That Languid Soccer Player Way

“Before the discussion gets sidetracked on the basis of caricature, lett us grant that the arbiter of long and short ought not to be a particularly strict dorm monitor at a fundamentalist Bible college. Paul says short, not ‘less than a quarter inch, with pink sidewalls around the ears.’ He says long, not ‘over a foot and a half.’ Long and short are relative, comparative terms. A short walk could be five hundred yards, and a long drive could be three thousand miles, but if they are comparative terms, what do they compare to? The obvious answer is that they compare to one another . . .  Just as Christian women ought not to wear jewelry in an ostentatious way because they are following the apostolic rule, so also modern Christian women ought not to cut their hair like a boy. And men must not wear their hair long, in that languid soccer-player way that makes other men start looking for the garden shears” (Why Ministers Must be Men, p. 27).