Category: uncut hair for women | Page 2

Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse

Many people I know were actually born into a spiritually abusive environment. While I’m unaware of any official studies done on the effects of spiritual abuse on children, I do have training about the effects of physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse on the growing child. I also have access to a wide variety of studies that have been done on the effects of neglect on children and their development.

When we think about a newborn infant, we often think of a “clean slate,” or an unmarred human being that is ready to take in any teaching or influence from the environment around it. Leaders in spiritually abusive environments are also aware of this. Many of them begin to mold children from birth, building a relationship with them that often makes them very sensitive to the control of the leaders in charge. This results in adults who are extremely loyal, will brook no ill word about the leadership, and will help to carry on the twisted ideas that they have been brainwashed to believe since birth.

Make no mistake, these spiritually abusive environments do not form in a vacuum. There are very powerful relationship dynamics that occur to keep these environments in play, and without forming the deep relationships, they could not continue to perpetuate the pain that they cause. The relationships have several dynamics of dysfunction that enable them to become the controlling factor in such environments.

First of all, the relationship is often built on deep feelings of sentiment and belonging. The leadership fully accepts and loves the child, for the infant is without choice and perfectly designed. It is a “blank canvas” that the leader is free to work with, and by wasting no time getting attachment going, further control is virtually ensured.

There are several types of attachment styles that infants form with their primary caregivers, but that is a subject for a different article. Here we are simply discussing the church leadership beginning to form a powerful attachment with the infants within their congregation.

If the parents remain in the group while the child is growing up, very quickly all parenting resources and advice come through the church leadership as well. In this way, the leadership of the church becomes the final say and the main authority in the child’s life, as well as forming the emotional attachment that brings the desire to please.

In addition, in many of these groups, the parents are encouraged to homeschool the children, or to place them in a private church school run by the group. In this way, the group is in complete control of all information that goes into this child’s mind as he or she is forming ideas and learning “facts” about how the world operates. For example, when the child learns that the world is round, he also learns that people who watch television are going to burn in hell forever. When she learns about how seeds sprout and grow, and when that experiment is done as part of her learning, she is also learning from that same source that women who trim their hair are going to be lost for eternity. The source that credibly teaches facts about the world is, at the same time, slipping in twisted teachings and claiming them to be as factual as learning how to read or solve a math problem.

Finally, once the child is born, the group begins to teach him or her that they are the only “safe” place in the entire world. The child is learning to fear the “other” in the world at the same time he is learning to depend on mom and dad to feed him his bottle. If he or she happens to have an “unsaved” grandparent or aunt outside of the group, that person is often not allowed to be alone with the child, so these children pick up the silent message that grandma or grandpa is not quite safe because they are not part of the group.

Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse II
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse III
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse IV
Children Raised Under Spiritual Abuse V

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Denying Oneself

The concept of denying oneself to “take up the cross” and follow Jesus is a biblical principle. It is the application taught in harmful religious circles that can cause so much damage and misunderstanding.

In the group where I grew up, it could mean many things. Taking up your cross meant denying yourself of food for a day or even a week, several times a year. If you were properly spiritual, you’d fast one day per week to keep your flesh “under subjection” to God’s Spirit.

It meant to give up most of the pleasures of living in general. No music outside of Southern Gospel or Classical, no ball games, no skiing for women (unless they did it in a dress), no television or videos, no plays, no puppets, no playing ball (unless it was “just for fun” without keeping score), no alcohol of any kind, nothing sparkly or decorative on your clothing (lace was the exception). There was to be no jewelry of any kind worn, and no makeup at all, including clear lip gloss or nail polish.

Some taught against any hair decorations of any kind, others limited it to sparkly hair decor. There was to be no proms and no school band if it required playing at ball games. No theaters, no go carts for girls (skirts made it indecent), and no dating without a chaperone present. There was to be no kissing, no holding hands, or touching of any kind before marriage. No trimming of the hair, and in some circles no curling of the hair with hot rollers or curling irons. Skirts had to be very long and not have any kind of splits, and sleeves had to be below the elbows at all times.

Males had to have no hair on the forehead, touching the ears, or touching the collar of the shirt. No facial hair was allowed. In my church growing up, your hair style couldn’t be any bigger than a certain measurement.

In some churches, they taught on what kind of underwear was permissible. For example, no thong underwear for women. Men were taught not to wear sleeveless undershirts, but they must always wear an undershirt. Women were taught not to wear pajamas to bed because they were “men’s apparel”.

