page_title: Beard
section_title: LDS Church
hierarchical_section_title: Beard / In religion / Christianity / LDS Church
caption_attribution_description: Brigham Young
context_page_description: A beard is the hair that grows on the chin, upper lip, cheeks and neck of humans and some non-human animals. In humans, usually only pubescent or adult males are able to grow beards. Some women with hirsutism, a hormonal condition of excessive hairiness, may develop a beard.
  Throughout the course of history, societal attitudes toward male beards have varied widely depending on factors such as prevailing cultural-religious traditions and the current era's fashion trends. Some religions have considered a full beard to be absolutely essential for all males able to grow one and mandate it as part of their official dogma. Other cultures, even while not officially mandating it, view a beard as central to a man's virility, exemplifying such virtues as wisdom, strength, sexual prowess and high social status. In cultures where facial hair is uncommon, beards may be associated with poor hygiene or an uncivilized, dangerous demeanor. In countries with colder climates, beards help protect the wearer's face from the elements.
context_section_description: Since the mid-twentieth century, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) has encouraged men to be clean-shaven, particularly those that serve in ecclesiastical leadership positions. The church's encouragement of men's shaving has no theological basis, but stems from the general waning of facial hair's popularity in Western society during the twentieth century and its association with the hippie and drug culture aspects of the counterculture of the 1960s, and has not been a permanent rule.
  After Joseph Smith, many of the early presidents of the LDS Church, such as Brigham Young and Lorenzo Snow, wore large beards. Since David O. McKay became church president in 1951, most LDS Church leaders have been clean-shaven. The church maintains no formal policy on facial hair for its general membership. However, formal prohibitions against facial hair are currently enforced for young men providing two-year missionary service. Students and staff of the church-sponsored higher education institutions, such as Brigham Young University (BYU), are required to adhere to the Church Educational System Honor Code, which states in part: "Men are expected to be clean-shaven; beards are not acceptable", although male BYU students are permitted to wear a neatly groomed moustache. A beard exemption is granted for "serious skin conditions", and for approved theatrical performances, but until 2015 no exemption was given for any other reason, including religious convictions. In January 2015, BYU clarified that students who want a beard for religious reasons, like Muslims or Sikhs, may be granted permission after applying for an exemption.
  BYU students led a campaign to loosen the beard restrictions in 2014, but it had the opposite effect at Church Educational System schools: some who had previously been granted beard exemptions were found no longer to qualify, and for a brief period the LDS Business College required students with a registered exemption to wear a "beard badge", which was likened to a "badge of shame". Some students also join in with shaming their fellow beard-wearing students, even those with registered exemptions.
caption: Many early LDS Church leaders (such as Brigham Young, pictured) wore beards.
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