Dr. Hudson T. Armerding, former President of Wheaton College, relates a memorable chapel incident from his memoir Leadership (1978):

In the late 1960s we saw changes on campus, not only in attitude but also in the appearance of some of our students. I then held (and still hold) some convictions about men having long hair. I believe it is appropriate and biblically unjustified. Out student personnel staff urged, however, that we permit a degree of liberty in this matter. We had some young men on campus whose hair was longer than I thought it should have been. They also began to dress in a manner more like the counter-culture. And I despised the counter-culture because to me it represented unpatriotic draft-resisters, flag-burners and such like. When I read of their acts as they rioted and demonstrated, my blood pressure rose because I remembered fighting for the country they despised. Though I had fought for all citizens to have the liberty to disagree, I resented the way the counter-culture went about disagreeing.

One day I was scheduled to speak in chapel. Just before the service, we gathered for prayer to ask the Lord’s blessing. As we were about to pray, in walked a young man who had a beard and long hair, was wearing a sash around his waist, and had sandals on. As I looked at him, I was sorry he had come in. Worse yet, he sat down right beside me. When we went to prayer, I did not enter into the praying with a very good attitude. Then the young man began to pray, and his prayer went something like this: “Dear Lord, you know how much I admire Dr. Armerding, how I appreciate his walk with you. I am grateful for what a man of God he is, and how he loves you and loves your people. Lord, bless him today. Give him liberty in the Holy Spirit and make him a real blessing to all of us in the student body. Help us to have open hearts to hear what he has to say, and may we just do what you want us to do.”

As I walked down the steps to go into the chapel, the Lord spoke to me about my attitude. After giving my message, I asked the young man to come to the platform. Later I learned that one of the students turned to another and remarked that I was probably about to dismiss the young man from school as an example to the rest of the students. Thus everyone, including the young man, was surprised when I put my arms around him and embraced him as a brother in Christ. That broke up the chapel service. Students stood and applauded; they cried and embraced each other. The reaction was unprecedented, and under God, seemed to change the mood on campus to one of greater love and acceptance of one another.