by nonjwalltheway 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
LOL @ James T
and Blondie.
According to the WTS, Jesus didn't have a beard until 1968.
I remember that..........Boom all of a sudden Jesus has a beard. Until then he was the cleanest shaven guy to ever adorn the pages of the WTS publications.
riz.... do you change your avatar by the hour or what ?
I never understood this unwritten but enforced rule about wearing beards. I remember a young man that was studying in our congregation. Nice guy, sort of weird, but a nice guy. He wore a beard to the meetings. The person who he was studying with was pressuring him to shave his beard. I remember thinking "what's the big deal" - needless to say, that guy soon stopped studying because of many things, but that was one of them. Good for him.
In the states do you look at someone with a beard or goatee and think "radical", "hippie", "extremist" or "rebel"?
Our CO in 1996 used this as a reason for making an issue regarding two men in the audience at a Circuit Assembly who were wearing beards. One of them had a nasty skin condition, and the beard covered it so you would never know he had it. The other hated shaving and wanted to wear a beard. Neither were in positions of responsibility.
I was so angry about it (his making an entire talk that only applied to two people) that I wrote the CO a letter, and my elder (fading out though) husband and another elder signed the letter too. That was neat. In the letter I referred to the above comment he made and told him that was outdated, and that many professional men wear beards. Doctors, attorneys, accountants, etc., have beards as a matter of style, and not radical beliefs, and that they are perfectly acceptable in our decade.
He called my husband and thanked him for my writing the letter, and said he was reproved by my letter. Imagine that?..................so he tells my husband.
I think the rule against beards is rooted in the simple cultural prejudices of JW leaders like Knorr and Franz, combined with the desire of Rutherford to distance his organization from the old guard of Russell's days. In the early 1920s Rutherford began a campaign to wipe out "creature worship" of Russell. Like Russell, many of the older Bible Student males wore beards since that was the style in the U.S. during the late 19th century. Rutherford found that many of these older men refused to bow down to him and continued to hold Russell in great reverence. Most of them eventually left Rutherford's Watchtower. Rutherford's loyal younger cronies adopted the beardless style prevalent during the teens in the U.S. for younger men. Young men who wanted to culturally rebel against their elders made a point of being clean shaven. My grandfather, born in 1898, told me that it was not uncommon for a gang of clean shaven young men to grab one of their bearded peers and rub dog poop into the beard or mustache, forcing him to shave it off. So this was clearly a big deal to young guys. Fred Franz was born around 1890 and so he would certainly have had this cultural prejudice. Knorr was born around 1900 and would have had the same prejudice. Same goes for most of the men who became Bethel heavies after Rutherford died in 1942. Remember that Watchtower is ruled "from the top down". Like many people, Watchtower leaders are demonstrably incapable of separating their cultural prejudices from their religious beliefs. So there was a certain amount of pressure up through the mid-1960s for JW men not to have facial hair. When I was a kid during this time, I saw almost no JW males with facial hair, and the few I vaguely remember seemed like oddballs. None of them were "servants". When wearing a beard became the latest fad for political protesters, hippies, etc. during the late 1960s, JW leaders' cultural preferences naturally conflicted with what they saw as rebellion among young men. No way any JW males were going to look like rebellious ones! So they railed against facial hair (except mustaches on black men, which they viewed as culturally normal) by equating wearing beards and mustaches with rebellion against God's and their own authority. As the years rolled by, the old men who ruled the Watchtower never changed their prejudices, and of course it doesn't pay for anyone under them in Bethel to bring the issue up. So today's JW prejudice against facial hair is simply the product of the stagnant minds of a group of old men who were born in the United States around the turn of the last century. AlanF
xjw-
i went for so long having the same avatar that now that i'm free to change it, i'm going a little crazy this one doesn't feel quite right either. stay tuned
Facial Hair Discrimination
Mustang
"So they railed against facial hair (except mustaches on black men, which they viewed as culturally normal) by equating wearing beards and mustaches with rebellion against God's and their own authority."
Hi Alan,
This was very interesting! The excerpt I quoted just did a number on my brain! I thought back to the first KH I attended (1970-1974) in MA, where the congregation was 75% black. I never gave it a second thought about the moustche "thing" until you mentioned it...but the black brothers WERE the only ones who wore them!
Later on, a white brother of Lebanese heritage sported one (he was an elder but I was told he left the WTS shortly after I moved away) and now ya got me wondering!
Thanks for that post!
Hugs,
Annie
This is all I found at the web site! Oh look the guy on the right has a stasch haha!!!
OOOOOPS!
I forgot to add that *I* was always the good little Dub.......and I NEVER showed up at the KH or FS with facial hair!
Annie
"After shampooing your hair, rinse it thoroughly"
No s**t Sherlock! And there I was, after 23 years on this planet, wondering how the hell I'd be able to get the shampoo out of my hair every time I took a shower.
Next month - "Ass wiping - the theocratic way"
Honestly, do the dubs really need to have Brooklyn tell them how to wash their hair? Does the WT writing department have it's own squad of specialized writers for this kind of thing? (you know, stating-the-bleeding-obvious department or whatever...)
Leebo
