Chris of Cynical-C answers the question “How Does a Brigham Young Univ. Student Grow a Beard?”
By visiting a doctor and filling out lots of paperwork. I wonder if you could cut down on some of that if you just grow a mustache?
A student who wishes to obtain a beard exception must visit a BYU Student Health Center doctor by appointment (422.5156). The doctor will fax his recommendation. The student then needs to come to the Honor Code Office to fill out some paperwork and receive the letter allowing the growth of the beard, if approved. If a yearly beard exception is granted, a new Student ID will be issued after the beard has been fully grown, and must be renewed every year by repeating the process. If a request is granted for a temporary or more permanent beard exception the student will be notified by the Honor Code Office; at which time the student will come into the office to complete the necessary paperwork. After completion of this process the student may then grow a full beard according the guidelines given.(via J-Walk)
The first commenter says that Pensacola Christian College dress code and Hyles Anderson’s are much worse. Anderson’s sounds vague but may be strictly enforced. Pensacola Christian College’s is, um, more strictly enumerated. As is is their behavior code. Both men and women must turn right down some road rather than left to go to a nearby beach, for instance. Students must not leave campus only with members of their own sex and never in groups smaller than three for men and five for women. Sheesh! The only concession to modernity seems to be an admonition for women to wear no more than two sets of earrings at a time.
The second commenter, Julia S., remarks that “finally something crappy for the guys to deal with. Go Jebus!!! Wait? Did Jebus need permission to grow HIS?!?
Hey!!!!” Except for the “finally” part. equirements to shave really is one of the few appearance-related issues men are saddled with socially, compared to myriad such obligations imposed on women.
Further down KidneyPI raises a favorite issue of mine, given the Bible-beater obsession with Shalt Nots: “Being a religious school, shouldn’t they require beards? Leviticus 19:27 seems to forbid shaving.” (In Leviticus “rounding the corners of thy head nor beard” is at least as smite-worthy an abomination as homosexuality, premarital sex, or adultery and yet at Pensacola, Brigham Young, or Anderson it’s nothing but crickets.)
The laws of Leviticus
Submitted by Holly Pervocracy (not verified) on Sun, 2010-02-28 22:54.The laws of Leviticus generally aren’t considered to apply to Christians, which has some basis in the Bible, for example Acts 10—so even devout Christians aren’t being hypocrites when they eat shellfish or wear fabric blends or shave their faces. (Or sleep with the same sex.)
That said, requiring students to shave is just micromanaging douchery. I assume it comes more from the desire to present a super-conservative white-bread image than directly from their religion—and it’s really unfortunate that the two are so often linked.
I think the worst part was
Submitted by Redleader (not verified) on Mon, 2010-03-01 00:47. I think the worst part was the rule that men had to leave campus in groups of at least three and women in groups of at least five is even more ridiculous than forbidding beards or mustaches. When I was a college student, that wouldn’t have been practical or even possible. Also I agree that Jesus DIDN’T advocate following the Levitical Code. That’s why Christians can eat pork and cheeseburgers.Wow, I just read the
Submitted by Holly Pervocracy (not verified) on Mon, 2010-03-01 08:03.Wow, I just read the Pensacola code of conduct and… holy crap. I know it’s a private and unaccredited institution but it still seems like a lot of that shit wouldn’t hold up in court. How many goddamn rules can you have about where adults are allowed to travel when they’re off your property?
This kind of micromanaging is
Submitted by chingona (not verified) on Mon, 2010-03-01 08:21.This kind of micromanaging is par for the course at Christian colleges, though some are worse than others. At Wheaton College, students sign a pledge that they won’t engage in a whole list of un-Christian behaviors, including smoking, drinking and social dancing. None of these prohibitions are very well supported biblically.
My husband, as an undergrad there, got called into the dean’s office after word got around that he’d taken a friend’s younger sister to her Homecoming Dance as a favor after her boyfriend broke up with her a few days before.
