In these three albums, he explores his personal faith quite openly.

“The Last Temptation” is a redemptive story with a final song, “Cleansed By Fire” that goes down in history as being my favorite Alice Cooper song of all time.

Check out the lyrics:

Cleansed By Fire

I don’t know but I’ve been told / The streets of hell are paved with gold
Crazy, crazy
You told me that nothing’s free / Except my own insanity
Crazy, maybe
Wake me, shake me / Wake me, shake me

You offer me the world and all its wealth / All for myself
You promised me a life eternally / And drink to my health
I may seem only half-glued / But I can see right through you

[CHORUS]
Burn it up, burn it down / Burn this sucker to the ground
Oh yeah, oh yeah
Going, going, going, gone / There’s a party going on

Do you think I don’t know who you are / A fallen star
When I feel my soul scream out at night / I know you’re not far
You need a better disguise / This one won’t win any prize

[CHORUS]

Cleansed by fire, cleansed by fire / I may seem only half-glued
But I can see right through you

What about dark / What about light
What about wrong / What about right
What about death / What about sin
What about the web you’re trying to spin

What about truth / What about life
What about glory / What about Christ
What about peace / What about love
What about faith in God above
What about war / What about hell
What if I stumble / What if I fell
What about blood / What about greed
And all of these things you’re offering me

Yeah, what about me, little me / You lose and I win
You couldn’t suck me in / It’s over, you have no power
You’re lost / And I’m found
And I’m Heaven bound / Go back to where you belong
To where you fell / Go to hell

I absolutely love that song.  It’s the perfect close to an incredible story of coming into faith in Jesus Christ.

His next album, which came 6 years later has some great lyrics on it as well. While not a story, nor are they “outwardly Christian”, each song deals with an issue that is plaguing us today like racism, gluttony, nihilism, gossip, greed, domestic violence, as well as sitting back and not doing anything about the problems other than complaining about them. Certainly all things that we as Christians should be doing something about.

Following that album is Dragontown, which continues the trend Brutal Planet and has some of the best lyrics from any Cooper album, only with a little more of a direct approach of stepping on our toes.

Dragontown is a fictional representation of Hell. (Get it?) It’s like each song is sung from somebody spending an eternity there and serves as a warning.

For example, a song called “Sex, Death, And Money” is all about hypocrisy among Christians.  It talks about a Christian who is claiming to be upset about nudity and violence in the movies, yet sits for three hours taking it all in. For brevity, I won’t share the entire song. Some of the lyrics are:

I was so offended / As I sat for three hours / It was mental cruelty / I was so shocked / Just a little more flesh / Just a little more blood / Little closer to the edge / A little deeper in the mud / I’ll never be the same

Later in the song, it goes to talk about going to a strip club and spending hundreds of dollars, yet telling others how offensive it was.

The chorus pretty much sums it all up:

Sex, death and money, sonny / Makes this wicked world go round
Sex, death and money / It’s the Gospel here in Dragontown
Sex, death and money, honey / Grease the wheels and make them fly
Sex, death and money, sonny / That is why we all are gonna fry

One of the funniest songs Alice has done in a long time is called Dis-Grace Land.  We finally know where “The king of Rock and Roll” now lives.  He even sings it like “The king” Check this lyrics out:

Dis-Grace Land

I wanna tell you a story / It happened long ago
About a redneck boy / Down from tupelo
I got the slick black hair / I played a rock guitar
I liked to shake my hips, man / Then i went too far

He ate his weight in country ham / Killed on pills and woke in disgraceland
Dis-Grace-Land / Dis-Grace-Land / Dis-Grace-Land

I had a lot of girls / I had a lot of guns
When they found me dead / The whole world was stunned
Went to the pearly gates / Said, “I’m the hippest thing”
And Peter said “Well son, / We already got ourselves a king”

He finished his short life, / Sweaty and bloated and stoned
(A-Hey-Hey) He ruled his domain and he died on the throne
No “Yes-Men”, no colonel, he went……all alone…

(Hey, man, that looks like me down there on the floor)

I heard the devil cry / Real loud and clear
“You were the big man, there / You’re just a sideman here
Well, I know your face / And I’ve heard your name
Looks like heaven’s loss / Is gonna be my gain”
(I’ve got plans for you, man)

Well, I woke up, right here / In dis-grace-land
Thank ya. Thank ya very much

The clincher song on this album though is “It’s Much Too Late”

It’s Much Too Late

I never kicked a dog, / A child or my wife
I never looked at pornography / I swear it on my holy saint mother’s life
But somehow she’s down here with me

The road to hell is littered / with nice guys with good intentions
But once you’re there, you’re there / It’s much too late
I can cry and scream it’s just not fair / To leave me here like you don’t care
There must be some mistake up there in heaven

Now it’s much too late / My time has passed away
All my plans and dreams have all ended
Now it’s much too late / To try and plead my case
And I don’t know the God I’ve offended
It’s too late

I never stole a thing / A toy or a kiss
My conscience is a clear as can be / And when I was a teen
All the sex that I missed / Was an abstinence blessing to me

The road to hell is littered / with nice guys with good intentions
But once you’re there, you’re there / It’s much too late
I can cry and scream it’s just not fair / To leave me here like you don’t care
There must be some mistake up there in heaven

Now it’s much too late / My time has passed away
All my plans and dreams have all ended
Now it’s much too late / To try and plead my case
And I don’t know the God I’ve offended
It’s too late

Anyway, he has released several albums after this series, and while lyrically they may contain one or two songs about his faith, they are typically just really good rockers, usually of a darker theme, but this series of three albums he decided to publically talk about his faith.  I am glad he did.

That’s the mission that The Bride Collector is on. He is out to find the seven most beautiful women in the world and personally deliver them to God for him to choose as His bride.

Brad, an FBI agent that is hot on his trail is determined to catch The Bride Collector, but not without a little help from a very unlikely source: The residents of a mental institution exclusively for the extremely gifted. One of the members, Paradise, has the extraordinary gift of being able to see the last few moments of someone’s life.

The Bride Collector is Ted’s 2nd book with Hachette Publishing, and I have to say, I really like the direction Ted is taking with this publisher. In my opinion, this is Ted Dekker’s best book to date. Sure, I enjoyed The Circle Series, The Paradise Novels and the Lost Books, but I was ready for something completely different. And Ted delivered something completely different, that’s for sure.

Boneman’s Daughters was the first book he wrote for Hachette in which I feel he changed his writing style up tremendously. Everything I loved about Boneman’s Daughters is greatly improved upon in The Bride Collector: The plot keeps you on the edge of your seat and will have you wondering until the very end how the story will resolve; The characters are very well written and like Boneman, we get an excellent insight into the point of view of the bad guy, something rare in fiction from a Christian point of view; and most of all, the spiritual application is even more apparent. In addition, the one aspect that Ted really added in this story is humor. While I know that Ted has a great sense of humor, it really comes out in this story. I had to laugh when I saw his homage to some of his earlier Circle works as well. I don’t want to spoil how he did this, but what a great way to pay tribute. Even the naming of a character pays tribute to Ted’s previous works.

So what can we take home from reading this book? In this story, we discover that some of us really aren’t unlike The Bride Collector in some aspects. How many of us try to impress God with all we do and say, yet fall short of the mark? How many of US would think that Jesus was crazy for all of our ideals that He tossed aside for the sake of loving our neighbors or worse, our enemies?

I highly recommend this novel. If you do not believe that God has a favorite, this may change your opinion.