"Why Do Many Male Jehovah Witnesses Who Learn TTATT Grow Beards"?

by ÁrbolesdeArabia 50 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • ÁrbolesdeArabia
    ÁrbolesdeArabia

    The year once 1983 and the brother who use to study the Bible with me drove by and had a full on "Charles Manson" looking facial hair and beard. I asked Tina, a friend what's up with him? Tina was 19 and a hot red-head woman who was partially in the religion but had problems with fornication. Tina enjoyed sex more than a good conscience, and without missing a beat she said "all apostates grow beards when they leave Jehovah's Organization".

    With a cargroup of elderly folks I am driving with, a former hustler of kingdom hall funds drives by and has a beard, the brother taking the lead in his cargroup said "You can always tell someone who the Holy Spirit has left. Look at his face, he's growing horns out like the Devil!"

    Equating facial hair with ancient photos of goat shaped demons or a pitch-fork with horns demon, is the rantings of lunatics. Do men grow beards because they can or to get it out of their system?

    We had brothers who would check the young microphone runners face by running their hands across their face, if the older creepy brothers hand felt a sharp pricking of facial hair, he would tell the young ones to go back and shave as nice a a baby's smooth butt or "your not going to do microphones today!" I know brothers who were humiliated because of facial hair and castagated by a "warning elder committee" afraid the brother might be harboring a secret sin, Jehovah reveals our secret sins when we forget to shave after two days. Little tell-tells of small amounts of facial hair growth is enough to set in motion a search party for apostate literature or give the young or early thirty-year olds the "third degree" for a hour in the Back Room. So why grow a beard since it scares Jehovah Witnesses with weak consciences?

    Jehovah's Witnesses believe the appearance is what counts, not the person inside of the body we are. To them, when a brother starts to grow a beard it's the sign the Holy Spirit has left this person and a warning sign to all meek and humble dubs to avoid them at all cost. During Eric's video with the Elders of his Kingdom Hall, one of the youth approached him and was bothered by Eric's beard (Very Cool Style, Like Walt "Breaking Bad") and judged him without hearing any of his story. I thought Jehovah's Witnesses learned from the example of Samuel trying to pick the next king of Isreal from the line of Jesse.

    If the first thing men do when they leave the Organization is grow a beard, what is the first thing women do who leave the Organization? To anyone who grew a beard, was it a uncontrollable urge to be rebellious?

    You get tired of shaving everyday and wanted to see what it would look like over time?

    Was it to scare all the local dubs to run and hide so you could shop at your favorite store without anyone bugging you?

  • compound complex
    compound complex

    You get tired of shaving everyday and wanted to see what it would look like over time?

    yes!

    I'm the guy in the suit and tie below:

  • finally awake
    finally awake

    Just Ron had a beautiful, well kept full beard and moustache before we became dubs. He hated having to shave because he would get so many ingrown hairs. When we left, he regrew his facial hair immediately. He looks so much better - like the man I fell in love with - than he did clean shaven.

    I, on the other hand, am still waging my daily war with my facial hair. I will never surrender and let the lady beard grow unchecked. My rebellion comes in the form of refusing to pretend that I don't have equal say in what goes on in my own household.

  • ÁrbolesdeArabia
    ÁrbolesdeArabia

    finally Awake and Complex: Why are JW-Dubs so afraid of facial hair and freak out when they see their brothers will goatees? Hollywood's big stars have some great looking beards and other facial hair, why does the Organization want to control every part of our life? My skin would get nasty pimples and ingrown hairs from shaving everyday, I am going to grow a Goatee for the hell of it now!

    I might disappoint the one Witness who has come by to check up on me over the last year, I feel sad and I miss my close friends I had at the Kingdom Hall who saw only good in me and everyone else!

  • compound complex
    compound complex

    Wish I had an answer, Monsieur Arboles!

    When at the grocery store one day in the recent past, I noticed that the majority of male customers had beards or goatees. Not the employees, however (company policy, perhaps). My JW friends and family have never been negative in their comments. Dunno why.

    It's a throwback, I believe, to the old thought that hippies and lowlife have beards and are not to be esteemed nor trusted.

    Stupid.

    CC

  • JeffT
    JeffT

    I was baptized a few months after I graduated from college (1973). I had grown my beard the summer between my junior and senior years in high school, shaving it off was a big deal that I accepted because I didn't want to look like a hippie. Fifteen years later I left the dubs and promptly grew it back because that is who I am. I still have it.

    I think the JW dislike of beards runs back to Rutherford wanting to stamp out a budding Pastor Russell worship, I think a lot of JW men had beards in imitation of Russell and the judge didn't like it.

  • Cold Steel
    Cold Steel

    Ummm...excuse an outsider's lack of knowledge.

    Do you guys really have to shave in that religion? What is there in the Bible that forbids it?

    Let me get it straight. The rule makers have no revelation, meaning no theophanies, no angelic ministrations, not even any dreams or visions -- yet they assume to tell people in their congregations that they can't grow facial hair? What moved these guys to make such rules? Is it that it makes them less effective missionaries?

  • Amelia Ashton
    Amelia Ashton

    If the Jesus they depict in their mags and books walked into a Kingom Hall he would not be allowed on the platform until he went home and shaved!

    FACT!

  • Aussie Oz
    Aussie Oz

    i have magnificent side burns...rockabilly heaven.

    i suspect the whole grow a beard thing may be simply that it was once forbidden so feel like a reminder that you are out every time you look in the mirror.

    Oz

  • ThisFellowCheap
    ThisFellowCheap

    I started growing my beard the day I got DFed. And guess what, even my JW girlfriend and my other JW friends that still venture to talk to me said I look more matured, or rugged, and they like it. Actually, more JW girls seem to be fascinated with me, and when no one's looking, would greet and even invite me over to their place! I also noticed almost all youths who left often grow a beard over here. Then, even many JW youths are tending to leave their facial hairs until they are called "to order" by the elders.

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