Jonathan Cain: A Life Transformed by the Gospel, Part 2

SPEAKER 02 : 0:00

Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It’s a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute supported by listeners just like you. I’m Dr. James Dobson and I’m thrilled that you’ve joined us.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:19

Well, welcome once again to Family Talk. I’m Roger Marsh. And on today’s broadcast, we are continue hearing from Gary Bauer, our senior vice president of public policy here at the Dobson Policy and Culture Center, and the powerful conversation he’s having with legendary musician Jonathan Cain. Now, Jonathan has written some powerful praise and worship songs. He’s written a brand new tribute to Charlie Kirk, which we’re going to get into in just a little bit. But remember, of course, this is the guy who wrote the iconic song for the rock band Journey called Don’t Stop Believin’. In fact, that phrase came from some rather prophetic words from his dad that he scribbled down in his lyric book. He was getting ready to throw up his hands and say, that’s it. I know you prophesied that I would have a ministry in music and that I would be successful, but it’s just not working out. And when he was on the phone sharing that sentiment with his father one night, his dad responded by saying, don’t stop believin’, John. And well, that remarkable journey from surviving a tragic school fire as a child to becoming one of rock’s most celebrated songwriters continued. And now he’s a Grammy nominee who’s been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as well. On today’s edition of Family Talk, Jonathan Cain will open up about how he met his wife, Paula White Cain, and how their shared faith actually led him back into a ministry that had grown cold since he became a big rock star. He’ll also share the story behind his latest song called No One Else. It’s a song written to honor not only the late Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, but also everyone who answers God’s call to serve. So let’s rejoin that conversation right now on today’s edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk.

SPEAKER 05 : 1:57

this tragedy forms your life and in its own way, inspires your music and you’re with journey and you’re having all of this success. Um, and so the years go on, eventually, um, you meet your wife, Paula, uh, but, but I don’t want to leave anything out of other things you want to talk about on your, on your career.

SPEAKER 02 : 2:20

You know, it was just a lot of work. Um, and, uh, touring and, uh, it all got to be a grind, you know, it was very tough couple of failed marriages and it’s hard being on the road, balancing a road life with family life. And, you know, you had to learn how to come home and be a civilian after being gone for months and months. Um, that’s, that takes its toll, not to mention, you know, your adrenal glands are shot. So it’s not a lifestyle for everybody. Uh, I just got swept up in it, you know? Um, When you’re number one band in the land, you keep working. You put your head down. And so for many years, I just, you know, and my kids were born. I led them to the Lord. I felt good about that. They were baptized and confirmed in church. And, you know, so I found myself back in church. But I realized how much scripture I had missed being a Catholic, you know. Yeah. Because, you know, they left half the book out. And so when I met Paula on the airplane, I was writing my book, and I couldn’t get over how, you know, well-versed she was as a preacher and a talk show host and public speaker and a life coach and all this stuff. And, you know, I had just finished a Tony Robbins personal power course program. And I was so impressed with Paula and her goals. And we had so many things in common we loved, you know. I met her on the airplane at Southwest. And she had three words for me. And she said, there’s a book in you. And I see a couple important dates, you know, happening and a rebirth. Because my question to her was, I don’t hear from the Lord like I used to, you know, and I miss that. And is it possible? You know, I get to hear from God again. And she assured me that I just lost my way like so many of us do, you know. And she gave me some scripture and assured me that, you know, I could find my way back. And, you know, so when I met her spiritual father and some of the prophets and we went to Africa together. After meeting her, I was convinced that I had met somebody special. When the time arose, I was going to ask her, you know, to be my wife. And it worked out to where, you know, she wasn’t seeing anyone. I had moved on from my second marriage and we had a chance to try it out, see if we could do life together again. And it was really great. And I was really comfortable in ministry. I found myself, the kid that wanted to be a priest felt right at home, you know, back in her ministry. We feed so many people. You know, we do disaster relief. We’re working with CityServe. So I find myself in all these places where, you know, God’s doing something great. And it’s really an honor to be there and see it and witness it. You know, for the last 10 years, that’s what we’ve been doing. And making the world a better place. And, of course, you know, getting our president elected and unifying the church. I think my biggest, I guess, I think I’m proud of Paula the most is for unifying the pastors and bringing them all to the table and, you know, and doing it in that way. Regardless, where I met Charlie, you know, we met Charlie at several. Actually, I met him the first time was at 2016. He was outside of Trump’s RNC with a sign saying big government sucks.

