,\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=X7sko59GRAk\">Super Duper Alice Cooper<\/a><\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI stopped drinking and I started going back to church,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cI was throwing up blood every morning; I was really a bad alcoholic. I wasn\u2019t a cruel or mean alcoholic but I was certainly self-destructive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-3.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-30320\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-30320\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-3.jpg?resize=426%2C481\" alt=\"19 (3) (735x413)\" width=\"426\" height=\"481\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-3.jpg?w=426&amp;ssl=1 426w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-3.jpg?resize=266%2C300&amp;ssl=1 266w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/19-3-735x413-3.jpg?resize=250%2C282&amp;ssl=1 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 426px) 100vw, 426px\" \/><\/a>He continued, \u201cAnd when I stopped drinking, I started going back to church with my wife, and there was this pastor in Phoenix who was just Hell-fire. I mean, there were 6,000 people there and he was talking to me every Sunday. Of course, he wasn\u2019t, but he was \u2013 just nailing me. Every weekend I\u2019d get out exhausted. I\u2019d come out of there and be, \u2018I don\u2019t want to go back.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 It was like torture and I always came back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI finally realized, I had to go one side or the other,\u201d said Cooper. \u00a0\u201cI had to make a decision for one side or the other, because I was so convicted. The Lord really convicted me, saying, look, it\u2019s time to make a decision here. I said okay, and I joined a church called Camelback Bible over there, and that\u2019s where I go now. It\u2019s a really good teaching church, good strong Bible-teaching church.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for how his life has changed for the better, Cooper said, \u201cWell, before you are always self\u2014you\u2019re always self-centered. Everything is for you.\u00a0 Your self is God. And we make lousy gods. Humans make lousy gods, I think. We need to let God be God and us be what we are. I think that\u2019s what changes: the focus on who you\u2019re serving. You\u2019re not serving you. You\u2019re serving Christ.\u201d <span style=\"color: #8f7343;\">(Note: Vincent Furnier married Sheryl Goddard in 1976)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod\u2019s chipping away at your life all the time to try to make you more like Him,\u201d said Cooper. \u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s what a Christian is, a person that\u2019s being molded and shaped all their life \u2026. I think the Lord expects you to do your best in His name. I had to struggle a long time about rock and roll. I realized it\u2019s not really the music. It\u2019s what\u2019s being said with the music. So I think you have to be careful of what you\u2019re writing, what you\u2019re representing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For those people who may have been big Alice Cooper fans back in 1970s and 1980s but who are still following the sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll lifestyle and not following Christ, Cooper said, \u201cWell, they\u2019re going to eventually know Christ, and I hope it\u2019s not too late. If you\u2019re at the wrong end at the wrong time, I think that\u2019s going to be tragic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for the temptations of this world, Cooper said, \u201cSure, what is the world made up of?\u00a0 It\u2019s made up of that. The world doesn\u2019t belong to us. It belongs to Satan. We\u2019re living in that world. We\u2019re bombarded with that every day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo how do we react to that?\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cIf you don\u2019t have Christ in your life, then you\u2019re a victim to it.\u00a0 So I think what we have to be very careful about is how we react to the world. If we have Christ in our life now, we have to react humbly. React in a teaching way and at the same time be humble about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to politics, Cooper frequently says that he doesn\u2019t like to get into the subject because it poisons rock music. In a 2010 interview with\u00a0<i><em>Rolling Stone<\/em>,<\/i> Cooper said he was \u201cextremely non-political\u201d and that he would \u201cgo out of my way to be non-political.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He has also criticized other rock musicians for wearing their politics on their sleeves. During the 2004 presidential race, Cooper quietly supported George W. Bush but criticized Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews, James Taylor, and Bruce Springsteen for enthusiastically and publicly backing Democrat John Kerry.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo me, that&#8217;s treason. I call it treason against rock-and-roll, because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics,&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A27098-2004Aug23.html\">Cooper told<\/a> the <i>Canadian Press<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you&#8217;re a bigger moron than they are,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cWhy are we rock stars? Because we&#8217;re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cooper continued,\u00a0 \u201cBesides, when I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn&#8217;t already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched.\u00a0Linda Ronstadt?\u00a0Don Henley? Geez, that&#8217;s a good reason right there to vote for Bush.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with the evangelical Christian program <i>The Harvest Show<\/i>, Alice Cooper said that if there is Bible story that represents his life, it is Jonah and the whale. He also disclosed that despite the dark and demonic aspects of some of his early music, there were still Christian messages being conveyed about good vs. evil and that the songs did warn against Satan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost every thing I wrote was good and evil,\u201d said Cooper during the interview. \u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t pick evil. Even when I wasn\u2019t Christian, I was saying that.\u00a0 God and the Devil. Don\u2019t pick the Devil. It\u2019s a bad idea.\u00a0 But all they saw was the image [of Alice Cooper].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I gave Alice his perimeter, his areas where he wouldn\u2019t go past,\u201d said the musician, \u201cand I still find songs from the first albums that totally all have Christian bywords going all the way through it. It comes out of you what\u2019s in you. So songs like Second Coming, and that, were all warning about Satan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cooper also said that if his life means anything remotely similar to what is told in the Bible, it is that \u201cJonah was swallowed by a whale.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t believe this [notion] that it\u2019s all parables and they mean just this \u2013 no,\u201d Cooper said in reference to the Bible. \u00a0\u201cI say, if it says it, it meant it. People laugh at me and say you can\u2019t really believe that. Look, if I can believe that God created the world and everything in it, why wouldn\u2019t I believe a simple thing like that? That\u2019s not a hard thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe very fact that He cared enough about me to save my life about 20 times, and help me survive a million different things, to put me where I am now, and the challenge I have now to be a Christian in the rock business,\u201d said Cooper. \u00a0\u201cHe kind of put me in the camp of the Philistines, which is okay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He continued, \u201cWhat people don\u2019t realize is that when you become a Christian it doesn\u2019t make things easier, it makes them harder.\u00a0It makes your life harder. It makes your soul at ease with God because you know where you are with Him.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t make your social life or your normal life in America any easier. In fact, it puts you under the microscope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes I think that TV evangelism is one of Satan\u2019s greatest weapons,\u201d said Cooper.\u00a0 \u201cThey put these guys on a pedestal and all of a sudden they get caught with a prostitute, and every Christian I know then is under the gun. So you don\u2019t think that\u2019s kind of set up?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m telling you, the Devil is very smart,\u201d said Cooper.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s not going to come out with the horns and the tail. He\u2019s going to come in as the slickest car salesman you ever saw \u2013 and I\u2019ve seen some pretty slick pastors on TV.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s not to say they\u2019re all like that. \u2026 But every time I hear something that goes a little left of center, I go, \u2018What? What was that?\u2019<\/p>\n<h1><\/h1>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xknEWLmPiEc?rel=0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Michael W. Chapman | December 31, 2014 Alice Cooper, the shock-rock megastar who makes Marilyn Manson look like a choir boy, stopped his hard-partying ways and returned to his Bible Christian roots in the late 1980s and today, still &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/the-truth-about\/who-is-vincent-damon-furnier-alice-coopers-faith-journey\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[210,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-freedom-post-articles","category-the-truth-about"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30308"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30337,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30308\/revisions\/30337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freedomfrommedom.com\/wp3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}