I recently realized that Darryl Cooper is not only the most popular writer on Substack but also a widely influential figure online. Curious about his appeal, I decided to listen to him, and accidentally I fell right into his account of Jewish history and Christianity (I don't know if that's all he does). Despite approaching it with good faith, particularly when he opened with the phrase “as a Christian,” I found the experience painful and couldn't go on past 20 mins or so. Within 20 minutes, he arrived at the astonishing claim that “the central conflict in all the Gospels” was about the Jews finally accepting the Gentiles. This is simply false. I have no idea where Cooper derives his theology from, but it bears little resemblance to any serious reading of the texts. The Gospels are not structured around this all. Their central conflict concerns the identity of Jesus himself—his claim to messiahship and divine sonship—and that is what culminated in his crucifixion. If this is his approach to all topics, then the man is creating a whole alternative reality that is parasitic on this one. That's not at all different than what leftist scholars have been doing for decades.
See Tweet