SPEAKER 05 : 5:37

Subtle as always, right?

SPEAKER 02 : 5:39

Yeah. I said, Paula, who is that? Oh, that’s Charlie Kirk, and he’s got this news. So after Trump had spoke in 2016, we went upstairs, and he was there. He introduced himself. And just this young kid, about 21 or 22, and just so excited about Turning Point. And that’s so amazing when he explained what he was trying to do. And I thought, that’s a monumental task, you know, to go into colleges and try to— But he became more than political. He was, I think he really turned into an apologetic, you know, an apostle of the gospel, you know, at the same time, because he realized the road to politics, you know, had to include Jesus somewhere, you know. Yes. And they go together. And a lot of people would think the opposite, you know, the church and state separation. Charlie saw it a different way, you know, and I always felt like the church could do it better than the government anyway, you know, most of the time. Yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER 05 : 6:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER 02 : 6:37

You think about civilization, it was founded by the missionaries and by the church. I was just in Africa and I see, you know, kind of unfinished work there. But they left the remnant of Jesus all over the continent. And what I saw this last time was Jesus saving Africa. you know, the name of Jesus will save Africa. And I’m going to prophesy that today. And so it will write it down, Jonathan. It will. And if I can help, Paul and I have a couple ideas, but we have some great influencers in Africa and tremendous amount of fellowship and leadership beyond the politics, beyond the tribalism. There is that love of God. And I think that Africa is going to have a huge revival. And it’s really going to be coming on. And it’s a continent to watch, definitely, after seeing the way they love the Lord there.

SPEAKER 05 : 7:37

Well, you know, President Trump has taken a real interest in the future of Christianity in Africa. And Specifically, what has been happening, it’s happening in a number of countries, but specifically in Nigeria, where there’s just this organized campaign of Islamic inspired hatred. And, you know, I run into Christians all the time. I’m sadly even I’m one of them where I. I complain if I can’t find a parking place, right? I can’t believe this. But Christians in Africa and around the world go to church often on a Sunday morning, walk long distances to get there, and they don’t know whether they’ll ever walk out of that church alive because there are people there. as I’m sure you and Paula are aware of, that want to kill them because they’re followers of Jesus Christ. So for you and Paula to be working in Africa for our fellow believers is really a wonderful thing you’re doing.

SPEAKER 02 : 8:34

Well, I tell you, she’s planted herself on that continent since the 80s. And when I, 10 years ago, when we were just, I guess, freshly married, she took me to Wari. to meet Bishop Ayo. And Bishop Ayo was at one time the bishop of all churches of Nigeria. And he had pulled us in his office. Paula preached and I sang. I led worship there. It’s about 10,000 people came. It was amazing. And he told us about this horrible, you know, this persecution that was going on. The church is burning, pastors being killed. And he wanted so badly to get that message across. This is 10 years ago. Yeah. And we tried to say, let’s come, you know, come to D.C. And, you know, and then the Hudson group, I think, geomapped the Christian persecution. And they actually made a map of the hotspots. Of course, Nigeria up there was, and Mori was, then you had the Boko Haram there. But now they have ISIS there. So it’s more than Boga now, Boga Haram. It’s ISIS and it’s al-Qaeda and all of this extremism, jihadi stuff. And it’s very, very violent, very barbaric and merciless and evil, just pure evil that is happening. But the biggest thing for me about all of this is there – At some point, these guys have to go to jail. Someone’s got to arrest people for doing these kinds of heinous acts, put them on trial, put them in jail. And all it takes is one time, somebody going, hey, you know what, you’re going to jail for that. And so they go unpunished and it keeps happening. And until we can figure out a way to, you know, police this and make these perpetrators, you know, pay for their sin, it’s going to continue to happen. So I’m praying for a breakthrough. I mean, we see what the U.N. is doing and not very much. And that would be the organization that I would think would have the lawyers in the court, and they would have to stand trial at the UN.

