I have long hair
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“...there are Baptists who just really don’t appreciate my long hair.”
Over the last couple of years, I have been growing my hair out. I am sure this could easily be construed as a mid-life crisis by some, but the truth is I have had long hair off-and-on throughout my entire life. I had it long at one point in high school. I also grew it long while I was studying art in college; it was cool to kind of have ratty, gnarled up hair at the time (I even kept a couple of dreads in it).
Later on, after a stint in the design and marketing profession, I became an art teacher at a suburban high school. One of the things that the kids at the school seemed to appreciate about me was that I didn’t dress the way other teachers did. I was what they referred to as a “hipster”—although I have always rejected terms like that because that’s what a hipster is supposed to do. I mean, if I am being honest, like most people, I always felt like I just dressed the way my culture dressed. It was nothing special or different, just familiar. It was these cultural distinctions that gave me a foothold for the gospel among the young people I ministered to.
In my world, as an artist, designer, teacher, evangelist, and even as a pastor in the Kansas City metro, I have never once come across anyone who questioned my long hair but oddly enough, just within the last year, I have experienced more scrutiny than ever before.
Like most churches and preaching ministries, COVID-19 drove our college and young adult ministry to emphasize streaming our services online. People from all over the U.S. and world have begun watching our services from their homes. This has been exciting, humbling, and well-received but also a little weird. I say weird because I am beginning to discover that there are Christians, here in the U.S., that might say they hold to the same doctrines and teachings as I do, people who are faithfully watching the preaching online, but hold to quite a different set of peripheral convictions than I do.
In short, there are Baptists who just really don’t appreciate my long hair.
“Paul isn’t condemning the length of a man’s hair throughout every culture and in every time period”
Over the last six months, I have seen it several times. Anonymous profiles have made harsh and demeaning comments on our YouTube videos regrading the way I look. One faceless profile said I looked like I “stumbled out of a rehab facility.” I mean, on one hand, that’s kind of funny but on the other hand, “ouch.” I have had my fair share of chuckles about all of this, but it's also kind of a rude awakening. These are words coming from people who say they believe in Christ and stand for the love of God and yet are so focused on my appearance that they don’t take time to consider who I am in Christ.
Beyond my personal feelings, there is clearly a doctrinal issue at hand. The church recently received an email from a concerned Baptist who in short said, “I am worried about Brandon’s hair. Doesn’t 1 Corinthians 11 forbid him from having long hair?” So, it’s with a bit of a sigh I have decided to briefly address the issue here. I am mainly doing this to show my brothers and sisters in C&YA how to avoid taking the principles of scripture and forcing them into personal laws, rules, or bias constructs: a practice we refer to as legalism.
1 Corinthians 11 is the passage that is often referred to in order to argue against long hair and rightfully so, Paul is fairly explicit in his admonition:
1Co 11:13 Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? 14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? 15 But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for [her] hair is given her for a covering. 16 But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.
The first thing we always need to consider when studying and understanding God’s word is context. We say it all the time, context is the first key of Bible study. When looking at the whole of this chapter, we find that Paul is addressing the gender roles and identities of the members of the Corinthian church. After all, Corinth was a mess when it comes to issues of sexuality. Pagan ritual and heathen worship included all kinds of sexual depravity and the confusion of sexual identities. Paul saw that these cultural deficiencies had impacted the church and the sanctification of the believers.
In this letter to the church, Paul carves out some space to address how in Corinth there were culturally defined symbols of womanhood and manhood that were being crossed, mixed up, and confused. He is pointing out that any man should feel repulsed and shameful to dress and act outside those culturally defined masculine norms. In other words, it should be within my “nature” as a Christian to be disturbed to participate in anything that would dishonor my God-given "maleness." This is the same "nature" or conviction that reveals to me that having sex with the same sex is also a shameful act that defies God’s design.
