The Role Of Beards In The Cuban Revolution

"Most regular armies in fact, command their men to shave closely...In the Sierra, hair beat the smooth chins, and military art was made to look ridiculous.

'Batista's soldiers," a companion of Fidel told me, 'found us so incorrect, so improper, that it gave them the willies. The beard according to them meant ambush, the law of the jungle, and extermination...Toward the end, when they saw, in a narrow mountain pass, a beard behind a shining rifle barrel, they broke ranks."

- Jean Paul Sartre in "Sartre on Cuba" 1961

Nenadovic's in the 1700's and 1800's

I don't know if they are my forefathers, but there were a number of people from the Nenadovic family that were prominent in Serbia in the late 1700's and 1800's.

There's Jakov Nenadovic (1765-1836). He was a Serbian Duke and the first Serbian Minister of Interior. Let's just say he had a moustache to put all other moustaches to shame. There is a stately picture of him up at bia.sr.gov.yu:



And there's also Mateja Nenadovic (1777-1854), he was an Archpriest and a leader of a Serbian uprising against Turkish imperialism. Mateja's father was Aleksa Nenadovic, a chief magistrate of Valjevo. At 16 Mateja was a priest, and later became an Archpriest. He spent a short amount of time as a deputy-commander before he became a key diplomat. His memoirs are an important source of information about Serbian revolt during the period of Turkish conquest. Incidentally, he had a pretty cool beard. There is a picture of him, courtesy of the Serbian Wikipedia:



Do you see any family resemblance?

Hair & Facial Hair & Theologians

Warning: I consider this to be one of the weirdest posts I've ever made.

One interesting observation is the fact that the "norm" in 21st century Evangelical male hair & facial hair is radically different than that of the earlier reformers, puritans, and theologians. For example, at almost every point in history beards, moustaches, goatees, sideburns, and longer hair was not only accepted, but almost the norm among evangelical male Church leaders. However, in North American 21st century Evangelicalism, the norm has shifted over to shorter hair and clean shaven appearance.

The norm for me is a buzz cut and a (usually) cleanshaven face. On occasion I will grow a bit of a goatee or a beard.

Many Christians understand I Corinthians in such a way that it would forbid any males in any culture from having "long" hair. And yet, it would appear that (at least from the drawings of them), most learned theologians of the 1600's and before had long hair (at least by our standards). Being a guy who rarely has more than 1 inch of hair, I have no problem fitting into the idea that a guy should have short hair.

One interesting vein of thought is that the early evangelical pioneers, reformers, and theologians actually looked a bit more like the hippies of the 1960's than mainstream evangelicals of the 1960's.

I submit some examples (left column is well-known theologians, right column is 1960's counter-culture hippie-type musicians). Please understand that I..

1. Do not insinuiate that these individuals share similar lifestyles or views (in fact, their views of life and the meaning of life were VERY different)
2. Am not condoning the lifestyles of the people on the right side or calling into question the integrity of the people on the left side.

I merely want to provide some comic relief and some "Hmmm.." for the readers of this blog.

Top left -> John Bunyan
Top right -> David Crosby

Middle left -> B.B. Warfield
Middle right -> Jerry Garcia

Bottom left -> John Calvin
Bottom right -> Cat Stevens (interestingly, he converted to Islam later in life)









They kind of look like each other (with strong emphasis on KIND OF). By the grace of God, however, the people on the left column had a more solid foundation and a worldview that was able to provide them with TRUE peace. This, however does not change the fact that the people on the right were also created in God's image and also have displayed vast amounts of creativity, skill, etc.

Related Tags: facial hair, reformers, hippies, theologians, long hair, hair, humor