Holy Magic Hair – Heresy Exposed

Divine Protection in Hair? – by Sheree Newman

Posted on 13. Oct, 2008 by admin in HMH Articles

The following is an excerpt written by Sheree Newman, ESQ from a 3 part book review she authored for the now defunct FaithChildForum, owned by the late Jim Yohe.

The review article is entitled – “Holiness, Hair and Barbie Dolls -Power Before The Throne” – Part #3.

The original article in its entirety can be found here.

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For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels (1 Cor 11:10).

This verse has as many interpretations as there are scholars. It is also a puzzle within a puzzle since it presents two issues that have left most baffled.

1. Why did Paul use the word “exousia” for authority on her head if he meant she was under subjection?

2. What has this got to do with angels?

Rieder Finds Promise of Divine Intervention in this Verse

Rieder’s teaching answers both these questions in surprising ways. However, I cannot agree with the conclusions she has reached.

Nevertheless, this is a key verse in Rieder’s teaching. She attributes special angelic protection to women and their families; whose long uncut hair is supposedly a covering for God’s glory.

Rieder gleans this idea from the fact that angels, coverings and God’s glory are all mentioned in this passage and the only other time we see these words together is at ark of the covenant. She reasons that satan was originally a covering cherub and lost his place. Thus she adduces that “God in his amazing and poetic nature delegated Lucifer’s lost estate to woman.”

I do not have the time nor energy to wade through Rieder’s thoughts about Lucifer’s fall and God’s subsequent decision (in the NT) to establish women’s hair as a covering for His glory. Instead, I will limit my comments to the conclusion she draws.

Rieder writes “Herein lies a fantastic promise of protection not only for the woman but also for her family. Ezekiel 10 with all its mystery surely indicates that wherever the glory was, the cherubim were as well.”

She continues in the same chapter “Your uncut hair brings protection to your entire family.” Rieder then goes on to relate a story of a woman who was trimming her long hair. “She opened her home to the invasion of the enemy because of her disobedience.”

What woman who has read this book would forget that this woman’s husband subsequently fell into adultery? Rieder connected the woman’s cut hair status to the husband’s moral failure.
She continued with more antidotal evidence of near-tragedies and divine intervention; presumably based on the wife or even mother (of a grown adult child) whose uncut hair brought about divine protection and deliverance.

Conversely, she implores her readers “I admonish you; please, before you ever consider putting scissors to your hair, ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ and ‘how will this affect my family?’ Do you dare forfeit divine protection for the sake of vanity?”

I wish Rieder were right. I wish life was as simple as not cutting one’s hair so that one could live happily ever after; fully understanding that no harm was ever going to come to their families. But I am old enough to know better…

Bad stuff happens to good people every day of the year. It is an immature Christian belief to think that one’s walk with God means that there will be no heartache and suffering in this life. God never promised to keep us nor our families from all harm, but rather to go with us through thick and thin. Jesus said that the rain falls on both the just and the unjust.

Additionally, we can’t always understand how or why God chooses to intervene sometimes and not others. His ways are above our ways; but we can always trust him….

John the Baptist recognized who Jesus was, saw the dove from Heaven and heard God’s voice; but he nevertheless began to doubt himself as he sat confined to prison; likely aware of his impending death. He sent his disciples to Jesus to inquire if Jesus really was the one. Jesus understood the question for what it was.

Jesus answered that they should tell John the things that they had seen and heard (which were fulfillment of Scripture). “[H]ow that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached” (Luke 7:22).
Yet Jesus continued on to make another statement because he understood the question that was at the heart of John’s inquiry. After all, John had done all that he was suppose to do and yet he found himself in dire circumstances. John had carefully and reverently worshipped God all his life and yet he was now bound in a dark, damp, cold dungeon. Where was God really? Somehow

John didn’t think it was suppose to end like this…

Jesus answered “Blessed are they that are not offended in me” (Luke 7:23). In other words John; understand that my purpose is greater than anything you will go through. A life without pain does not mean that one is in the perfect will of God.

Likewise, Paul suffered greatly as he worked in the Kingdom of God. He wrote that he was in prison many times, beaten by the Jews, stoned, and shipwrecked. He had been in perils of water, robbers, his own countrymen, by the heathen, in the city, in the wilderness, in the sea and among false brethren. He had been in pain, hungry, cold and naked (2 Cor 11:23-27). Additionally, we know that Paul had a thorn in his flesh that God would not remove (1 Cor 12:5-9).

Yet, in what was to be his final epistle, Paul wrote to his son in the gospel; lovingly summing up the substance of his own life, “For the which cause I also suffer these things, nevertheless, I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to that which I have committed unto him against that day” (2 Tim 1:12).

And didn’t God use Paul magnificently? No saints. We are not here on earth to be spared life’s hurt, but rather to reach the lost, to bind the broken hearted, to set the captive free…

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Sheree’ Newman and her husband reside in the Midwest. They are both 3rd generation Apostolics raising the 4th generation in a radically changing world.

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