SPEAKER 05 : 10:49

Well, they’re too busy passing resolutions condemning Israel to pay any attention to anything else.

SPEAKER 02 : 10:56

They have a great platform, and they’re not using it. Just like what happened during the genocide, they could have prevented a lot of that, and everybody looked the other way, called it tribalism, whatever.

SPEAKER 04 : 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER 02 : 11:08

And it’s funny when you see it close up. It’s just, it’s totally a different thing.

SPEAKER 05 : 11:14

So you, yeah, you mentioned it. And I had occasion a couple of years ago, you may not remember. We were waiting in a green room somewhere, you and me and Paula and some other folks. And you talked a little bit about meeting on that Southwest airline flight and the magic of that moment and all that’s happened since. But then you mentioned that you first saw Charlie Kirk with this person. somewhat provocative sign outside the convention, a relationship developed with him, I guess, as all of you, all of us were working together to try to get the president elected.

SPEAKER 02 : 11:50

We were always bumping into Charlie. And the funniest thing, I don’t have a picture with Charlie because he was always running. He’s running in, running out. You know, you never even left a card. You know, he just, boom, gone. Where’d Charlie go? Oh, he’s off to his next thing. Running at the speed of sound was Charlie Kirk. And actually, I saw him speak at Liberty a couple of years ago. It was fantastic. And most recently, there was a fundraiser in Dallas at one of the hotels. And he got up and explained to us older folks how things are going with the boys and girls in colleges. And we were just shocked to what he was coming up with. And, you know, he railed on feminism and all this stuff. And it was very provocative. And so Charlie had these, you know, a lot of irons in the fire. He actually became a psychiatrist for some of these kids, you know, who had questions. So not only politically, but I think on a personal level and an emotional level, he got into their hearts and minds. And that was so like nobody when… After his assassination, Senator Cruz said the most incredible thing, and that’s kind of what triggered my song, was he was irreplaceable. And I thought to myself, yeah, who besides Billy Graham has evangelized so extensively across the campuses, you know, and won the hearts and souls of these kids that were otherwise, you know, not even thinking about Jesus or God or anything. And the defender of the gospel… And they would have these questions for him and he had the answers. And he was, you know, they’re not only for their, you know, their political and religious, but their personal. Like they actually would confess things like the women would say, the young girls would say, I don’t feel fulfilled here, you know. And he would have to explain to them, well, you know, you have a clock. It’s ticking and you’re not having babies. You’re not married. It’s not on the horizon. You’re going to feel unfulfilled because you’re wired to be a mom.

SPEAKER 05 : 13:56

Man, and that’s one of the most revolutionary things you can say in the culture we’re living in, right?

SPEAKER 02 : 14:01

Well, bring back family. The only guy I can think of is Josh Hawley out of all of our political leaders that has the same platform. And I saw Josh speak at the Christian Film Festival. Interesting. It was like listening to Charlie. Exactly. You know, the same core message. But it’s different because Charlie was going out there actually doing it. So why write a song, right? Well, I thought to myself, where words fail, music prevails. And I wanted to frame—he became a pastor for the colleges in a big way. And I was working on a pastor appreciation idea. And after his assassination, I listened to the words I had written. It was Charlie. I said, this song is Charlie, 100%. But you want to do something after something horrendous happens. I felt like free speech was violated. I didn’t want to be silent about it. And I felt that my best thing I could do is write a song and frame that in a musical way. And that’s where No One Else really came from. I was going through my knee surgery. I had just had a knee replacement and I think I sang that song on one leg. You know, I sent it to my buddy. I said, see what you can do with this. You know, when we put it out, because it was all very rushed, obviously. And I wanted to make a statement and, you know, and say sort of just honor him in a musical way. And a lot of people have been blessed by the song. And I hope it, you know, it stands the test of time.

