The quest for cool is an endless one. Personally, I think coolness is defined by factors that have no bearing on effectiveness or reality.

Consider for a moment how we now listen to television, film and music celebrities on matter to which they have no right to speak. Just because someone is a popular person, we assume that their opinions are significant.

For example, this week Cameron Diaz announced that she thinks “marriage is dying.” This is a statement that even appeared on the Fox News website – without any editorial comment, I might add. Although some might question whether Diaz is actually cool (I have never liked her films and I don’t consider her particularly attractive), her statement demonstrates the kind of unqualified and completely unsupportable things celebrities throw out there all the time.

There are countless numbers of celebrities from every quarter making statements in areas where they have no genuine knowledge and we get in line – Al Gore bemoaning global warming, Sean Penn asking Americans to listen to Hugo Chavez, conservatives suddenly supporting Donald Trump for president. The list goes on and on.

Why?

Because celebrities are cool.

This is one of the big problems with being cool. Your coolness is more important than your content.

To be honest, it frightens me that we are more willing to listen to the cool than we are to evaluate the content and context of ideas and movements.

As a steward of God’s grace, I feel it is more important that I make sure content is right, even if that makes me uncool.

Like I have said, some people are cool just by nature. They don’t have to try. And I am fine with that. But if you are expending effort to be cool, if you think it is important that you be cool – you will do it at the cost of your content and your context. You will have to compromise part of who you are to be so people will like what you appear to be.