BUT, what Paul is not telling us is that the Scots are sinful because of their kilts or that earrings on indigenous people such as the Pawnee Indians is sinful. Paul isn’t condemning the length of a man’s hair throughout every culture and in every time period, that would be an abuse of the principles he is espousing. What Paul is saying is that whatever culturally defined accompaniments or “customs” of femininity that are within a given culture, a Christian man (or any man for that matter), should naturally find them unseemly, improper, and personally repulsive for them too adopt (shame in scripture means “vile”).
“Long hair is just one small cultural adaptation, among many, that provides me an in-road towards engaging the lost.”
In 2016, I had short hair. I was preparing for a mission trip with another Living Faith Fellowship pastor Dan Reneau and a couple of young men from C&YA. One of these young men had long hair. Before the trip, we were told that in certain parts of India, long hair was associated with the long hair of the transvestite prostitutes who dressed in women’s clothing. We were advised that we would be better received if our hair was shorter—just one less cultural hurdle for the gospel that people would have to clear. This young man, without a second thought, cut his hair to adapt to the culture that we were about to enter. A wise decision was made in response to the culture and for the sake of the ministry.
Let’s also briefly consider the example of pioneer missionary Hudson Taylor who went to China and was mightily used to spark a gospel revolution. While in China, Taylor discovered that the Chinese angrily referred to the missionaries as “black devils” because of their dark European wardrobes. Upon this discovery, Taylor went to the local trading post and exchanged his English clothes for baggy pants, a wide-sleeved robe, satin shoes, and fashioned his hair in the traditional long braid on the back of the head. This was common among Chinese men at the time. Taylor received much criticism among fellow missionaries and missionary boards but what we understand in retrospect is that Taylor’s lack of rigidity as it concerns his hair and clothing would become a distinct advantage in his ministry. In his own words, “...Missionaries should be men of apostolic zeal, patience and endurance, willing to be all things to all people.”
In the urban setting of Kansas City, long hair on men has long been accepted as equally as masculine as short hair. Effeminacy doesn’t appear to have a preferred hair cut. Where I live, long hair may be perceived as “alternative” but not distinctly effeminate. In the community I minister to, having long hair has at times actually allowed me to relate to the artists and young people that I come in contact with on a day-to-day basis. I don't have long hair to be an offense. I don't have long hair to spite what "nature" tells me is masculine or isn't masculine. I desire to be all things to all men that I might save some. Long hair is just one small cultural adaptation, among many, that provides me an in-road towards engaging the lost.
1Co 9:19 For though I be free from all [men], yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. 20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; 21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. 22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all [men], that I might by all means save some.
For those who use 1 Corinthians 11 in terms of policy and not principle, I ask you this: if it really is an issue of long hair on men, I wonder if you are equally as concerned about short hair on women? And if so, how short is too short? How long is too long? Do you also insist that women must pray with their head covered? If you refuse to see 1 Cor 11 in terms of culture and its relationship to effiminacy, do you also interpret Paul’s command in chapter 16 to greet one another with a “holy kiss” with equal severity? The legalistic reasoning is circular.
“The length of someone’s hair should ultimately be contingent on their conviction about whether or not it honors God. ”
The danger here is that when Christians turn their personal convictions or cultural fears into laws and systems that others must abide by, then we are on a path to becoming respecters of men rather than God. A woman should be modest in her dress because she chooses to acknowledge modesty as a “natural” conviction, not because the pastor measures her skirt length before she walks into church every Sunday. The length of someone's hair should ultimately be contingent on their conviction about whether or not it honors God.
If at any point I believe that having long hair could be perceived as effeminate within the culture I minister to, I would gladly cut it without any question or concern. But, it is more likely that I will cut it as the weather warms up, and I tire of it getting in my face.
If you would like to hear more on this topic, we recommend this episode of the Postscript - Ep 30 Applying Pauline Principles, Convictionalizing & The Culotte Controversy with Pastor Alan Shelby
Brandon Briscoe is the pastor over C&YA and oversees Living Faith Books publishing.
“All Things to All People: Hudson Taylor's Life and Legacy of Contextualization.” ABWE, 8 Apr. 2020, www.abwe.org/blog/all-things-all-people-hudson-taylor-s-life-and-legacy-contextualization.