Quote:
Originally Posted by *AQuietPlace*
Because it starts with someone having the guts to walk into church wearing a beard. Or someone willing to 'buck the system'. So, since no one wants to be the first to buck the system, it just goes on and on.
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Sam/Jim Ellis said:
"One Sunday night in his sermon our pastor said, "The Bible teaches that a man is supposed to be clean shaven." I spoke up and said, "I'd like to see where that's in the Bible." My wife grabbed my arm and gave me "that look." Husbands and children know what "that look" is. Either the pastor did not hear me or he chose to ignore me. When we walked out of that church after service we did not come back although we had been going there about 15 years."
I tried to be the one to buck the system. I was a licensed minister, a youth leader, had taught Sunday School, had filled in preaching for the pastor. Some years before some teenagers had been "sat down" because they grew beards. I thought it was now time to modernize so I grew a mustache. I figured, "Maybe if Bro. Ellis grows one, folks will realize it's OK and others will follow." WRONG! Nobody else grew a mustache and then the Sunday night service mentioned above happened. We just "voted with our feet" and left the church. This was probably 1978, maybe early 1979 in an ALJC church whose pastor had begun to be accepted by one of the local UPC churches that had split off another UPC church in that city about 10 years before.