SPEAKER 03 : 15:41

Few are chosen, few are called. To face the enemy And overcome it all Make the Word of God Come to life We find peace When there’s no hope in sight Faith comes from hearing Eternally proclaiming, He is the way, the truth, the light. Calling those not believing, saving souls who are receiving. His resurrection, the finished works of Christ. reach generations could heal with truth and conversation setting all differences aside no one else could question hate turn hearts and minds with true debate from the battle our nation will arise Faithful servant, you’ve done well.

SPEAKER 02 : 17:18

No one else. The video that we did was all footage that was public domain. So we put that together pretty quick, but it just came out so great. And I think it’s on my Facebook. You can see it there.

SPEAKER 05 : 17:35

This morning as I was getting ready for our conversation, I obviously listened to the song. I had listened to it before, but I I listened to it with the benefit of the video, and it’s powerful. It’s really very well done. And I have to admit, it brought a tear to my eyes because he was in many ways one of a kind, and he threatened a lot of powerful forces in our culture. The last thing they want is a young, articulate, of making these points about God and Christ and marriage and babies and all the rest of it.

SPEAKER 02 : 18:14

And, you know, I borrowed probably from seven different scriptures. And Charlie will be missed. And his organization, it lives on. And, you know, I think that he— he changed the culture in colleges and with the help of president Trump, uh, a lot of the persecution and, and bullying and, you know, just group think is, is kind of now it’s been challenged, you know, and, um, I think we’ll do things differently. I hope security wise, when they do these events now, and I think even Mr. Trump is not thinking about doing those events without, you know, drones in the air and everything else.

SPEAKER 05 : 18:54

Um, yeah, they’re dangerous things we’ve seen.

SPEAKER 02 : 18:57

Oh my goodness. Yeah. And, uh, You know, you’re thinking of all places in a Utah campus, but there it is. And, you know, we as Christians were awakened, I think, in a big way. I was awakened. It woke me up. And I think from that point on, I’m just not going to hold anything back about how I feel. People ask me, like, sometimes they’ll ask me a political question, and I’ll answer it. I’ll say, you know what, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t go there. But since you asked… Here’s what I feel. And, you know, I write love songs. I write songs about hope. I lived, I grew up in the American dream. You know, I made my first million playing music and writing songs. And today it’s all changed, you know. And so I feel like I got to really enjoy the American dream in the fullest way, you know. And now I see what’s come down. I’m like, wow, this has diminished since the Reagan days, you know.

SPEAKER 05 : 19:56

Yeah, the Reagan days.

SPEAKER 02 : 19:57

I mean, that’s those are the days I’m very familiar with because I can remember him, you know, coming in and being a game changer. And we just went to the museum, actually, in Simi Valley. We went to the Reagan. And it is just anybody that they got to go see it because he is so special. Nancy Reagan’s footprint, handprints all over it. She was still alive when it was completed. And yeah. It is a wonderful tribute to an amazing man. He’s bigger than life. Movies are a lot like Trump. They have a lot of similarities. He was the one that said, make America great again.