To some, open toed shoes were sinful, and it was wrong for a man to wear certain styles or colors of ties. Some games were “wrong” to play…for example, anything with a deck of cards was wrong in one environment including Uno, while the other environment found cards okay but any game that involved dice was a sin.

One church made men and women sit on separate sides of the church. Guess which side was child heavy?

In all of these, and many more examples of “denying oneself,” there are some interesting themes that played out repeatedly. They were in areas such as clothing, eating, and spending.

Those who had enough money to do so wore the most expensive clothing they could possibly find. If they had to deny themselves in other ways, they definitely did not avoid “costly array.” They would wear lizard skin shoes, and carry ostrich covered Bibles. They had exorbitantly priced suits and dresses with very extravagant design detail. Their hair might be long and uncut, but it was styled in the most outlandish way possible. Their heels (if permitted at all) were sky high, very expensive, and definitely ostentatious. Were they denying themselves by avoiding TV but dressing in this fashion?

Eating was another area. As much as you heard it preached about the body being “the temple of the Holy Ghost” in regards to not using alcohol or taking mental health medications, there sure was no shortage of eating. I saw more grossly obese people percentage wise, at United Pentecostal Church and apostolic conferences than anywhere. I watched very hard line conservative preachers eat multiple huge plates of food at every meal at these meetings. Some who could afford it bragged about eating at the highest end restaurants and how much the plates of food cost. In most pictures of fellowship, there were plates heaped with food in front of the church members. As a result, the appearance was often grotesquely sloppy and completely unattractive to anyone they were trying to convert. “Come look like us?” There was hardly a waiting list for that.

In the final area I want to address in this article, many conservatives were lavish spenders. I described above the spending on clothing and food, but there were also flashy vehicles and fine homes. It was most common to see a church sacrificially give in order to send their pastor on an extremely expensive vacation, or to buy him a luxury vehicle. In one instance, a church member buys the pastor a new Lamborghini every year.

Deny yourself? It doesn’t sound like it. Take up your cross? Not with those name brand suits.

The inconsistency is a major factor of concern and it is sad that, like the biblical Pharisees, these people try to swat at every gnat while “swallowing” a camel. They missed the big picture while snipping threads in the tapestry.

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The ‘Standards’ Lie – They are really Laws

I always felt like I was being a little dishonest in my days as a legalist when I spoke of the rules and regulations of the faith I belonged to, particularly in trying to explain them to new converts or questioning prospects. Our ladies weren’t allowed to cut their hair, color their hair, trim their hair, perm their hair, wear short sleeve shirts, tights/leggings, wear metal of any kind in their hair, or any form of jewelry/ornamentation, etc.

The same rules applied to me, as a man, with other requirements as well, such as abstaining from facial hair or allowing my hair to grow past a few inches long. And when people questioned these, saying things like, ‘Sounds like you guys are still under the Old Testament law,’ the response was always, “No, it isn’t laws, they are standards.”

To illustrate this, I want to start off with pics (pictures prove I haven’t altered the text in any way) from two exchanges I’ve had with people on YouTube content in the past week.

In both cases, we are discussing the Oneness (Apostolic) Pentecostal Holiness movement, of which I was part of for 15 years, and their dogmas (standards) on dress. I won’t take the time to reiterate all of those things, but read these blog posts to learn more: Men and Womens Apparel in Ancient Days, The Commandments of Men, & Out of Context: Without Holiness No Man Shall See The Lord.

In both cases, the individuals are defending their church dress standards, but claim things that aren’t true, and then do what I used to do, and that is to be dishonest about what the ‘standards’ really are. These are Oneness Pentecostals responding to my videos and other videos on the same topic – dress standards being law.

This one is one of the more interesting conversations because this individual does what most Apostolic Pentecostals do. He/She initially relates their dress standards to the commandment of being “Holy,” and then declares that the only other side to the coin (in layman terms) is that you’ll just go wear mini-skirts and paint your face, which makes you a harlot. (Yes, the Apostolic Pentecostal church teaches that you can’t wear makeup and make it to heaven.)

This highlights the disease of this belief set – because it gets rooted in their heart that if you don’t dress like them, you are a harlot.

Then of course, when asked how they make the connection between ‘Be ye holy, for I am holy,’ and ‘Without Holiness, no man shall see the Lord’ and their dress rules, he/she says what I used to say.

“It’s not a dogma its preference you make it a heaven or hell issue out of it.’

