A Question of Honor?

First of all, this is the guy that invented the idea of the Honor Code at BYU way back in the day.









So I (Neal this time) had a funny/annoying/controversial thing happen at school today. It involved the beard rule (as in you can't have one) at BYU and the Honor Code. So I posted on Facebook about it, and it seemed like a lot of people had something to say. I decided to write a letter to the Editor of the School Newspaper, and here it is:

I went into the Honor Code Office the other day to hand in my Ecclesiastical Endorsement. As I entered the elevator to ascend up to the 4th floor of the Wilk, it occurred to me that I hadn't shaved that morning. No big deal I thought. It was an honest mistake, and I was just going in to put a paper in a box anyway.

I got in, and the lady at the desk smiled and said, "Yeah, just put your paper in this bin here." I did and thanked her for showing me where it was. As I was walking down the hall back to the elevator, I heard her yell, "Oh wait, can you come back for a second?" I went back into the room and she said, "Do you have a beard card?" I knew where this was going, but I decided to be nice and gentlemanly...

"No" I replied.

"Well, we can't accept this until you go home and shave." I explained that I really do normally shave, hence my Bishop's endorsement which I had just handed in, but that I had just forgotten that day. None of the office wokers seemed to care. Like drones enforcing a programmed command, they sent me away to shave.

I went down to the commons in the Wilk to ponder. "Am I a rebel?" I thought. "Have I lost my Honor?" "Why didn't I shave today?" For a flicker of an instant, I started feeling like I had committed some grievous sin, and my honor was defiled. Then I left Guilt City (a city forged by Pharisees) and woke up to the truth.

Well the honest truth is, I'm a father of two children, one of them born this January, and this morning when I woke up, my older son (2 years old) needed to be taken care of. My wife is sick, and so is our newborn, so they were sleeping in. I got my little boy up, and ready for the day. I fed him breakfast, and put on some good morning cartoons. After taking care of him I had to leave right away to get to campus so that I could find a stinkin' parking spot and get to class on time. The honest truth is, I cared more about my family's situation than I did about shaving my whiskers, hence, I forgot to shave.

Pondering all of this in the Wilk commons, I realized that this beard rule, while it might have been relevant in the 60's, is turning students and faculty into Pharisees. We're straining at gnats and leaving other matters undone (Matthew 23:23-24). Suddenly I've lost my honor because I chose to take care of my son rather than shave my face? I don't think so. And those of you who are married with kids know that we don't consciously ask ourselves questions like this. We just take care of the kids. They come first and other things, sometimes sadly, fall behind.

But the story doesn't end here. I met up with my friend in the Commons. He sits at the Mac booth and teaches people about everything Apple. We got to talking about what had happened, and I expressed how I didn't like the rule's pharisaical effect on the students and faculty of BYU, and that I thought it created more contention and unrighteous judgment than it did good. As if to prove my point perfectly, some kid sitting at the next booth (Guitars Unplugged) just chimed in. My Mac friend named him Babyface Nelson, and I won't disagree with the nomenclature. So Babyface says, "Well you signed an honor code saying that you would shave as an agreement to attend a school whose tuition is partially funded by tithing from the church..." I was shocked. I didn't know Babyface, and I didn't know why he was chiming in. So I explained that I didn't have a problem with the rule, just what it DOES to people, turning them into judgmental Pharisees who silently (or in Babyface's case, verbally) determine that I am honorless because of the whiskers on my face. I further explained that I had been taking care of my son, and that is why I had forgotten to shave.

So, what do you think? Am I right? Am I in the wrong? Sure, I could have remembered to get up earlier, I could have left my son in his crib crying, I could have done any number of things differently to ensure a clean-shaven face. But have I violated my own honor in doing what I did? Do you think the beard rule is really beneficial to one's honor? Don't you think it turns us into Pharisees? Perhaps not all of us. But really, what's more important to your honor BYU? Your family or your face?

To be honest, beards were okay back in the day of Karl G. Maeser, the guy whose picture is above. Then in the 60's, the whole idea of being "clean cut" as opposed to being a hippie, was created. As for today, I think beards are just fine. I've grown up enough and learned enough to know that there are plenty of "clean cut" guys that are horrible, and there are plenty of hippies (a.k.a. shaggy and bearded) who are better people than myself and many others. Having a beard does not affect your credibility anymore. If anything, a nice beard is a way of adding character to a guy.