[Magdalen] The Theology of Clerical Beards

[Eleanor Braun]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/12115434/Vicars-should-grow-beards-to-reach-out-to-Muslims-bishop-suggests.html

Now the fashion for beards
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/fashion-and-style/11838856/Will-the-beard-boom-ever-end.html>
has
been given the blessing of the Church of England, after one of the
country’s most senior clerics praised vicars who grow them to appeal to
Muslim communities around them.

The Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, singled out two East End
priests who had cultivated bushy facial hair “of an opulence that would not
have disgraced a Victorian sage”, for special praise.

More than simply a fashion choice, the move reflected a desire to “reach
out” to the community in their Tower Hamlets parishes, a large proportion
of whom are of Bangladeshi origin, he said.

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 7:10 AM, Roy Murphy <roy.murphy at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2016/22-january/features/features/and-esau-was-an-hairy-man
>
> "BEARDS are fashionable again, but the subject of facial hair and the
> clergy stirs strong emotions. The bearded King Edward VII, in enjoining
> Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang to “stop curates wearing moustaches”, gave
> voice to the general hostility of the Christian tradition to hair confined
> to the upper lip; but there the consensus ends."
>