71 thoughts on “A Theology of Hair”

  1. Ok, I guess I should add scissors to the list of things that are evil, along with CCM, non-KJVs, etc…

  2. “Is there a theology of hair? The answer is YES.”

    Well, what else could the answer have been? 😉

    I also find the phrase “theology of hair” one of the funniest mixtures of the sublime and ridiculous I’ve ever read.

  3. dont be a 2 bit liberal pastor. Any time you disagree with a fundy, you’re disagreeing with apostolic succession

  4. This made my stomach twist. I heard this growing up!

    I never knew there was a doctrine of hair! 😉

  5. ZOMG! I can’t listen to these idiots for more than a minute or 2 at a time. I just can’t take it!

  6. I am definitely reprobate I guess. So much wrong on so many levels. Excuse me while I go barf.

  7. “I’m going to give you some SHOCKING information that was refealed to me by the Holy Spirit!” –HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH

  8. What a dumba_ _! Who is this twobit ignorant pussbucket that twists the scripture for his own use? Lord rid us of these false men in the pulpits! These dictators who lord themselves over a congregation with their ignorant rantings!

  9. If this guy is going to be so dogmatic about women’s hair then he had better have a sermon on “Why it is a sin for a man to wear a hat!”

  10. I ask again, why are fundies so concerned with the length of women’s hair and with their clothes? It borders on obsession. Is it a control thing? To demonstrate men’s “rightful place” over women”?

    There is no grace in this message, only condemnation.

  11. I think I’m the biggest anti-fundy in the history of mankind, however scripture says:

    14Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him,

    15but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering.

    I’ve heard the whole cultural argument…so those of you convinced that this doesn’t apply anymore how do you interpret this? I was just wondering, and could care less about the length of your hair.

  12. Ok, I know this is gonna totally kill the mood, but I have to mention that this message is satire. He’s purposefully being a “twobit ignorant pussbucket” to demonstrate the outrageous “doctrines” of the reactionary Baptist church of the 60s and 70s.

    1. Mark,

      the message by G.I. Barber is satire from start to finish.

      I don’t think the original sermon in the video is satire, however. I have no reason to believe that it is.

  13. A few of my favorite sound bytes.

    00:38 “Right now, reach for your Bible, or just trust me to bring the word of God to you” Then he misquotes the verse (KJV) by inserting “her long hair” a second time into 1 Cor 11:15. Either the Bible is word for word inspired or it is not.

    Quotes a few verses and bases his “theology of hair” on those few verses. So he doesn’t think that God will judge him and not the “2-bit liberal preachers” for the exclusion of scripture?

    1:51 “Now I’m going to give you some shocking information that was revealed to me by the Holy Spirit.” e.i. disagree with me and you disagree with God. I suspect that this is a fallacy of logic known as “Appeal to authority”.

    7:38 “Your hair should cover you as clothes”. I know that a fundy would not promote wearing no clothing but if this guy is taking his scripture seriously, he has to consider this aspect of his logic.

  14. @bill

    I speak as a guy with short hair, but only because nature has smiled on me and is in the process of giving me the gift of no hair. If I could, my hair would be of “medium” length – not long, but far too long for any good fundie. With that said, I’ve heard the cultural argument, and I generally agree, to a point. To apply the same principles to the rest of the NT Epistles, we men must start kissing each other in a holy manner, we must not wear hats, and women must never make any verbal utterances during church gatherings – among many other things. Is that a good answer? Probably not, but I have much bigger issues to work through now than what “standards” I will set for how my future wife, should I marry, will do her hair.

  15. @bill when a subject like hair on women is only mentioned one time in all of scripture, in a letter to a single church, it was something that the women or more likely a women or small group of wome in that congregation were doing. I don’t know all the hermenuetics of what was going on. If women’s hair length were so important universally, you’d think Jesus MIGHT have bothered to mention it, no? Or Paul might have mentioned it to another church? Or one of the other apostles? That it might’ve been included in a creed somewhere? I find the notion that the church at corinth was the only place in the first century church where any woman had short hair pretty incredulous.

  16. I bet homeboy here greats brethren with a holy kiss. And I’m sure his church members have all their possessions common and distribute as any has need. They probably pluck out the eyes of lustful men.

    “I don’t mean to offend anyone.” Lol

  17. Those 2-bit, liberal preachers are just ignorant and stupid.

    All 12 of the white, home-schooling, socially backwards, lower/middle class members of our church agree that woman should have looooong hair! Praise God.

  18. @bill,

    Paul is stating that nature is the source of his observation. Paul tends to give numerous reasons for his position for long hair this is only one of them. Look at the context and go from there. What is the issue that Paul was addressing. Was it really the length of hair or something else?

    Lets talk about what nature teaches us about other things such as sex, the origin of man, survival of the fittest, wealth, the nature of man, psychology.
    Nature is not considered to be a source of truth to most fundies.

    These thoughts are my own and I suspect are not typical among the “cultural” crowd.

  19. @Darrell:

    Two awkward admissions:
    1) I haven’t actually been able to watch the video yet because that godless evil called Youtube is blocked on a certain college campus.
    2) I assumed because of your first comment that the video was one and the same with the audio link. My bad.

    I politely withdraw my veiled rebuke, admitting that there’s a really good chance the guy in the video might be a “twobit ignorant pussbucket.” 🙂

  20. I remember reading somewhere that in Corinth the prostitutes wore short hair. Therefore to distinguish the prostitutes from the Christian women, Paul recommended that they wear their hair long.

    So it seems to me that this was a recommendation to a certain group of people in a certain time and cultural context and not meant to apply to all people in all times.