I’ve heard that one of them – maybe Liberty University? – has separate sidewalks for men and women and a midnight “lights out” policy. But that could be apocryphal.
Given what Brigham Young himself looked like, though, it’s pretty funny to think of that university requiring doctor’s orders to grow a beard.
re: abrogating Leviticus, I thought it was Paul, not Jesus, and I don’t think it’s the whole book, just certain prohibitions (certainly the food ones) and that the ignoring of other aspects of Jewish practice is more a matter of custom than anything. Also, keep in mind that most of what we today consider “traditional” Jewish practice comes from the Talmud and the rabbis, not Leviticus itself.
Yeah. Jesus wasn’t for
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Mon, 2010-03-01 13:37.Yeah. Jesus wasn’t for ignoring Leviticus. In fact, neither Jesus nor his disciples founded Christianity. They called themselves the Nazarenes. It was Paul, who never met Jesus (except in a vision, supposedly) and was considered a heretic by the Nazarenes, who actually founded Christianity. Both religions existed side-by-side for over a century before the Naz folks lost out.
That sounds like it’s at odds
Submitted by SnowdropExplodes (not verified) on Mon, 2010-03-01 19:03.That sounds like it’s at odds with the account that Paul gives in Galatians 2:1-10 (although 2:11-21 doesn’t actually show that Paul won out in that debate in the end).
It also seems to be at odds with Acts 15:1-21 (“The Council at Jerusalem”).
I may be out of my depth here, but I’d just like some clarification on the basis for the statement that the two sides coexisted for that long?
***
Also, arguably, Jesus did advocate overturning Leviticus; according to the gospels, several times he was challenged for doing things that were unlawful according to Mosaic law where he proclaims the authority of the Spirit over the Law (e.g. Mark 2:23-28; Mark 7:1-8, 14-19; Luke 11:37-41). There are also several passages that show Jesus directly as bringing his message to Gentiles as well as Jews (one easy example is Luke 7:1-10). That theme carries through all the early ministry that is recorded in the NT canon (e.g. Acts 10-11).
Indeed, long before I got around to reading Paul’s letters, it was precisely the emphasis on the Spirit in the gospels that persuaded me to reconsider my scepticism about Christ – had I not read and understood Jesus as proclaiming an end to the old Law (regardless of his statement that not one penstroke would be erased) when I read the gospels, then I would never have become a Christian!
Well, I’m not a scholar of
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Tue, 2010-03-02 00:38.Well, I’m not a scholar of Christianity (or for that matter, a christian) so I can only repeat what I’ve heard elsewhere. The fact that their contemporaries seem to have spoken of them continuing to follow the laws of the old testament [some examples on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazarene_(sect) ...and while wiki isn’t reliable for everything, I’ve seen things like that elsewhere], combined with Jesus saying something vague about the old laws that could easily be interpreted as them still being in effect – well, it seems reasonable that it is what he meant, right?
I’ve heard that the Nazarenes went into serious decline around 150 AD. Not online, though, and I’m not in the mood to hunt down a reliable online source. Curiously, wiki seems to be suggesting that they still existed until at least the 4th century. It’s possible both are correct, of course, since they could have simply managed to hang on awhile longer after they ceased to be significant players, but I was previously under the impression that they died out soon after.
Ah, yes. I was specifically
Submitted by SnowdropExplodes (not verified) on Tue, 2010-03-02 06:46.Ah, yes. I was specifically challenging the assertion that the other apostles continued to disagree and teach differently from Paul. A lot of Paul’s letters deal in part with challenging Nazarene or Judaiser (the term most commonly used in my Study Bible for people who believed that the OT Laws still had to be adhered to) teachings, and explaining why he believes they were wrong – most particularly Galatians (which is why in that letter he writes about the arguments he had with the other apostles).
I am quite sure that the beliefs and practices continued afterwards in some communities – the Biblical evidence is definitely that the Jewish converts to Christ were very reluctant to give up their former way of life (which is why Paul’s conversion is so striking – as Saul he had devoted his life to the study of, and upholding of, those laws) and indeed, as Acts and Galatians suggest, Peter struggled very hard with the idea himself.
