I apologize in advance for the rants in this contemporary piece, but it finishes on a brighter note—so hang in there, friend. Stay cool.
Behind many awful, dangerous decisions lurks one evil beast. The Cool.
The desire to be ‘cool’ has infected pastors, Youth pastors, parents, politicians, Pathfinder Jamborees, and college students and faculty. The Cool has infected all aspects of our lives. Two examples:
Pastor Greg, fifty-eight and freshly returned from a “Relevant Church Leadership Summit” in Orlando, was determined to rebrand himself as “approachable” (read, cool). He exchanged his usual suit for skinny jeans that looked like they were taken from his son’s laundry hamper, then spent twenty minutes in the bathroom mirror practicing saying “lit” with the correct inflection. During announcements he casually dropped, “Hey, real talk, this Sabbath message is gonna be straight fire—no cap.” Um... Ok.
Perennially immature youth pastor Chad (he insists everyone call him “ChadTheRad” on Instagram), decided the youth class Bible study needed a glow-up. So he rolled in wearing a flat-brim hat turned backward, a hoodie that read “JESUS IS MY HOMIE” in Comic Sans font, and slide sandals with socks. “Yo, fam, what’s good?” he opened, doing that awkward half-squat lean that TikTok influencers do when they think they’re about to drop bars. The teenagers stared back in the kind of silence reserved for when someone’s phone goes off during the sermon. Undeterred, Chad cranked the volume on his “Christian trap remix” of “Amazing Grace” that sounded like someone had dropped a large rock on the cat’s tail. Three kids quietly pulled out their phones to text their parents for an early pickup.
The Cool Virus
Tying to be cool—as a goal—forces you to ignore lessons ingrained by the Bible and the people who made you (your parents, for the Loma Linda, LaSierra & Spectrum crowd).
The Cool need recruits to survive. They actively recruit on college campuses. Their strategy is to convince you that you won’t be cool if you don’t do what they say. However, doing what they say can alter your life. You can end up living above a laundromat in a forgettable town, passing fries out the drive-up window with tatted up arms. Some of the worst cities in America are filled with people who said “Yes” to everything. Remember friends, it’s cool to say no to bad things
Bad Boys
Bad boys prey on gullible women (1 Thess 4) and The Cool erases your ability to say “no.” Girls who don’t say “No” end up with guys with pants hanging below their______ and no known income to speak of. They get stuck with Mr. “Please accept all my flaws (and pay my rent) because I can play the guitar badly.”
Listen girls, when The Cool tries to override your common sense—slam the door permanently.
The Socially Conscious Nuisance
What makes a person “cool”? In the old days it used to be a leather jacket, cigarette, military service, and a motorbike (the world’s idea, not God’s). But Fonzie has been replaced by the corybantic and annoying Social Justice Warrior. 350 College students were interviewed recently about their perception of coolness (they actually interview people on this stuff).
The key finding was that "social consciousness"—described as activities like collecting signatures on petitions for causes such as Greenpeace—was ranked among the accepted or desirable "cool" traits by those surveyed. This contrasts with older studies (e.g., from the 1950s) that measured job prestige based on factors like authority, skill required, importance, dignity, and pay were desirable. “Raising awareness" or activism wasn't seen as a prestigious or cool pursuit at all.
What is social consciousness? It is virtue signaling, social justice, and online activism combined. It’s save the whales, slugs, Harris’ ratings, getting incoherent Asian tattoos, triple nose piercings, adopt a polar bear and be non-binary today and fogender tomorrow. But, social consciousness is a euphemism for liberal causes, as evidenced by PARL, the United Nations, regional conferences, Lake & Columbia Unions, the rainbow Spectrum, and AdLibAdventism (redundant, I know).
For lefty college students if you put social in front of any word it becomes “important and compassionate.” Left-wing causes abound, ‘Save the Orangutans’ – while living with a roommate whose personal hygiene resembles one. Blame the Joos for everything wrong in the world, “Hey, it’s easier than resolving my own sins and spiritual issues.”
One more aspect of the Socially Conscious Nuisance, you must make people feel guilty for being successful.
You Pray, They Decay
To the world, tithing is uncool. So is keeping the Sabbath and being happily married for 40 years to a person of the opposite sex. A conservative leader was ridiculed 8-years ago for being against gay marriage, by the widow of a rocker who overdosed 25-years ago. As if she is a moral authority…
As our culture wanders farther from biblical truth—our world is slogging through an immoral mixed-up outhouse. 2nd -Wave feminism is one of the worst movements in this latrine. Feminism and LGBTQ+ share the same ethical trajectory, the former loosening the anchor pins of the gender binary and the latter uprooting the binary altogether. It starts with women wanting a man’s job and ends with men wanting to be women (and vice versa). That’s ‘cool’ they say, mistaking The Cool for character. Sadly, our Heavenly Father is ridiculed by The Cool.
Crazies
I saw a magazine title while waiting the checkout lane at WalMart “How _____ _____’s inner demons made him TV’s hottest star.” And that’s something to be applauded? No, it is to be pitied, and we hope and pray he gets free from those demons. It does highlight how people who traffic in The Cool love crazy. In the real world, crazy = serious injury, horrible hygiene, and life without parole.
But movies (if you watch them) make crazy people out to be cool. They portray decent folks as demonic, and transgenders as heros. The Cool suspends critical thinking--the thought process that discerns between good and evil (3 John 1:11). In The Cool, madness is regarded as a form of subversion—and subversion is cool regardless of the pain they cause others. By this logic, Dylan Mulvaney is the moral equivalent of Tim Tebow and Ted Bundy is Elvis minus the guitar.
