- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I recall an incident when I was in grad school and was sporting facial hair. I ran into a church friend on campus who was talking to another guy. I stopped and the three of us chatted for a while. My friend told me later that his non-member acquaintance asked how we knew each other, and when he was told that we attend the same church, he said, “Really? I thought Mormons weren’t allowed to wear beards.” My friend thought his reaction was funny, but I found it mildly disturbing. It goes along with other stereotypes I’ve heard: “I thought Mormons were required to vote Republican.” “You saw that on TV? I thought Mormons don’t watch TV.” Of course, we can just roll our eyes when we hear things like that, but they make me wonder if we don’t have an image more of a paramilitary organization that a church. BYU’s anti-beard policy was established in 1969 by President Wilkinson, who insisted that facial hair was associated in most people’s minds with “hippies.” That may have been true at the time, but now such a justification would only sound hopelessly quaint. Beards are now common even among conservative businessmen and professionals, so appeals to maintaining a certain image are simply not cogent. And if any of the church presidents between Brigham Young and George Albert Smith were to come back today, they would not be able to: serve in temples, sing in the Tabernacle Choir, or attend BYU (BY was clean-shaven only for part of his administration, but of course that’s the model for his statue at BYU). It’s not really clear where the “beard line” is drawn. One member of the bishopric in my ward has one, but I’ve heard of men who have been told to shave when receiving such a calling. One guy in my ward had a nice-looking beard, and when he showed up clean-shaven, I asked him why. “Oh, I was called to the High Council.” But there are men on our current High Council who are bearded. So, is it just up to whoever is in charge? Where, exactly, is the “beard line”? It appears that GAs are required to be clean-shaven. I guess the anti-beard people think that God made a big mistake when He put that hair on our faces, and it’s up to us to correct that error. But it’s out of step with current culture, and over a very inconsequential issue.
About 16 years ago, my husband decided to start sporting facial hair. This decision was not in line with his father’s expectations, and I was called to benevolently “mediate” as “the righteous wife”. I scandalized his dad by pointing out that his son looked more handsome with facial hair
:crazy: 😆 *****************************************************************************************************************************
But really I can support what my husbands wants in terms of facial hair. My priorities are a) he figures out what he wants and b) he cleans up any discarded hair. Life is too short to police personal preference but not too short to avoid cleaning up one’s own messes.
This is another of those things I think the church needs to get over. Leadership and member roulette. A local leader can choose whether or not to make it an issue and a local member can choose whether or not to ignore the local leader. It feels like the rules have relaxed a bit because back in the day more local leaders were choosing to make it an issue and a local member choosing to ignore them would have been an extreme outlier.
Just a guess… I think fewer local leaders make it an issue because more and more local members started to ignore them.
I’m not sure where the soft line is. I’ve seen many bishopric members with beards but I have yet to see a member of the stake presidency with a beard. That’s probably the soft line.
The hard line is temple workers, the tabernacle at temple square choir members of the choir at temple square temple choir square choir members, missionaries, GAs, and anything above GAs can’t have beards.
nibbler wrote:
…GAs, and anything above GAs can’t have beards.
I don’t know – in the temple video they have beards.
Side note: I’m pretty sure we don’t look like we do here when we’re spirits (just based on my understanding of biology and genetics). Jehovah and Elohim look very much alike in the video – I hope we don’t all look like that. Perhaps the others (Peter, James & John) are some indication we don’t.
I figure that we look like who we want to look like then:) I also figure that we visualize God as “old” with beautiful silver hair as part of our way of “selling us on God”.
Maybe the “beard effect” to be dignified and powerful enough to “break the unspoken rules”.
I took some summer classes at BYU. I was 24 years old, a senior at UNLV, an RM, and I had driven up from Vegas overnight. I came in that morning to fill out some paperwork in the registrar’s office and they asked me if I had shaved that morning. I was confused and responded that I drove all night. They gave me a disposable razor and told me that they couldn’t help me until I was clean shaven. This was my first inkling that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
I have seen beards on temple workers (and some chin hair on some sisters 😃 ). I also know multiple bishopric counselors, EQ Presidents, and high councilors who now have beards.Things are changing, but we aren’t where I would like to be yet.
Yes, and when that change happens there will be some that long upheld the old standard that are confused by the change because they had thought that the no beard standard was the way that God insisted that it be done.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.