#723. Cool Christian Litmus Test Questions

I invented cool.

Well not the whole thing, but some of it. OK, not even really “some,” but more like one plant based slang word in Boston. How?

I used to be what’s called a “cool hunter” or a “trend reporter.” There was a company out in LA that would pay me to track and report on trends in Boston. They’d then package them and sell them to clients like MTV, Calvin Klein, etc.

One assignment was to send back any slang words we were hearing in the city. I reported a few that I was familiar with around Boston, but my list felt incomplete. It needed one more word. So, being the unbelievable liar I was at the time, I looked at the bright green aloe plant on my desk at home and got creative. I wrote a word down and because they wanted to see it used in a sentence, I did that too. Here is what I wrote:

Aloe = Cool and sexy and fresh.

Example sentence = “That girl has mad aloe.”

Yeah that’s right, I actually told the number one trend forecasting company in the world that people in Boston were saying sentences like, “That girl has mad aloe.”

Did they catch on? Not exactly. A week later, they sent out an email to all 10,000 influencers that worked for them. They called out one slang word they had received of the thousands that poured in from around the world. They highlighted one word that they were particularly excited about. Can you guess what word they loved the most?

Aloe.

The reason they did, is that “cool” is completely fictional. We might think it’s measurable or logical, but it’s not. The things that are cool are completely made up. They are inconsequential gossamer. But we still think about them a lot. We still wonder if the people in our lives are cool by our definition of the word. And if you’re a Christian you often develop little litmus tests to determine if someone else is a “Cool Christian.”

I don’t know if you do this. I don’t know if you have questions you ask of new Christians you meet, but I promise you that I do know the most common “Cool Christian Litmus Test.” Want to hear it? When you meet a new Christian, at some point, ask them some form of this question:

“Hey, want to go grab a beer?”

Ohhhh, classic. If they say no instantly, if they shriek back a little like you’ve asked if they want to rub the belly of the possum you found in your backyard, they’re probably not cool. But if they say, “Sure, let’s do it,” you’ll know they’re cool.

Not really. Because cool is fictional, but I still catch myself doing it. Sometimes with books. I’ll ask if they like Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz and if they say, “Ugh, wishy washy nonsense” I’ll tuck my shoulder and wait until the car is going slow enough for me to roll out of the passenger door.

Movies are another litmus test. If there’s a Christian movie you don’t like, one that ends like a reverse country song (The guy gets his house, wife, dog, truck all back miraculously) you’ll ask someone if they saw it. If they respond, “I did and I am ashamed at the academy for not having nominated it,” you’ll probably crawl out a window in the bathroom and rub mud on yourself like the Arnold in the Predator and cling to a tree until the coast is clear. Maybe not exactly that, but you and I are different.

I could be wrong about this one though. Have you ever done this? Am I the only one that is tempted by Cool Christian Litmus Questions?

What’s your Cool Christian Litmus test?