For the sake of Millennials (and anyone else who doesn’t want to witness the hipsterization of the Bible), and for all that is holy, stop trying to make Christianity and any other religion “cool.” This Millennial is begging you to stop. We are going to swipe left on the church if we keep seeing stunts like emoji Bibles and hipster Jesus (*face Psalm*). Instead, join my campaign of adding an eleventh commandment: Thou shalt stop trying to make Jesus cool.

For years, churches have been trying to find new ways to attract Millennials, two thirds of whom believe churchgoers are “a lot or somewhat hypocritical.” Churches have tried everything from deploying hipster pastors to making their sanctuaries less church-like.

As a Millennial, I have a message for churches: Please, just stop. We don’t need outreach that looks like the latest emoji trend, which features the tagline “Scripture 4 Millennials” and translates the Bible into emoji. That’s right. On the Bible Emoji Translator website, you can enter your favorite Bible verse and out pops an emoji-version of scripture. Or as the translator puts it, “Enter ur fave Bible verse on the left emoji awesomeness appears on the right” (thankfully, there aren’t any symbols for words found in the Bible like prostitute or concubine or circumcision).

It’s true that churches have seen an exodus of Millennials in recent years. Some institutions have responded by adding coffee shops; trendy megachurches host services in auditoriums rather than churches and use the latest technology—giant projector screens and contemporary music that mimics a Beyoncé concert—to attract younger worshippers. They use The Message Bible rather than the King James Version, and embrace a “cool Jesus” that inspires memes such as an image of the crucifixion with the caption, “So this Pontius Pilate guy has me crucified but after three days I was like Nah bro!”

But guess what? All of this pandering is the exact opposite of what Millennials actually want from church. The harder churches try to be cool and trendy, the more Millennials are joining the mass exodus from the church.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on acculturated.com – however, the original URL is no longer available.]