It is just that, at least according to NT canon, they did not have the official support or backing of the original apostles, at least after the council of Jerusalem.
It’s also worth pointing out that in Romans, Paul is very clear to state that there is nothing wrong with continuing to observe the practices, but his theme is that it is wrong and arrogant to look down on other believers for not following them – or indeed, to look down on other believers because they do follow them!
The collection of Acts and the Letters gives a fascinating insight into the early politics as well as the theology of the nascent Christian faith.
I’m slightly amused that
Submitted by ozymandias (not verified) on Mon, 2010-03-01 14:30.I’m slightly amused that movie soundtracks for movies rated PG-13, PG and G are forbidden. Presumably I can listen to the Scarface soundtrack as much as I want?
My high school has the “no counter-culture symbols” prohibition too. We nicknamed it the “necessary and proper clause” because it’s the one the dean can use to expand his power as he sees fit to do his job, like the necessary and proper clause in the Constitution does for Congress. We are dorks.
Protip: if the counter-culture symbols are even remotely obscure, you can pretty much get away with what you want. I spent more of junior year with straightedge X’s, various occult symbols and the anarchy symbol doodled on my hands.
For the record, an
Submitted by figleaf on Mon, 2010-03-01 15:00.For the record, an acquaintance’s nephew, a very conservative young man attending what turned out to be an even more conservative Bible college, got called into the Dean’s office when his hair just barely touched his collar when he returned from a break. That triggered some sort of libertarian-fueled fit of rebellion so he pored over the rules and prior discipline records and concluded that nothing about the rules prohibited him from shaving half his head since it indeed did not touch his collar. Nor was it a “counter-culture” hairstyle. So he did. And in fact there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Until, of course, the next board meeting.
Petty rules, petty responses.
figleaf
When I was in the Peace Corps
Submitted by chingona (not verified) on Mon, 2010-03-01 15:03.When I was in the Peace Corps in Paraguay, there was a no beards during training or for the first three months in site rule. This went back to the 40-some-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, under whom beards were illegal (and a symbol of leftist opposition). When PC was operating under Stroessner, the law applied equally to volunteers as to Paraguayans. Now, beards aren’t illegal but they retain certain … connotations. So the idea was that once the folks in your site were used to you and you were a little more acculturated, you could make your own decisions about facial hair. (And there were other rules around personal appearance – I was asked to take out my nose ring, for example.)
In training, all the guys in our group (who arrived mostly clean-shaven) grew mustaches in protest. At the end of training, we had a mustache contest – which one most resembled the mustache of a 19th century British explorer, which one that of a Baptist youth pastor, which one that of a 70s porn star and so on, with enough categories that everyone came out a winner.
Also for the record, given
Submitted by figleaf on Mon, 2010-03-01 15:06.Also for the record, given that the entire fundamentalist foundation for homophobia derives from the Old Testament I still say they’re practicing “cafeteria Christianity.” (Yes, Paul grumbles about it a little bit in one of his letters but it’s nothing like the intensity of his admonitions about, well, practically everything else.)
figleaf
Paul does a bit more than
Submitted by SnowdropExplodes (not verified) on Mon, 2010-03-01 18:04.Paul does a bit more than grumble about it, and it appears in several letters attributed to him (Romans is the main one, which is the one where he sets out most comprehensively the reasons why the Law in Leviticus doesn’t apply any more)
I’m reasonably well convinced
Submitted by Dw3t-Hthr (not verified) on Wed, 2010-03-03 15:14.I’m reasonably well convinced by the argument that read in context, the Romans passage is basically, “Let’s consider the distasteful things that gentiles do that are basically trivial in order to address the real problem here, which is food taboos.”
Romans also contains a passage – in a conclusion to the argument set up thusly – that goes something like, “I believe in Jesus no thing is unclean, but it is unclean for him who thinks it unclean.”
(Oh fucking fantastic, it wants a captcha and won’t display an image.)