  21. @TomK,
    “They probably pluck out the eyes of lustful men” This guy should show some leadership and go first. Then we’ll tell him that we will get our’s done later.

    hey, I’m white and we home school and am lower/middle class. Take a guess at socially backwards. I suspect that I am. I admit that the homeschooling decision was made when I was a fundy, but I don’t regret it. My kids continually impress me and others academically. We try to avoid the fundy approach to homeschooling. I can’t do anything about being white or being lower/middle class unless you give me the winning lottery ticket. But I am definitely opposed to dictating the length of my wife’s and daughter’s hair based on someone’s hacked interpretation of the Bible. Praise God.

  22. @Morgan sounds reasonable to me, though obviously not definite, but something like that type of explanation would definitely explain why only paul & only to one church mentioned the subject.

  23. Ever wonder why most preachers look the same, dress the same, talk the same, etc. And yet some claim special revelation from the Holy Spirit. I wonder what kind of doctrine a preacher who wore jeans, a t-shirt and a hat would have.

  24. “dead end conspiracy” hahah it’s a conspiracy and not an tangible thing you can see in some people’s hair….

  25. Yeah, I never understood why Paul says “Does not nature teach. . .?” Um, no. Nature, in fact, does not teach that at all. Best I can figure is he means that nature shows a pretty clear distinction (at least in most species) between male and female, and so, since long hair was the norm for women and short for men, it would have been disgraceful (in that day and place) for a man to have long hair. The point would be that men shouldn’t try to look like women (or vice versa, I guess?), which is a pretty timely statement given all these skinny-jeans-wearing boys with long feathered hair. . . 🙂

  26. This is so ironic. I just bought a haircutting kit from Walmart. I bought it for my own use but then again, after hearing this exhorting message, I’m going to cut my wife’s hair in protest. I think she’ll look spiffy with a crewcut.

  27. I wanted to cut my hair shorter when I was around 15 and my dad got angry at me and asked why I insist on cutting more and more of my glory off. He made me pray about it for 2 weeks and for some reason God never told me it was wrong…

  28. @JimE Love ya bud. I’m white, lower/mid class, nerdy, was home-schooled and am doing it now.

    It’s a small group of people we represent, but its usually the ONLY group in fundy churches.

  29. “Is there a theology of hair in the Bible? No. Let’s bow for prayer.”

    I would have paid money to see that. Rhetorical questions are so overused these days…

  30. I had to stop listening to this nut job. What passes as “preaching” in these fundy churches is nothing but some bully yelling and screaming about the lack of conformity to his rules. I am sooooo sick of these guys. They literally make my stomach turn.
    We are still trying to find a church that actually preaches the Word of God not mans. We’ve been visiting church after church for months now. Not one so called preacher actually opened up the Word of God and preached God’s Word. Instead they preach mans word. Last week was the worst. This “preacher” yelled, screamed, tromped up and down the isle, spit, you name it he did it! Our 15 yr. old was so fightened she repeated the sinners prayer. I kick myself for taking our kids there, but this was not a fundy church at all so we thought we’d be ok. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
    I don’t know if I can ever go back into a church of any denomination…fundy or not. I am tired of what passes off as “church” these days.

  31. Don’t you mean, “Are rhetorical questions overused nowadays? But what does the Bible have to say about rhetorical questions?”

    WIN!

  32. Sandra,
    I would reccomend a PCA (along the Tim Keller vain) of the Presbyterian Church.

  33. @Sandra
    I’m sure PCA is good. I went to a Presbyterian church that was PCUSA but switched to Evangelical Presbyterian Church. You might want to check out the EPC, too, if there is one in your area.

    BTW, Don, I never thought of Tim Keller as being vain.. ; )

  34. To be clear, the PCUSA church I went to changed denominations; I didn’t. Though I came back home from college and “switched” back to the one local non-fundy Baptist church.

  35. Sandra,

    I’m with Don, I attend a PCA church and I can’t wait to go tomorrow. No altar calls, no screaming, just a bunch of sinners who love Jesus.

  36. @ Sandra: try the Catholic Church. It’s the Church Jesus founded. I guarantee you that the Word will be preached without screaming, ranting, or raving about hair length or women wearing pants 🙂

  37. When your life consists of hearing the constant rants of KJV-only, no pants wearing women, and CCM as the epitome of maturity in a christian, and then go into the world and they wonder why I’m so immature in every other area of my life. Talk about culture shock!! There was a definite lack of teaching of the practical things of life.

  38. This view only represents a part of FundyLand. BJU does NOT support this “scissors are a weapon of Satan” mythology. In fact, a few BJU grads that I’ve met made fun of women who did this. Beneth Peters Jones’ Book, Beauty and the Best, makes snide remarks about this and features short to medium hair in all of her pictures of “proper” girls.

    My hair goes down to my rear and I get no end of snide remarks about it when I’m around some BJU people. They’re so stuck on appearances that they can’t look past it and it’s a never ending source of conversation. When another woman cuts her hair for Locks-of-Love there is no end to advice suggesting that I go and do likewise.

    And if you’re wondering why my hair is so long… It’s got nothing to do with theology. I have a ginormous birthmark that looks like a blob on my scalp. I need all this hair to cover it up.

    So please do NOT associate ALL long-haired women with wackos like this dude. Some of us just like long hair or have a practical reason for doing it.

  39. @Lizzy – I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that all long-haired women have a fundielogical reason for keeping their hair long. My daughter’s hair is long, too.

    We’re just mocking and ranting against those who think that there is a literal “theology of hair” and that a woman who cuts her hair is sinful.

Comments are closed.