(Tim, w/thanks to Bryan Maes) Recently, someone told us he'd thought men had to have beards to attend Church of the Good Shepherd. Not true, although, like babies, we have a lot of beards...
But then, this afternoon I read this from early church father, Clement of Alexandria, and I'm wondering if we shouldn't make an addition to our church bylaws:
How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them!…For God wished women to be smooth and to rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane. But He adorned man like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him as an attribute of manhood, with a hairy chest–a sign of strength and rule. 2.275
This, then, is the mark of the man, the beard. By this, he is seen to be a man. It is older than Eve. It is the token of the superior nature….It is therefore unholy to desecrate the symbol of manhood, hairiness. 2.276
It is not lawful to pluck out the beard, man’s natural and noble adornment. 2.277
On the other hand, if we're going to outlaw plucking, too, I fear we might be inundated by unibrows, and if you'll pardon me for saying so, that's yucky.
