I鈥檓 not cool. Even the title of this post is uncool. At least I could have used a strong noun in my title like insignificance, or triviality or inconsequentiality instead of unimportance!

I鈥檓 really not cool. I frequently ask my college students to let me know if I鈥檓 acting in a truly uncool manner, mostly to protect myself from abject humiliation. Otherwise, I don鈥檛 very much care. I wear an analog watch. I carry a pencil in my pocket. My hairline is receding. I recently turned sixty. My glasses are bifocals. I pull a roller-bag on my way to teach classes 鈥 so I don鈥檛 hurt my back.

But one time, I stumbled upon cool for a short time. It was a strange experience. I鈥檝e worn flannel shirts ever since I was a teenager. They weren鈥檛 cool then. (Actually, they were warm; that鈥檚 why I wore them.) And for most of the decades I wore flannel shirts, they weren鈥檛 cool.

Then a few years ago, some young people started commenting on how they liked my flannel shirts. I had accidentally stumbled upon cool. Now, I鈥檓 not sure whether flannel shirts are still cool, but I have a dozen hanging in my closet just in case. I told you, I鈥檓 not cool.

But cool seems to be an unusually important category in some people鈥檚 minds. 黑料历史 ten years ago I read Brett McCracken鈥檚 insightful book, , largely to try to figure out what all the hype was about. (Nice pun, don鈥檛 you think? But not very cool鈥) In chapter 2 (鈥渢he history of hip鈥), McCracken helpfully traces the origin of cool in Europe (Renaissance, Rousseau, the bohemians, the dandies), and how it sprouted and flourished in America via the American Romantics, the birth of mass culture, the beatniks and the hippies (among other things). But this suggests that the concept of cool isn鈥檛, historically speaking, very old. So why is it seemingly important to so many of our contemporaries? Why do some Christians seem to care so much about being cool?

The problem for me is that I think that everything 鈥 and when I say everything, I mean every last thing on planet earth and beyond 鈥 should be interpreted through a broad biblical grid. But cool is difficult to evaluate from the Bible because there isn鈥檛 a biblical category that easily approximates it. And that provokes me to consider how important cool even is.

I mean, peace is a positive biblical category. But that鈥檚 different than cool. And power is a biblical category, too 鈥 sometimes positive and sometimes negative. But power seems rather different than cool.

Being either hot or cold is a biblical idea (Rev. 3:15-16) 鈥 whatever hot or cold actually refers to, which is disputed 鈥 but lukewarm is bad. Cool seems closer to lukewarm than to either hot or cold.

Perhaps the closest biblical category to cool I can think of is gospel . Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:22 that he became all things to all people to save some of them. I guess, in some respects, that鈥檚 slightly like cool. But on second glance, it鈥檚 clear that Paul鈥檚 core motivation for contextualizing was different. Cool, to the degree I understand it (which is highly questionable because of how uncool I am), dresses and acts in certain ways in hopes that truly cool people will approve; whereas biblical contextualization makes intentional lifestyle adjustments to help move people toward Christ. (Note that even contextualization can be .)

So, is the right Christian response to simply abandon any appearance of cool? Maybe we should allow ourselves to slide into dork-ness, geek-ity, and dweeb-ery. (Then maybe we could use words like dorkness, geekity, and dweebery. Who knows? Those words might even become cool!)

Should we abandon the quest for cool altogether?

Fundamentally, yes, I think we should avoid trying to be cool. In truth, it doesn鈥檛 matter one iota whether others think I鈥檓 cool (or rad, or fab, or hip, or dope, or whatever people say these days). What matters is how God views me. And how is that? He sees me as his child, cleansed by Christ鈥檚 blood, united with Christ鈥檚 death and resurrection, and adopted into the family of God. God鈥檚 opinion of me is what matters! It matters way more than cool. And it鈥檚 not based on anything I鈥檝e done; it鈥檚 all of grace.

But before we abandon every modicum of decorum, propriety, or tact, there is something else to consider. Decades ago, my wife, Trudi, and I were impacted by a short article by Roberta Winter about money and lifestyle entitled 鈥淭he Non-Essentials of Life.鈥 This former missionary articulated three principles that she and her husband, Ralph, had determined to live by. The first and third relate to our discussion.

The first principle is: 鈥淥ur lifestyle must please the Lord, yet we should not make small matters be so shockingly different from those among whom we walk as to make unintelligible the message we wish to convey.鈥 In other words, we鈥檙e on a mission to reach people with the message of Christ, so we shouldn鈥檛 allow ourselves to become so uncool as to drive them away.

The other of Winter鈥檚 principles, however, helps us not to carry the first principle too far: 鈥淲e don鈥檛 really need most of the things our culture would push off on us. Once we learn to resist social pressure, it is far easier to determine what we really want or need.鈥 In other words, resist cool for the sake of cool. There are far more important matters 鈥 issues of eternal significance 鈥 that ought to concern us.

Some of us spend too much mental, emotional and financial energy trying to attain levels of social admiration that most of us will never achieve. We need to resist the pull toward the vortex of cool. Instead, let鈥檚 focus on loving God and neighbor, as Jesus clearly taught.

I was almost done with this post when Trudi (thanks a heap, honey), asked whether people even use the word cool anymore to describe the concept I鈥檓 writing about. I had to admit that I wasn鈥檛 sure, which proves that I鈥檓 not cool. But whether you label your desire for social admiration as cool, your response should remain the same: Fundamentally resist the pursuit of cool, but don鈥檛 allow yourself to become so uncool that you hinder the message Christ has given you to communicate through your words and actions.

Wouldn鈥檛 it be cool if more Christians decided to live like that? It would be so cool.

Notes

Brett McCracken, Hipster Christianity: When Church and Cool Collide (Baker, 2010), 31-49.

Roberta Winter, 鈥淭he Non-Essentials of Life,鈥 Mission Frontiers (April 01, 1980). Reprinted at . I edited out a few small typos.

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