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Those of us who were born on the tail end of the baby boom might have been too young to participate in The Summer of Love, Woodstock, and the hippie movement, but we did get to spend our most formative years watching the establishment’s reaction to them. And if you grew up in church in the late sixties and early seventies, you quickly became convinced that the doctrine of Hairology was indeed a pillar of the faith once delivered to the saints.
Perhaps it’s my overactive imagination, but it seems that every third sermon preached in my boyhood church was in whole or in part a homiletical assault on men with long hair. Of course, looking back on it now I can understand (to some extent) what all the fuss was about. The country was going to hell in a hand basket with the hippies leading the way – and long hair was the most conspicuous symbol of rebellion and the new morality. Is it any wonder America’s pastors launched a full-scale assault on hair?
How often we heard 1 Corinthians 11:14 thundered from the pulpit in all of its King James Version volubility, “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?” In fact, that was the second verse I memorized, right after John 3:16.
Well, long hair is out. Short hair is in. And alas, long hair denouncing homilies are seldom heard anymore. But for those of you longing to take a stroll down memory lane, give a listen to a masterpiece of hairology humor by my dear friend and mentor, Dr. James O. Combs. Under the guise of his altar ego, Dr. G.I. Barber, he preaches a sermon entitled, “Shameful Long-Haired Men, Sinful Short-Haired Women, and Sad Sham-Haired Preachers.” You’ll laugh until you cry. And you might just get a little nostalgic as you remember with fond affection the days of the long-hair sermon.
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