That baffles me because it is actually the Apostolic Pentecostals making a heaven/hell issue out of it. In a recent conversation with a young man, he said, “Look, they are standards, not laws, and the local pastor has the right to set standards for his church. (even on things not taught in the Bible, so long as they don’t contradict the Bible) I went and talked to the pastor and even he admitted, these things like facial hair, short sleeve vs long sleeve shirts are not heaven or hell issues.”

That sounded good, but then the pastor said this, (this is not verbatim, but accurate) “But, if I set the standard here, and you don’t obey me, you are sinning the sin of disobedience.”

That my friend is a law.

This one became even more interesting and this is just a small portion of the whole conversation. What always intrigues me about these ‘defenders of the faith’ is how rude and arrogant they tend to get.

All at once, Carson declares that women in the 1st century would have worn dresses like we would think of a dress today, as completely different from a man’s clothing, that the Apostle Paul taught this very simple idea, attempts to use Greek words to prove that women wore dresses, intently implies anyone who doesn’t believe this lacks basic intelligence (in another post, Carson said, “If you struggle with this simple principle you must struggle with a lot of things in life lol,”) and then goes on to say, “I dont believe a woman is going to hell because of pants.”

This is just a sampling of the fervor you will find defending the dress standards of the Apostolic Pentecostal faith. So I did a little social sampling/research, asking questions like this one.

“The Bible says not to take away from, or add to the Word. Jesus made it clear in Mark 7:7 that men who created their own laws (let’s call them standards) for the people, things outside of God’s word, were hypocrites and that worshiping Jesus in those things was vain and useless. Nowhere in Scripture does it say the Pastor has the right and duty to make up his own church rules, required for membership, that are outside of Scripture, and we aren’t talking about carpet color and instrument selection.

So, if your pastor says that men wearing facial hair is unholy – would I be allowed to be a full-fledged member of the church if I continued to wear facial hair? Would I be allowed to be a member? Would God be able to use me? Could I participate, in Choir, outreach, etc.?”

The answer, of course, is no. Unless you abide by that pastor’s standards, you have no legal standing in the Faith. So then I ask this question, “If there is no other Apostolic church in this town, and I can’t be a member of yours, how can I be saved since the majority of Apostolic Pentecostals think they are the only saved people on the earth?”

What is the difference between a Standard and a Law?

A law is something that is written into statutes that all people must obey. Disobedience to these laws results in penalization. In this simple example, the white background speed limit sign is a posted law. If you exceed this limit, you can be subject to penalties including traffic violations and fines. Normally (In the U.S.) you’ll have to appear before a judge and defend or plead your case. You are sentenced from your infraction and you pay the fine or duty that the judge imposes on you. That is how law works.

The yellow background speed sign is a standard. It is an advisory speed sign. You’ll normally see this when coming into a space of road that has a lot of curves or is windy. They will post a sign that is the suggested speed for which it is safest to drive that stretch of road. Exceeding this limit may place you in danger of not handling the road well, but it is not a traffic law violation to exceed this speed. If you are doing 35mph in a 25mph advisory zone, you have broken no laws and will not be judged for your behavior.

This highlights the simplistic distinction between Law and Standard.

You see, while we/they can claim that the standards of the Apostolic Holiness movement are not laws, they (and I was this way) are being very dishonest. I know people who defend these standards in this fashion who are not intentionally being dishonest, in fact, most aren’t, they are just regurgitating what they are being fed from the pulpit.

People will say, ‘Our dress standards are not laws,’ and yet, they will in the pulpit (and I’ve heard it hundreds of times) say, “No woman wearing pants and lipstick is going to make it to heaven.” In the first conversation image I posted, these people always backlash when you question their standards, by saying things like, “Fine, go find your self a church where you can be a harlot (wear makeup).”

If something you do keeps you out of heaven, it is because you have violated God’s law. So if the claim is, ‘You can’t go to heaven if you aren’t obeying the standards,’ then you know assuredly, that those are laws, not standards.

Now, a church and pastor may make a standard, something like, “Our church has held the standard that we do not want any married men or women in a room alone with another married person. When I (The pastor) counsel, I will not do it alone with a woman, my standard is to always have my wife with me when I counsel someone of the opposite sex. We ask all of our church members to be careful in this way.”

This is a standard. This is something based in principle, that you are not judged for, that you are not legislated by, and your membership to the church does not depend on. Would following the example set before you be extremely wise? Absolutely! but it is not a law.