SPEAKER 05 : 20:36

One of my favorite family stories is that I heard Reagan give a speech in 1964 that he made on TV for Barry Goldwater. I was sitting in the living room with my father And at the end of the speech, I said, dad, I don’t think Goldwater is going to win, but this guy’s this guy, Reagan, he’s an actor, right? And my dad says, yeah, I said, that guy’s going to be president someday. And I’m going to work for him in the white house. Now, unlike your father and Dr. Dobson’s father, my dad said, Gary, you’re nuts. Uh, but he was able to visit me in my office in the West wing, uh, shortly before he passed away. But, uh, Jonathan, it’s been wonderful to have this time. Charlie Kirk, he was a game changer, and he had great courage, but your song, No One Else, is a continuation of his ministry, and it’s… The song is exactly at the right time. And I think it will move millions of people. And I believe you have said that any proceeds from this, you will. What’s your plan to do with that?

SPEAKER 02 : 21:46

Yeah, we’re going to turn over, you know, since it’s a standalone single, it’s trackable. And I’m going to write a check to the Attorney Point Foundation. we released it as a single, my, my company did, and it’s got its own little coat. It’s just, it’s just a way of, uh, again, saying thanks, um, for everything that, that he accomplished, which is just, um, it’s staggering what he accomplished in a short period of time really is. Um, and God bless him and his family and, you know, attorney point.

SPEAKER 05 : 22:16

And well, Jonathan, God, God bless you. And, and Paul, I, you know, I, uh, I’m always trying to explain to people around the country that every day things are happening that increases our religious liberty, that defends the sanctity of life, that strengthens marriage. And it’s happening because of all the people around the president. And certainly Paula plays a major role in making sure that he gets the information he needs on public policy. And You two are an incredible team. I’m honored to know you both.

SPEAKER 02 : 22:53

Thank you, Gary. I’m certainly a huge fan of Dr. Dobson. And he was so anointed. And it was such an honor to meet the man in person. Paula had said so many great things about him. And it was really nice to the brief moments that we did spend and to hear him speak and everything. It was just you could tell he was, you know, prophetic elder person. and, you know, anointed in every way. And his concern and his heart for God was just obvious.

SPEAKER 05 : 23:22

Jonathan, God bless you. Thank you for being with us on Family Talk. We promise that the James Dobson Family Institute to continue as we do. We pray for the president and his team, and we pray for Paula and you and all the people that are trying to advance faith, family, and freedom. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Be blessed. God bless you, my friend.

SPEAKER 01 : 23:46

Jonathan Cain’s journey back to faith reminds us that God never stops pursuing us, even when we’ve lost our way. You’ve been listening to Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk and an inspiring conversation featuring Gary Bauer, our Senior Vice President of Public Policy here at the JDFI, and musician Jonathan Cain. They discussed faith, loss, and the legacy of Charlie Kirk. Now, if you missed any portion of today’s broadcast, or if you’d like to share it with a friend, go to jdfi.net. That’s jdfi.net. And by the way, today’s broadcast originally aired on the Defending Faith, Family, and Freedom podcast, hosted by Gary Bauer, where Gary tackles the most pressing cultural and policy issues facing families today. You can find new episodes wherever you listen to your podcast. Get started at JDFI.net. And while you’re online, I want to tell you about a free resource we’ve created called 10 Tips for a Long-Lasting Marriage. Drawing from Dr. Dobson’s decades of research and counseling experience, this practical guide covers everything from keeping romance alive through the years to navigating conflict with grace. Whether you’re newlyweds or celebrating your golden anniversary, these biblical principles can help you build the marriage God intended for you to enjoy. To download your copy of this tip sheet called 10 Tips for a Long-Lasting Marriage, go to jdfi.net. You can download it for free there, jdfi.net. Well, I’m Roger Marsh, and from all of us here at Family Talk and the JDFI, thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to join us again next time for another edition of Dr. James Dobson’s Family Talk, the voice you can still trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. This is Roger Marsh from Family Talk. The freedoms we enjoy today were hard won by those who came before us and it’s up to all of us to protect them. Here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, we’re committed to defending religious liberty and the timeless values that shaped our nation. Through our broadcasts, articles and resources, we equip you to stand for godly principles in your own community. So thank you for partnering with us to protect faith, family and freedom for future generations.