Hello again everyone. This is my second topic here. Sorry for this biiig post.
I would like to tell you guys about one of the things that bothered me most, despite of being something quite simple, but since it affected me directly, so...
Well, being a ministerial servant, I knew the bad view the JW in general have towards beards. However, convinced that it isn't unscriptural and neither bad in anyway, I started to wear a beard at the meetings.
Of course I didn't left the "grooming" behind, so I used to keep my beard short and well cut. Since I didn't want to call too much attention to myself I decided that whenever I had a part to talk from the stage I would shave. Well, it happened for one and a half month when I got to know at the meeting that I was assigned to the final prayer. I was wearing my beard, but since during the prayer everybody is suposedly with the eyes closed there wouldn't be any problem. I did it. Next month I didn't get any part instead another prayer. Following the same logic I did it with my beard. Two weeks later, two elders called me to 'talk'. One elder, the elder's coordinator, is a recent one, not even 10 years of eldership, he has a nice relationship with me and wears a thick moustache. The other is one that hasn't too much teaching skills but spend some years supporting a small congregation alone, so he came back to mine with a strong air of authority and a noticeable thirst or more power in the body of elders. Well, the conversation:
The one who is more close to me talked alone while the other only watched. He asked "what was happening?" since I was wearing a beard. I argued that isn't any wrongdoing but he told me to read an article about grooming. It's funny because I had read this article before deciding wearing a beard and didn't see anything condemning.
After that, I sat down and wrote an article about how the beard ban isn't biblical and isn't a big deal after all. I printed and sent one copy to each elder in my congregation.
One day they called me to talk about it. 5 elders were there, just not one who is my uncle (is married to my aunt actually). They made questions about what I had written, aparently to try to get me in my words since they didn't point anything clearly wrong in my article. During the talk (questioning), they changed their argument to say that the reunion was because I had made this a big deal when I sent the article to all the elders. (detail: I had shaved to this meeting) They even told me they decided to hold me from talks on the stage but as our conversation went well (and I agreed to shave, the reasons I will explain) they decided not to do that. Then this elder asked everyone else the opinion if they agreed to give me back my part on the stage. 4 said yes with no problem. The last one, the one who went to talk to me with the elder's coordinator at first, made a huge speech about how I should me more "humble" and highlighted that 'I was imperfect, so I would fail sometimes, and they (I think he meant himself) would be there to point it."
Well the main reason I shaved was that I saw they would probably take my privilege of service and everybody would think I had fornicated or at least did something sexually immoral. (because 90% of the sins among JW has to do with sex). I think if I get out someday I want to do it for my own will and I want the people to know exactly why. So I thought that suffer this shame on me and my family wouldn't worth it, and following my owm argument to them I wanted to show them that it isn't a big deal. Different from them I showed that I could wear it or not and it wouldn't bother my relationship with God.
Interestingly, after that I found a post on a ex JW website who had plenty of the arguments I wrote in my article.
One of them we both pointed was the clear boycott that the WT itself do to beards. This movie of the 2017 convention put this very clear. On one scene the man wears a beard and is impolite and agressive. Next scene he start studying JW literature and shows up shaved, polite and mild tempered. His son has a facial hairstyle too. He mocks of his parents who are starting to like the JWs and don't want anything to it. some scenes after, he accepts to study and appears on the meaning smiley and shaved.
Nothing new from the GB.
The 'new light' I had this time, and I intend to put it in a next version of my article is that it isn't the beard that WT boycotts. I realized that the Tower also never shows in a good view the alchoolic drinks. Yes, they know it isn't forbidden by the Bible and put it clear, but they never show a witness drinking alchool and surely it speaks more bad than good about this act.
My question is: Why, so, the witness througout my country make use (sometimes abuse) of alchool and doesn't bother with what is the WT, GB, and the people in general opinion (here in brazil most of the protestant churchs forbids the alchool, it even cause plenty of shock for people when they know we are allowed to drink) , since it is a conscience case while put the WT, GB and the totally unbased "popular opinion" ahead to force the men to shave?
My answer: Because what counts in the WT isn't the Bible and even less the logic. It's the will of the authority. I truly believe that in 20 years beards will be allowed simply because this generation will be in the eldership.