Long Hair on Men?

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Oh good grief. This post looks like it is going to go somewhat the same direction as a few posts on the issue of modesty have gone.

Long hair for men started, for just about anyone alive today, in the early to mid 1960’s. Whether it started in Europe and invaded the US, or started simultaneously, or vice versa can be left to historians and is irrelevant to the discussion.

To suggest that men who have long hair lack discipline is to interject personal opinion without, in general, a whole lot of research into the matter. Some men with short hair lack discipline; so do some with long hair. To make it a general principle is at best hazardous.

The Church has no official position on the length of a male’s hair. There may be individuals, within the hierarchy, who have personal opinions on the matter, and it helps to keep in mind that a personal opinion and about $2 will get you somewhere on most mass transit systems (although perhaps not all).

I have not made a survey of any scientific reliability, but I do know that there are men in their 60’s and 70’s who have been in the military who have long hair. Of course, I have no way of showing that they were in the Marines (and from my own personal experiences with the Marines, I tend to doubt there are any significant numbers - probably more likely they were Army pukes).

Hair style tends to be much more a subculture issue than anything. It is not a Catholic thing. It is not a Christian thing. Neither is it anti-Catholic or anti-Christian, or atheistic or agnostic nor moral, immoral, or amoral. It is simply cultural.

Because it is highly visible, it tends to send a cultural symbol to those whose cultural attitudes are either alike or different (and thus different signals). And we all have a tendency to equate unity with uniformity, never mind that they are not the same. Further, we have a tendency to very rapidly categorize others as “friend” or “foe” based on cultural indicators, long before we have actually gotten to know them, something that goes back to what might be called the “lizard brain”.

In short, hair style can, in some circumstances, stir up feelings that have nothing really to do with the issue of the hair, but rather presumptions we make on appearance.
 
ThirdGen said:
Sorry if this seems flippant as a first real question on this forum, but it’s the sort of thing that struck me this Friday evening…

I am attending RCIA classes and am excited about joining the Church (had been an Atheist for 8 years before converting to Christianity a month ago, then decided to join the Catholic Church).

I’m wondering if there is any sort of Church stance on how men wear their hair. I was used to having long hair, then cut it all off and am now growing it back. I don’t want this to be a fashion discussion or opinions on guys with long hair, but does the Church actually care? I apologize if this seems like a stupid question but sometimes I’m shocked by what bothers the Church, so I’m just curious.

Thanks, and have a great evening!
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Only for clerics and those serving or teaching.

It should be socially acceptable and clean.

Clerics may be required by their bishop to particular standards; for most priests, that means not past the bottom of the collar. Some bishops used to demand clean shaven clergy, and some (in the Eastern Rites) demanded beards.
 
My son-in-law has long hair and he looks very much like Jesus. When his son was younger when he see a picture of Jesus he thought it was a picture of his dad.
 
GloriousOrder said:
I believe one of the factors contributing to various societies’ denial of long hair on men is merely one of differentiation. We are not supposed to be like women, and women traditionally wear their hair long; therefore, we should not wear our hair long. Men are the responsible caretakers of a society, the protectors, and the lovers of women in safekeeping. The subject is the man; the object is the woman; the goal is children; the action is conjugal in nature, scholastically-speaking. All things being equal, it would be best for men to be as differentiated from women as possible: a duality of long hair/short hair, work/stay at home, and masculine/feminine ought to be the norm.

Men who wear their hair long lack a certain regularity of grooming, and discipline of spirit. There is a fussiness and femininity in wishing to have the hair long and beautiful. It is women who are naturally adorned by long hair and jewelry and such things, and they are meant to be ornamented in order to exaggerate the characteristics which God created in them. Remember that none of the images of Our Lord with long hair, for example, are actually based on the Bible or other recorded history, so let’s not get into that. 😉 There are famous frescoes depicting Jesus in glory with short hair and clean-shaven face, both done in order to go head-to-head against Satan in battle. Males are predominantly short-haired because of Roman military tradition, which so influenced our society. Be clean, and be short… do not imitate the fickleness of women (our beloved sisters, regardless).

All that being said, if you are very much attached to it, just as the Gauls of the 6th century, do as you think God allows. For His own sake, though, please do it out of a logical will, and not because you feel like it. Everything should be done considering its proper object, which is God’s glorification. If other men are likely to be scandalised by your long hair, it will detract from God’s glory when they sin in anger or rumour against you. Why not just cut the hair short? 😃 Sorry if I seem to be somewhat of a devil’s advocate, but long hair in Christianity was always associated with distant pagans and newcomer barbarians.
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I grew up in the southwest, I guess you didn’t know that it is tradition for male native americans to have long hair. I have never once looked at these men as being feminine, or dirty. They normally keep their hair straght down their back or in braids. It looks very nice and I must say I was more attracted to men with long hair.😉
 
I have shoulder length hair, as well as facial hair, Go for it, God cares about your heart, not your hair.
 
