I’ve started wearing a beard in the winter months. My hair is thick and scratchy everywhere, so I am careful to keep everything trimmed. Growing a beard is easy for me and always has been, but it has never been comfortable.
In my early twenties, I grew my beard and hair long, and wore them that way for a year or so. Growing a beard, for me and others my age, was a way to stand out. It was about rebellion, since school and workplace regulations prohibited them.
Now that I have waved my beard credentials, I have never been impressed by arguments that there is something inherently Christian about growing a beard. That having a beard is a sign of greater godliness or masculinity. Growing a beard seems to be a natural function unique to men, that men are free to use or not use at our discretion. Things were different in the Old Covenant, to be sure, but beard regulations have been done away with now in Christ.
When I had the long beard and long hair, I wasn’t especially godly or masculine. I don’t think that I, having a natural advantage in beard growing, am godlier than, say, my Asian friend who lacks that biological advantage.
The obsession with beards I see in Reformed circles makes me want to not grow a beard. Men preening over their appearance is unseemly. If having a beard makes you do this, better not to have a beard for a while.
Beards are purely adiaphora. And in many cases, because of the nature of our times, it may wiser not to have a beard.
False antithesis, Ben. In between “godliness” and “purely adiaphora” are a host of considerations moral and spiritual in nature. The real obsession among young Reformed men today is not beards, but rather their denial that physical appearance is any indication of piety or unbelief. To label beards an obsession is to dismiss the significance of God’s creation of secondary sex characteristics in a culture awash in androgyny. Think more carefully about it.
Beards are not a thing among young Reformed men. Beards are a thing in our culture and young Reformed men are merely following the culture. Furthermore, beards might well be a thing in our culture because men and women are getting sick and tired of our pervasive androgynous ideal. Unbelieving men and women can lead the Church in reform, you know.
The question isn’t whether beards should be required because they are godly. The question is whether shaving off this particular secondary sex characteristic assigned man by God is wise or unwise given our cultural milieu? You get at this deeper matter in some of what you have said, and there is where we need to focus.
The real rebellion against God today is not shaving, but our perpetual denial that appearance and clothing have moral content and significance. Love,