God alone, if you believe in God and in His Word, is the only one capable of creating laws. Those laws were written. The faith was once (and for all) delivered unto the saints. What is going to keep you out of the Kingdom of God was clearly written in Scripture. To add to that is such a dangerous thing.

Conclusion

Let me end by saying this: If you, for yourself, believe that wearing a certain piece of clothing, or worshiping at a certain time helps keep you closer to God, than by all means, do it.

The faith which you have [that gives you freedom of choice], have as your own conviction before God [just keep it between yourself and God, seeking His will]. Happy is he who has no reason to condemn himself for what he approves.” – Romans 14:22, AMP

I am not judging you, or anyone for the personal standards and convictions they want to keep. Paul made it clear that you are blessed (happy) for those things you allow. Your own personal convictions.

What I am coming against, is entire organizations making ‘standards’ that keep people in or out of the church, and to their set of beliefs, also keep people in or out of heaven. If it wasn’t written in Scripture, and it’s taught as something you must do, it is a man-made law and should be called for what it is, an error and fallacy.

They worship Me in vain [their worship is meaningless and worthless, a pretense],
Teaching the precepts of men as doctrines [giving their traditions equal weight with the Scriptures].’ – Mark 7:7

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Getting Out the Old Books: The Literal Word by M.D. Treece

Probably the most scholarly words in the Oneness Apostolic churches I have ever seen written on 1 Corinthians 11- otherwise known as the “hair chapter”- is from The Literal Word by M.D. Treece. Most writings on the subject are filled with anecdotes and circular reasoning and don’t very much address the claim that women’s hair must be uncut. It is often mentioned with little evidence. I have to give M.D. Treece credit for trying to tackle this issue.

(Disclaimer: The verses in 1 Corinthians 11, taken by themselves, do not address the fact that women were allowed to shave their heads in the Old Testament when they took the Nazarite vow. The actual meaning of the verses in 1 Corinthians 11 are a widely debated topic among scholars and what is demonstrated here is simply how M.D. Treece’s own logic does not make sense within itself. It does not demonstrate or argue whether or not M.D. Treece is right or wrong about his beliefs and translations otherwise concerning hair/veils/having hair down the head/customs of the day or any other assertion.)

He translates verse number 4 “Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head” as “And every man praying or prophesying having hair down his head disgraces his head.” (pg 247) I have a photo of his comments on this so you can read his comments on it for yourself below.

So, he translates the word covered as “having hair down his head”. On page 249, he begins to look at the word “uncovered.” He says the covering is hair and not a literal veil. He says “That is the central theme of this discourse.”

The real focus here is going to be on vs 6 “For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn; but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered.” He translates this as “For if a woman is not covered, let her hair be cut; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved, let her be covered.”

Let’s look at this closely a minute. He defines “covered” for a man as “having hair down his head.” So, let’s insert that definition into his translation and see if it works:

“For if a woman doesn’t have hair down her head, let her hair be cut, but if it’s disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved, let her have hair down her head.”- Doesn’t make much sense does it?

First of all, I have read that some people want to say that the word shorn means “to cut.” There is a difference between the words shorn and shaven. We know what shaven means but what does it mean to be “shorn?”

According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, it means “absolutely, of shearing or cutting short the hair of the head”. See below:

STRONGS NT 2751: κείρω

κείρω; (1 aorist ἐκειρα (Acts 8:32 T WH marginal reading)); 1 aorist middle ἐκειραμην; from Homer down; to shear: a sheep, Acts 8:32 ((cf. above) from Isaiah 53:7). Middle to get or let be shorn (Winers Grammar, § 38, 2 b.; Buttmann, § 135, 4): τήν κεφαλήν, Acts 18:18; absolutely, of shearing or cutting short the hair of the head, 1 Corinthians 11:6 (cf. Winer’s Grammar, § 43, 1).

It means to shear like a sheep, or like a military haircut.

Let’s look at M.D. Treece’s translation and see if it makes sense when we insert these definitions:

“For if a woman doesn’t have hair down her head, let her hair be shorn like a sheep, but if it’s disgraceful for a woman to have her hair shorn like a sheep, or shaved, let her have hair down her head.”

This makes much more sense, doesn’t it? If these definitions are used, not only does the translation make sense but it also means that there is no prohibition against women cutting their hair.

Every single argument for uncut hair is based on the idea that the word shorn means a little trim, but we can clearly see that this is not what the word means simply by looking at the definition in the Greek Lexicon. If you read arguments for women’s uncut hair, this foundational argument is often skimmed over and the anecdotal arguments and circular reasoning begins with a lot of fear sprinkled in about what is going to happen to you if you disagree. But when we put aside the fear and traditional teachings we can clearly see that the word shorn means to shear like a sheep and does not mean what some are saying it means.

