ARE WE A PEOPLE AT HALF TIME? - Leadership Network

CREED INTERVIEW
One of the hottest new bands in the
country is a group called Creed, led
by Scott Stapp, and named
Billboard magazine’s 1998 Rock
Group of the Year. Their first album,
My Own Prison, went platinum in
seven months, with sales of over
3 million. Many are drawn to the
group because of the spiritual
message found in their lyrics.
Recently, Doug Pagitt and Chris
Seay of Leadership Network spent
some time with Stapp, and his
video interview was shown at the
Reevaluation Forum. The following
excerpts are from the interview.
Doug: Now I’m intrigued by a
couple of things – your willingness
to do this interview and why it was
of interest to you. You must get
requests all the time. Do you grant
every interview that’s requested
Scott: You know, I don’t know
why. Maybe it’s just because it’s
my first Christian interview. Or
my first interview with religious
people. I’ve never done an interview
with any religious publication.
When the secular media asks me
questions, ninety percent of them
have no background in religion so
they don’t even understand some
of the answers that I give them or
even some of the lyrics. I just
wanted to see what you guys were
all about and kind of get a feel for
you guys – how the Christian community
was – what they were
thinking and get a pulse on the
rational Christian community–you
know, the normal Christian people
– if you can call Christians normal.
At one point in my life I thought
that I was called to be a minister
and I think that was probably
around 9 or 10 years of age. But, I
became disillusioned by a lot of
things that happened to me by
Christian people. You know, there
were so many different things that
were going on in my mind that
made me really start to question
and want to get away and try to
figure out things on my own and
through my own search. And I’m
still there. I haven’t come to any
resolutions. Just because I felt
like, man, I guess no one else is
thinking this way or feeling this
way or has ever wanted to do this.
So I felt like I was some big evil
sinner and that I was the only one
because on Sundays everyone put
on their suits and sat on the front
row and acted like they were perfect
and had the perfect families
and the perfect lives and their kids
were great and everything was perfect.
And so for me to have these
feelings and thoughts and have no
one to identify with just even isolated
me more in an environment
where I was supposed to feel love
and understanding and compassion.
It’s refreshing to hear you
say that there are churches that
aren’t like that. I wish that I could
get ahold of one youth pastor that
was very, very influential in my
life. His name is Fred Franks and
I don’t know where he is right
now but he was just dynamic –
just a great guy. He was real.
He was a real guy and you could
tell he had been through some
real things.
I was thinking the other day about
when someone asked me if I was a
Christian and I looked at him and
said, ‘I don’t know, man. I still
have a lot of questions that I wish
I had answers to.’ And that’s why
I don’t want to tell anyone that I’m
a Christian. First of all, because
I don’t know if I am, but second
of all, I have a lot of questions
about that and I can’t sit here and
tell you guys that by the letter of
the law I’m a Christian or not.
I know that I believe in God and
I speak with Him every day and I
have a relationship with Him and
I feel like He speaks with me and I
feel like He’s very instrumental in
everything that I do.
(continued on page 10)
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