A sincere young teen being raised in a homeschooling family asked: “Can a person be both Christian and cool?” She was a large, expansive thinker, so she meant this to the depths. She meant to be a real Christian. I have considered her question for over a decade.

To this, I would now give a “yes” that needs qualified. Yes, only if Jesus Christ is the pursuit alone, and somehow on a temporary basis the result in society is viewed as “cool.” Was Jesus cool? Yes, yes, yes, as the Pulse of humanity, the Agent of Creation, the Sustainer, the Savior: the WORD. He is relevance. He is the Relevant One. He was cool when He did the healings. He was cool when He defied the religious establishment. But was He cool after sharing that all must eat of His flesh and drink of His blood in John 8, and all deserted Him?

Who sets the standard of cool?

•A participant in a study of Nauert Phd: “Almost any one of us will be cool in some people’s eyes, which suggests the idiosyncratic way coolness is evaluated. But some will be judged as cool in many people’s eyes, which suggests there is a core valuation to coolness, and today that does not seem to be the historical nature of cool. We suggest there is some transition from the countercultural cool to a generic version of it’s good and I like it. But this transition is by no way completed.”

•Ladybird on a Yahoo blog says: “My fella and I happen to be too cool. We are excellent people to be around, we’re funny, we wear clothes that set trends coz we’re the first to wear them. We are good to everyone, nice and yet people come to us, not the other way around. And we make other people feel like they are cool too, just by hanging around us. This is cool. Your pretty cool too”

•Wikipedia: Coolness is a “age-specific phenomenum…”
◦”The sum and substance of cool is a self-conscious aplomb in overall behavior, which entails a set of specific behavioral characteristics that is firmly anchored in symbology, a set of discernible bodily movements, postures, facial expressions and voice modulations that are acquired and take on strategic social value within the peer context.[3]
◦”Cool was once an attitude fostered by rebels and underdogs, such as slaves, prisoners, bikers and political dissidents, etc., for whom open rebellion invited punishment, so it hid defiance behind a wall of ironic detachment, distancing itself from the source of authority rather than directly confronting it.”

From the Scriptures it is evident that the standard setter is the prince of the power of the air (please see Eph 2:2 to John 15:19). It is the god of this world. He sets the track.

The pull to us is so great in this poll-driven, popular society. We MUST see where it pulls you and me, because it does! It wins elections, it changes fashions, gets the most financial funding, determines culture, grows churches. (It is what is forming the end of the age.)

For the believer today, we must realize we are at a crucial juncture. We will find ourselves on both sides of the track of coolness if we live an obedient life. The important thing for us all to know and determine that the track of coolness is not our track, it is ONLY following the One Who was for the Father and others, Jesus Christ.