I have provided photos of four pages. Page 247, page 248, page 249, page 250.

(Written for the Facebook group Breaking Out.)

Getting Out the Old Books: Guardians of His Glory by Gary & Linda Reed
Getting Out the Old Books: David F. Gray
Getting Out the Old Books: Joy Haney
Getting Out The Old Books: Larry L. Booker
Getting Out the Old Books: Power Before the Throne
Getting Out the Newer Books: Wholly Holy: The Vital Role of Visible Devotion
Search For Truth On Holiness

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My Church Experience After Leaving

This is a brief summary of the first seven years of my church experiences after leaving the United Pentecostal Church. Understand that for several years afterward, I still believed the main salvation teachings of the group.

When I left my former UPC church in late 1993, I’d already been introduced to a church in West Orange, NJ which had not long before voted to pull out of the organization. When I resigned from my church, I would attend as I was able (it was two hours away). There was only one other local UPC in my area. I knew my former pastor still had feelings against that UPC pastor and church. (Before I ever started attending, there had been a split in the church which eventually led to this other one starting in a nearby town.) Even though I would have been accepted at this local church, even in not upholding standards, I knew that to go would be upsetting to my former pastor. During the time I was a member, my pastor would periodically say negative things in sermons about that church, some of the people, and its pastor. This went on for years after the split had taken place. If it upset him to have to stand behind and pray for this man at his UPC ordination (he didn’t like that Wayne Trout, the District Superintendent, had him do this), it wouldn’t have helped the situation had I left our church and joined this one.

Several months after I left, the pastor was told by one of my friends that I’d written some findings on the hair teaching. He called pastors to warn them about me. This isn’t hearsay as I heard it directly from one of the pastors he called, which was the nearby church. I have no idea if he just called the churches in the southern part of the state or if it was more widespread. Because of his actions, other than this local church that had started after a split, there would be no way I could have attended any of the others. While I did meet with the pastor of the nearby church and even gave him a copy of my writings on hair, which he asked to keep, by that time I knew I couldn’t live what I considered a lie. I’d be welcomed there but could never be used other than in giving a testimony, helping clean or raise funds, or something similar. At the time, I knew I’d want to be active anywhere I attended and to do so would necessitate adhering to all the things that I no longer saw as biblical. I simply couldn’t do it.

All this time I was still attending the church two hours away when I could. As the weeks went on, there were others who became upset with things happening at my former church (that had to do with the pastor) and more left. We contacted the pastor from the West Orange church to see about starting a cell group locally as his church had several of these. I started attending more regularly there and some of us attended a class for this type of leadership. However, during this same time there were all kinds of things happening at my former church and they hit me very hard. I had many emotions and feelings I was dealing with, sometimes not very well.

I felt that while I was grappling with all that, I shouldn’t be in a leadership position. I was supposed to help with the cell group (they call them life groups) and another couple would lead them. To be in a leadership position in these home groups, you had to join the church as a member. I didn’t attend a membership explanation meeting and due to the the way the pastor approached me about missing it, it didn’t sit well and I was feeling pressured. He already knew how I was feeling and never shared prior to it that it was necessary for me to attend.

So they started the group and I didn’t join the church. The pastor didn’t attend our home meetings, but made the lessons for them. At the very first local cell gathering, there was something odd introduced there which I’d never heard before and questioned, though I didn’t do so at the meeting. All of the things combined led me to stop attending. Eventually, everyone from my former church who had gone there left for one reason or another.

As shared at the beginning, at the time I was still very much UPC in doctrine with the exception of standards. Because of this, every Trinitarian church was automatically put out of the picture, sight unseen. There were only a handful of UPC churches in the entire state, so for any smaller Oneness Pentecostal group, there were even fewer, if any at all. I called different places that others would share about and they just didn’t line up with the doctrine in one way or another. Eventually I just gave up looking.

Years later when I saw error in the main teachings, so much time had passed in not attending a church that the thought of doing so brought about a bit of apprehension. I had no idea how other churches operated or what would be expected of me as a member or attender. All I’d known was the UPC. This is why church attendance was a problem for me during this time.

When one exits an unhealthy church, it is important to take the time and effort to examine the teachings. Had I looked into the main salvation teachings then, I wouldn’t have been extremely limited in potential new places of worship.

Part 2.

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