Paul Among The People--1 Corinthians 11:5-6

Day 8

I feel a little silly reflecting on women and their head coverings during worship (or more accurately their lack of head coverings) the morning after an assassination attempt on President Trump.

What’s important?  What’s not important?

Maybe everything is important and it's all metaphysically connected?

Maybe nothing is important?  (Nihilism)

But probably, and this is no great realization, the next 3 ½ months until the 2024 presidential election are going to be crazy and more historically significant than we can imagine.

And none of us will have a decent grip on what’s happening, except through our veils of limited understanding and experience.

Most of us were horrified and angered by the assassination attempt, others were sorry the gunman missed (and I find myself increasingly unable to live comfortably around these people because in a lot of ways, President Trump, while as imperfect and as flawed as any of us, is a stand-in for ME in society’s cultural and spiritual war and if they want him dead then its likely they want ME dead too).

That’s kind of how modern day folks perceive Paul’s words on women’s headcoverings–through a veil of limited understanding and experience.

Part of Sarah Ruden’s tour of Paul’s perceived noxiously chauvinistic Scripture verses in Paul Among The People:  The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time  is on women and head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:

1 Corinthians 11:5-6  5 But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for it is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. 6 For if a woman does not cover her head, have her also cut her hair off; however, if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, have her cover her head.

Where does Paul get off telling women how they should dress in church?  That’s just a red flag for scorn and derision to most modern day readers.

Again, according to Ruden, context matters.

Ruden describes the importance of the head covering or veil:

“The veil held great symbolism:  It reminded everyone that all freeborn women, women with families to protect them, were supposed to enter adulthood already married, and that they were supposed to stay chastely married or else chastely widowed until the end of their lives.  The veil was the flag of female virtue, status, and security.”

Basically, only the “good” women could wear head coverings in public.  An uncovered head, especially during worship, was a sign of immodesty and lack of respect for authority.

Ruden continues:

“At the very least, there must have been among the Christians, women with pasts.  Would not bareheadedness, the lack of a “symbol of authority” on their heads, have galled them?  They were entitled to be there–but the norms of the time said that they had to be there in the outfits of degraded, vulnerable beings.”

For a woman to be bareheaded in public and particularly at church was to signify her vulnerability–her moral blemishes.

For a woman NOT to wear a veil was to show she wasn’t married, wasn’t protected, or had a past that precluded her from both.

Lack of a head cover was also perceived as wantonness.

Rongxi Wu writes in The Veil in Classical Antiquity::

“The woman who removed her veil while praying and prophesying dishonors herself and her man in the sense that she fails to protect her sexuality, which was affiliated to one man; she crosses the social boundaries between men and women.” 

I think most women today would be shocked to know that not wearing a head cover was associated with seducing men away from their higher relationship with the Lord.

The women of Corinth, much to Paul’s dismay, concluded that head coverings were anachronistic and no longer needed since ALL were equal, supposedly in status under the eyes of Christ.

April Hoelke describes the women of Corinth in Exposed Heads and Exposed Motives::

“Going without the covering also shames the woman's metaphorical head because the act is self-centered. It is both a display of self-promotion and a visual disassociation with the men in the congregation. The women may believe that the new order in Christ means they do not have to wear head coverings, since the coverings emphasize a human connection and possibly subordination. Instead, like the men, the women believe they can worship uncovered as a sign of equality, no longer needing a garment that acknowledges the men in their midst. It seems that the women have become preoccupied with their equal status and personal honor, however, and are treating the men dismissively, as if they have no connection to the men. Inasmuch as going uncovered feeds the women’s preoccupation with their own status and encourages them to treat the men this way, it is unacceptable to Paul.” 

So Paul’s letter and section on head coverings was particularly galling to the women of Corinth–especially the women who were married and had standing in the community.

Ruden writes:

“I think Paul’s rule aimed toward an outrageous equality.  All Christian women were to cover their heads in church, without distinction of beauty, wealth, respectability–or of privilege so great as to allow toying with traditional appearances.” 

Paul’s solution was to have EVERY woman wear a head cover, thus suggesting that EVERY woman is equal in chasteness, purity, respectability, (based on the cultural context of the time) and capable of untainted devotion to Christ and the church.

Is it wrong today to NOT wear a head covering?

Women aren’t chattel today like in Paul’s time so demarking which ones were married, respectable, and had families with head covers in public isn’t part of our American culture.

A woman who wears a head covering in church today signifies, I think, her reverence for and submission to God’s will and her connection with Jesus Christ AND her husband. 

All of us signify who we are and what we believe every day in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Reflecting on head coverings is sort of silly, considering the times, (and what happened yesterday), but if wearing one signifies a deeper connection to Christ and the church, maybe I should wear one too.  🙂

Lord, we seek to understand the deeper principles of respect, humility and equality that Paul’s verses signify.

Lord, help us to respect one another and to uphold practices that honor You and foster the spirit of reverence and love.

Amen.