Killer Cool
In some circles, being a killer is regard as cool. Look how Billy the Kid, Charles Manson, Tookie and Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev were idolized by a world that is passing away (1 John 2:17). Yet this twisted fascination reveals a deeper sickness: a culture that glorifies rebellion, violence, and "anti-hero" mystique over righteousness, mercy, and true strength. The same society that turns murderers into folk legends or fanboy icons—complete with T-shirts, fan pages, and conspiracy theories—quickly discards the innocent victims and the moral order our God established. It's the epitome of calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). That world, with its inverted values and celebrity criminals, is indeed fading away, but the Word of the Lord endures forever (1 Peter 1:24).
Addiction to Accolades
Award shows (Emmy’s, Oscars) are funerals for the living. If you don’t believe in God, what replaces heaven? Fame (1 Peter 5:6). Fame becomes the reason for life. People seek to achieve immortality by becoming an influencer and turning their friends into fans on social media. They have a need to be told they are cool. However, truly cool people work hard and don’t ask for applause. They are friends, Grandparents, and church-going neighbors.
Doing the Wrong Thing
Satanic music rewires the brains of listeners. Goodbye pajamas–hello pentagrams. Bad behavior is encouraged (criminality, Illegitimacy, rejection of work (Hip Hop). The Cool also divides people racially. It was Cool to be an anti-racist since 2020, and multitudes of college kids raced to sign up for Black Lives Matter marches. As did numerous left-wing Adventists who just barely know the difference between racism and righteousness.
Reading and math is not cool, in fact they are artifacts of white supremacy and white is one color that is not cool. It becomes uncool to try and learn math and proper English—that way you can fail but still feel cool. The Cool is a bad thing. It’s a value-removal machine. It creates champions for reverse achievement. It makes good into bad and bad celebrated as something good. Like that irritating water leak, evil finds the path of least resistance. That path is labeled ‘Cool street.’
Cool’s War on Warmth
The Cool condemns hard work and many of the advances we have made over the years. It’s hip (cool) to hate fossil fuels on college campuses, TikTok, and ADCOM committees. They gain power by limiting your options and virtue signaling about green-washing. Green Meanies want an iPhone but not the power that makes it work. Green cool is a Trojan horse for coercion, and Bible-believing Adventists should have nothing to do with it.
As believers, we find our calling in Genesis 1:26-28. In this biblical stewardship we are called to cultivate (tend) the earth, enhancing its beauty, fruitfulness, and safety. We are to use earth’s resources to bless humanity. There are 8 billion people on earth. 2.2 Billion people do not have access to affordable energy. They must burn dung, sticks and other things to cook with. This results in roughly two million premature deaths per year. That’s not very cool.
Hip Heathens
Hugo Chavez and Castro were portrayed in liberal media as cool (when they were alive). Yoga and mindfulness is portrayed as cool in AdventHealth Campus programs, and the Arizona Conference.
The previous Pope was regarded as cool for his communist ways. The current Pope is viewed as a cool refreshing, and relatable figure, characterized by his background as an American-born, Peru-trained Cardinal. He is perceived as a more progressive, humble, and compassionate leader than his predecessors, often drawing comparisons to the early popularity of Pope Francis. Many see him as a modernizing figure who can bring more diverse perspectives to the Roman Catholic Church and global Culture. Protestant history, and contemporary Adventism view him as the embodiment of the Little Horn power in the Bible. He’s not Cool.
Nuking the Nuclear Family
Those of you who are parents know this: Babies do not come with ready-made software. They are programmed to eat, fill their diapers and make mistakes. We all are. That’s why God created parents/family (Genesis 1:22). But Godly families aren’t cool (in the world). Check out BLM’s 2020 manifesto. It said,
"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable," it said on the 2020 page titled "What we believe."
"We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work ‘double shifts’ so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work."
Girls still fall for bad boys, and beauty fades and when it does bad boy trades you in for a younger model—if he doesn’t die on his motorcycle on his way to pick up an ounce of weed from his ex-wife (who’s now a dealer). There is a much better way, marry a godly girl or boy, have children, and enjoy life together.
Be advised: Motion pictures and music try to separate children from their moral warning system. Not cool. That TV should be out of the house.
A child born out of wedlock increases its chances of poverty, crime and emotional problems. It’s cool to ignore this in the chaotic world of anti-racism and pro-LGBTQ+. 29% of white children are born out of wedlock. That’s awful. 53% of latinos, and 74% of black children are born out of wedlock. It’s not cool to point this out, but the facts are indisputable. Children of all ethnicities are damaged when there is a broken family, missing father and fractured family. Do it God’s way, and enjoy life!
Male and female were created distinctly complementary for the purpose of completing each other and populating the earth. This elemental principle of creation is not abrogated by an isolated passage in Corinthians 7. Marriage, like work, is a pre-fall blessing to mankind. Thus the family is a container for God's blessings, microcosms of the Family (or household) of God (Gal. 6:10).
God presents his relationship to the church in the picture and language of marriage (Eph. 5:22-33; Is 54:5; Jer 31:32; Hosea 2:16). You believe in evangelism? Me too. A husband & wife walking in oneness is evangelism to a starving, dying world. Rant over. Time to end with something upbeat!
True Cool
Hard work (Colossians 1:10; Ecclesiastes 5:12).
Biblical morals are awesome (Exodus 20).
Achieving greatness without caring about impressing others (Philippians 2:3-4).
Honesty (Proverbs 12:22; Colossians 3:9)
Fidelity to principle (2 Timothy 2:15)
Persuasive correctness, not political correctness.
Straight couples (Ephesians 5; Genesis 1:22; Proverbs 30:19).
You don’t need their (fake cool) observation or approval. You are already observed by Someone who knows you and loves you (Jeremiah 31:3).
“You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. You shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute” (Exodus 23:2).
“They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to Him” (1 Peter 4:2).
Have a great day—do it God’s way!
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