Soon after 9-11, my oldest came home and prayed for the Muslims because “They make their ladies cover-up their heads.” I’m not sure where he got this, but people were turning all Muslims into caricatures of chaotic evil. It is interesting that this most grievous thing was given to my six-year-old as a prayer-worthy concern.
I first wrote about questioning my pastor regarding head coverings in my post Uncovered, and lately I realize that there have been very few pastors I haven’t asked multiple questions or wanted to dialogue “Why is (this) so?” In that instance, he didn’t know. And I don’t think he really cared. I mean, it applied to a different gender, culture and time than he did. Neither did it affect his authority to operate in the church.
Recently, I found great pleasure reading the book Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Marginalized and Vilified Women of the Bible, edited by Sandra Glahn. It was so beneficial (to me) to clarify the context of several Bible stories—and it’s the same reason I’m also enjoying Paul and Gender—Reclaiming the Apostle’s Vision for Men and Women of the Church by Cynthia Long Westfall. I’ve only just started it, and like Vindicating the Vixens, the first chapter is bringing me a completely different world-view/paradigm/cultural lens to Paul.
A fiction author I love once wrote a character to say she had no problem with Jesus. It was Paul she didn’t like. My feelings bordered on mutual—but I’ve been pressing into trusting that God is good. So, if a thing isn’t good—either it isn’t from God, or it’s misunderstood. So I ask, seek, knock, clarify. Lately, that’s manifested as reading Paul and Gender and switching my Bible app to track scripture through “the life of Paul.” So I can press in for the good about his writings.
I already knew Paul’s command in 1 Corinthians 11 to keep a woman’s head covered was more about protection and equality for the first century church than keeping a modern woman subservient in a display of culturally irrelevant, historic modesty.
Still, my head covering ignorance and a western context of systemic power disparity and exclusion made the passage difficult to digest. America’s lens was refined by beliefs like “all women are born that they may acknowledge themselves as inferior in consequence to the superiority of the male sex,” from John Calvin. So of course we looked at 1 Corinthians and said, yeah—Paul wants the women’s heads covered as a symbol of male authority. Men don’t need it since they’re directly under God… See that Calvin quote, and more, compiled by a blog I follow here.
So as we chew on the meat and spit out the gristle from our Western Schism church fathers, I love how Paul and Gender paints a more wholistic backdrop. Here, I hope to lay some of it out and evoke a metaphor of my own*. This is just one take on the passage, and I think people will study it more and more—now that women can officially open a bank account. I have to remember that only happened the year I was born. This is only the first generation of people entering seminary with an inherent interest instead of “Not my gender… doesn’t affect me.”
Our American belief is that a woman would never want to cover her head. In the breathtaking book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, the heroine receives a hijab. (My heart swells just thinking of that story.) Her initial reaction is that she feels treasured and protected. This was my first inkling of a different take on head coverings.
Let’s set the scene of the church in Corinth. Paul and Gender said “A woman of Corinth” was a euphemism for a prostitute.
From other reading, I’ve also understood that the setting is a time and culture where men can penetrate anyone they conquer or are in charge of—and it isn’t considered rape, homosexuality or adultery. It was culturally benign for them, like a spayed or neutered humpy dog. Merely a socially acceptable display of power.
And how do they know if a particular woman is off-limits? Her hair is hidden. A veil is the signal defining which women are protected and which are sexually at risk in this city where men with money and power can dominate anyone. If this conjures #MeToo and Epstein Island…the difference is: it isn’t socially acceptable. It doesn’t sit well with us.
Additionally, the veil maintains social class order. From the women’s perspectives, it’s hierarchy showing who has value. This woman is worthy and protected. This one is lesser, usable, discardable. For sale. We know social oppression was going on because the Corinthian church was jealous and quarreling with each other. Paul suggested they were doing more harm than good when they gathered because one would be drunk and another would go hungry during the Lord’s Supper. Paul and Gender said the law forbid a slave or a prostitute from covering her hair. So imagine the social oppression of a woman who had “no right” to cover up. “Who does she think she is?”
With head-coverings, a certain kind of man can scan a room and immediately see which woman he could have, and who is off-limits. Incidentally, modern men who are terrified of androgynous and transgender clothing still make me think of the certain type of person who wants to walk into a room and quickly ascertain who he could potentially dominate. I think it makes them uncomfortable not to know who they can fight or sleep with immediately.
Ok, still building the stage. Now take the cultural example of human (not chicken) breasts. In some places in the world, a woman’s exposed breasts aren’t immodest. But use our Western sensibilities and imagine a topless (topfree) photo in a magazine or behind a paywall—a picture of a woman’s breasts makes her “available.” You can see her nakedness so you can consider having her, imagine having her, or pretend.
Take that into a house church. They’re using the language of fictive kinship, calling each other brother and sister. And, at home, mom and sis take their veils off. And some guy thinks, “I’m curious what so-and-so’s wife looks like uncovered. After all, we’re, ahem, family.”
Let’s have all the ladies take off their veils!
Now, sister, stand before the congregation. Not a bare-chested home church in Indonesia at the turn of the 19th century, but a gathering in America. You’re about to deliver a message from God, to speak and to prophesy to the congregation. But first, they want you to take off your shirt. Since many of the Corinthians believers are “lower status,” the ex (or current) sex slave you’re sitting next too—I’ve seen her naked. And you’re my family. I should see you. Now stand straight and give the message with uncovered areola and nipple.