We have little evidence that St. Michael is possessed of gender… nor much besides the names, for any other angels.

Angels are people, of a sort… but they are not men, nor women, nor are they human, nor have they been human, even when manifest in a human form.

So, accusing St. Michael of being a girly-man is inaccurate in the sense that he isn’t a man as in male human, nor a man as in mortal…
 
Hair length no longer has the connotations that it once did in the 1960’s. Nowdays there are radical secularist liberals with short haircuts and nice neat suits, and longhaired conservatives who love God and country (I’ve even seen a few at Latin masses) I’ve also seen several powerlifters with very longhair (so much for the old “it’s a sign of feminity”) while at the same time I couldn’t help noticing longhair seems to be quite uncommon among males in the homosexual community.
In short, it shouldn't matter one way or another. No one should be judged by there hairlength.
 
I really don’t have much to say about a man’s hair, although I spent 20 years in the military. Guess what my hair looks like 🙂 This is what the Word of the Lord says:

1 Cor. 11:3-15
 
Miserys_Fence said:
I’m an OBJECT???

Maybe in your wildest dreams and/or your rich fantasy life. :rolleyes:

Miz
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Calm down :rolleyes:
An object in grammar is a sentence element and is often part of the sentence predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject’s “performance” of the verb. As an example, the following sentence is given: In the sentence “Bobby kicked the ball”, “ball” is the object.
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The subject in grammar is one of the two main constituents of a sentence; the grammatical constituent about which something is predicated
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He is using a the parts of sentence structure to make a point.

The term “object” refers in a sentence to the noun which has the verb “done” to it. It is not about objectification. The subject does the action, the verb is what is done, the object has the action done. Dog bites man. Man is the object, dog is the subject, bites is the verb.

~Liza
 
So what is your exegesis? Simply throwing a passage up does little. What was the historic context? How is this passage understood by the Magisterium? How is it used in the Liturgy? What about literary devices? By looking at the literal meaning (what the words say) you have taken the first step to determining the meaning of the passage, but there is more work to do.
 
Please don’t argue with me, I get enough of that at home. 🙂 I just thought I would put up a scripture that mentioned it. I know all about context. That is all. You guys crack me up so quick to… Be blessed.
 
Keep in mind:
the Lord ordered Sampson not to cut his hair. Sampson allowed his hair to be cut, and was punished for it.
 
On a historical non-biblical note, the person who set the fashion for short hair amongst Europeans was Napoleon Bonaparte. He wasn’t necessarily a friend of the church (or Christianity in general). Men started cutting their hair short in imitation of him and the politics associated with him.

I believe this might be a easy subject to Google and confirm for anyone interested.

I’ve started growing my hair long in sympathy for the church, tradition, and the founding fathers of the U.S.A… 👍
 
Personally, I look forward to the day when most men (other than the clergy, for the most part, who hopefully will mostly be tonsured) will once again wear long hair as well as stockings.

Our long pants are not only barbaric, they are an odious hold over from the French revolution. The stubby little jackets we get to wear with them remind one perpetually of Victorian mill towns. The best analogy for a tie is a noose.

It is obvious to any observer that the shorter hair became in the west, the less effective the west became overall. Just as once the British Army switched from red to khaki, it began to lose.

The Spanish kept their empire for all the centuries of long hair. In contrast, the buzz cut Germans’ African “empire” didn’t last three generations, and when it was toppled by a few local levies and an officer with a swagger stick, had only a few unprofitable farms to show for the effort.

Sampson not only had the jawbone of an ***, he had locks. To restore all things in Christ!
 
Long hair on men is associated with the cultural revolution beginning in the 1960’s which, among other things, attempted to confuse God given gender distinctions. Though certain individual men in our confused day and time may not have this same intention in wearing their hair long, this practice still makes a counter-cultural statement and not one in keeping with the order found in the Traditional Catholic Faith.

St. Paul spoke harshly against long hair on men in the Scriptures precisely because in his time, long hair was associated with women, as it is in our own. Thus, as a sacrifice to God, and to be more in keeping with Catholic order, the OP should not wear his hair long enough to be seen as participating in any way in the gender revolution and disorientation we are still living in. Besides the gender confusion we also have long hair on men related to the hard rock culture of drugs and promiscuity and anarchy. So there are various reasons men should have a neat and clean cut appearance.
 
When you watch someone close to you lose all his hair because of cancer treatments, you find out its just hair, nothing more than that. And this kind of arguement doesn’t really matter in the big picture. Better to worry about what the man is like on the inside than to squabble over what kind of haircut, if any, he should have.
 
PatriceA said:
When you watch someone close to you lose all his hair because of cancer treatments, you find out its just hair, nothing more than that. And this kind of arguement doesn’t really matter in the big picture. Better to worry about what the man is like on the inside than to squabble over what kind of haircut, if any, he should have.
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Very well put.
 
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