Just let that visceral feeling you have land and settle for a minute. It might give you a bit of empathy for the forced unveiling of a Muslim woman or a first century Corinth lady.
Modesty is cultural. If the woman has never had her hair exposed, it drapes her in a sexually vulnerable, naked sensation (and possibly position, depending on the crowd.) In Corinth, it would have felt shameful to some women. As shameful as having her head shaved—the punishment for infidelity and promiscuity. Shame is a particularly difficult emotion in that it is so isolating. Flowing hair would have been highly arousing to some listeners. I imagine some brothers in the church wouldn’t even hear your message if you stood bare-chested before them—even though boobies are available to see anytime, online. (I guess for some it wouldn’t even matter if you’re covered up. They still know you have ’em and they’ll look right through your shirt!)
Now, a slave girl whose entire life has been exposed and marked by her availability, low class and low worth, stands before the crowd and speaks to a congregation. A group which possibly includes her owners. In any other context, they are her social superiors and her uncovered head is the blatant visual reminder.
Paul’s directive is “all you all” women wear veils.
Equality in the church. Protection in the church.
Paul said something different to Timothy regarding the women of Ephesus who ostentatiously flaunted wealth and status. He told them to show appropriate situational propriety in their adornments like braided hair. But to Corinth, he addresses their specific issue and says, “Here, in the gathering of believers, no one is low class. No one is unprotected. No one is sexually available. Listen to her words and don’t look at her like that, Corinthians.”
Additionally, there’s a contrast with the directive that the men should not cover their head. Paul and Gender suggests that a man of high status would want to be invisible when in a posture of supplication. It was the cultural norm for him to cover that up. Paul says, rather, males are to be vulnerable, with their “spiritual transformation is on display.”
A man’s uncovered head doesn’t bring up sexuality to the imagination of the hearers, it lowers him from his elevated status to equal, to fellow believer. “Exchange a covering of pride for exposed humility, all you men who could dominate anyone.” This would have been as jarring as some of the other things Paul said to them, such as, “You are all the bride of Christ.”
But here’s an even lovelier thing about this letter from Paul! He gives it to the Corinthian church as a non-contentious individual church decision. Because the other churches aren’t dealing with it. Verse 16.
Paul wants the church to learn to discern and make decisions because it will one day judge the world and angels.
Paul and Gender, page 35 says, “Women and men were supposed to be learning to exercise good judgment in ordinary matters in preparation for future responsibilities. Therefore, if women were (correctly) refusing to submit to suggestions or directions to not veil or to remove their veils, the Corinthian Church needed to be convinced that women should be allowed to use their own judgment or follow their own convictions in this matter.”
How can I not love Paul for this?
Westfall also asserts that the veil is a demonstration of her choice, her authority over herself. She writes, “However, as the subject of the sentence, the nominative woman is the subject of the infinitive, the one who has authority.”
It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels (NIV)
So the Corinthian head covered is a symbol of her own authority over her own head as she stands before God and the heavenly realm. This is why (counter-culturally) Paul tells a lowly slave girl to illegally wear a veil when she prophesies over the congregation in the privacy of a house church.
This unmarried girl is not veiled to signify the authority of men. She is elevated to equal status to the rest of the congregation before the Lord. Because God uses the things this world despises to shame the powerful. And she gets to make her own choice if she wants to display her hair when she edifies, strengthens, encourages, comforts and instructs the people**.
Diving into scripture like this reveals God’s intentions regarding our interdependence and treatment of each other—not to split hairs over hair scarves and cleavage. When a woman enters the four walls of your church building with more or less covering indicative of the life and culture she lives—remember:
Don’t look at her that way. Listen to her words.
*Thoughts from Paul and Gender are mingled with my own. So if there is something incorrect or irritating—assume it is me and not the book or the author.
**I was raised in a congregation and spent time in churches that believed in Cessation. Looking back now, I wonder if the doctrine has a purpose to maintain control from the top down, with the added benefit of avoiding a text which refers to women instructing men. I cannot find a compelling reason to believe in the cessation of (some) gifts, because prophecy (specifically) is the only gift that shows up in every list I can find regarding spiritual gifts. And, we’re warned to not suppress it. See 1 Corinthians 12:7-11, 27-30, Romans 12:6-8 & Ephesians 4:11-13. Keep reading the first letter to Corinthians to see details about how prophecy should look.1 Corinthians 14
Vs 3 the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort
Vs 5 so that the church may be edified
Vs 22 it’s for believers
Vs 24-25 it’s for unbelievers to be convicted of sin, their hearts and secrets laid bare, it incites worship
Vs 29 two or three should do it taking turns, it should be weighed for truth
Vs 31 says prophecy is for instruction and encouragement, and all should have a turnYou’ll notice, a few verses later, Paul says women should be silent in church. Which contradicts Chapter 11 if you think Paul tells all women to prophesy and all women to be silent in the same letter. I assume Paul and Gender will cover this, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. The explanation I’ve previously heard is that verse 34 & 35 had to do with women who’d never previously sat in a learning environment or studied spiritual things. They were randomly interrupting the service, calling out questions across the room. He tells them to wait and go home to ask their husbands instead of being disruptive. If you get too fixated on the inerrant letter of your translation—you would think only married women get to ask clarifying questions and single women have to wonder about God until they have a husband. All of chapter 14 chapter is about removing disruptions and creating order while using tounges and prophecy, so this makes more sense than women being told not to speak unless they are prophesying, but men can interrupt willy-nilly.
