The Not At All Controversial Issue of Head Coverings

Some Preliminaries

Since you can’t see me, typing away at this here article, it might help if I paint a picture for you. My tongue is firmly lodged in my cheek. Of course, my title is facetious. But I would like to take a few moments of your time, for which I am grateful, and put down some of my thoughts on the not at all controversial issue of head coverings.

Let me begin with a few preliminaries. I don’t want to broaden the issue, as the Anabaptists do by insisting that head coverings are to be required of a woman all the time. That is not my concern. My concern would be with the renaissance of the practice within Reformed circles. Those who encourage this practice, to their credit, confine the practice to public worship. The primary passage of Scripture which this debate revolves around, deals with public prayer and worship. It is striking that 1 Corinthians 11, the central text in question, goes from the issue of women needing to be covered to instructions for the Lord’s Supper. This helps us confine the issue to whether women are required by Scripture to cover their heads in public worship. I think that solving that narrow question answers the broader question of whether a woman should wear a perpetual covering. I am aiming to be deliberately narrow in my scope.

That’s regards the scope, now for the spirit. There are, in my mind, four basic approaches to this issue: affirmation out of conviction, affirmation out of corruption, denial out of corruption, and denial out of conviction. In other words, we are not dealing with a simple affirmation and denial spectrum, we also have a Y-axis of conviction and corruption. The human heart is crafty and we should remember that we can make ourselves look obedient while actually being disobedient. You may deny this position because you’ve been cool-shamed by modern culture. You may affirm it because you can’t grow a beard and you think all the theobros might look down on you so you make your wife wear a head-covering in order to increase your patriarchal bona fides. Such ungodly reasons, on both sides, are a real detriment to those on both sides who are sincerely aiming to obey Scripture as faithfully as possible.

Now for the last of my preliminaries. You’ve perhaps heard it said that for the Christian there are no problem passages. This means we should be unapologetic for what Scripture teaches. Along with this, we should freely admit, even as the Apostle Peter did, that sometimes in Scripture there “are some things hard to understand.” So, what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 we are bound to believe, and then obey. But we should approach the application of this text with a warm charity towards our fellow saints, so that we do not become the divisive and self-absorbed gluttons of the very next passage (1 Cor. 11:17-22).

Heads All Topsy Turvy 

Now, let’s look at the passage.

Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

Paul praises the Corinthians for remembering his prior teaching and keeping the ordinances as he had delivered them. He will use a very similar phrase when he moves on to rebuke their twisting of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:23). But in bringing up head coverings he is addressing something he had not taught them previously (1 Cor. 5:9), but which had clearly become a point of confusion or compromise for them. He now takes the opportunity to address it. He grounds this issue in that of headship. Christ stands as the new head of mankind. In a similar manner, the man stands as the head of the woman (both in the singular). The last clause (the head of Christ is God) might take us off into trinitarian questions, but I follow Calvin in noting that Christ as mediator is inferior to the Father (Cf. Phil. 2:6). What we are grounded in, in this whole passage, is the propriety of our place in the cosmos. This is particularly important when discussing public prayer and worship as we see in the following passage:

Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

It is reprehensible for a man to pray while his head is covered. By covering his head he dishonors his head (Christ). But for a woman to pray or prophesy with head uncovered she dishonors her head (the husband). This all is akin to head-shaving. A woman who refuses to cover her head with her glory, which is her hair, might as well shave her head entirely. This is an instance of Pauline hyperbolic rhetoric. For example, in Galatians Paul says that he desires that the pro-circumcisers, since they are so enthusiastic about circumcision, just go ahead and emasculate themselves. Paul argues here that if a woman does not want to be covered with her long hair let her get rid of her hair entirely. I realize I’m jumping ahead a bit, but to put my cards on the table I do take the covering spoken of here as being long and kempt hair. More on that later.

For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. 

It is vital to point out here that Paul is not saying that women are not the image of God. For one thing, the Greek phrase here (image and glory) is a different phrase than we find in the LXX of Genesis 1:26 (image and likeness). For a man to adopt a feminine glory (covering and/or long hair) is to abandon his duty to display the image and glory of God. As man in his position under Christ displays the image and glory of Christ, so too a wife displays the image and glory of her husband. Paul grounds this in the creation narrative. Eve came from Adam’s side and to be his helper, not vice versa.

Because of the Angels

For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.

The most cryptic line in this whole passage is, if understood rightly, a key which helps unlock the whole passage. A woman is to have “power on her head because of the angels.” This verse has fueled a whole cottage industry of outlandish perspectives on what this verse means, the weirdest one being that the angels might get a bit randy when they see women with uncovered heads. Such a notion is not worthy of serious consideration. If you hold to it your hard drives need to be confiscated. Remember the full context of this whole section: men and women praying and prophesying. In Christ, men and women are restored to their exalted role of dominion. As such, women are vicegerents of this new creation. The prayers of the saints are effectual; while the old creation was under the governance of angels, the angels are now employed in service to a Risen and Ascended Man. Therefore, the woman, in Christ, has authority in prayer and angels become servants of the prayers of the saints. Remember that eventually, we will sit in judgment upon the angels (1 Cor. 6:3). As the Old Covenant was passing away, the world to come (i.e. the New Creation which would be inaugurated in Christ’s coming in judgement on Jerusalem) would not be put under the authority of the angels but under Christ, and therefore man in Christ (Heb. 2:5-8).

Thus, a woman ought to not think of her place in the hierarchy as the lowest on the totem pole. She is not the head, but she is not the tail either. A woman’s prayers, to put a bit of a fine point on it, boss angels around. So if she refuses to wear long hair, and insists on being masculine in her appearance, rebelling against the natural ordering of the cosmos (as described earlier) she confounds the angels whom she is to exercise authority over. She has power (exousia) on her head. In Christ, woman is an authority, and angels must say, “Yes ma’am.” Far from subjugating women, the Gospel restores man and woman to their role as rulers of all creation. Angels are made subject unto Christ, and therefore are now cosmologically below women in the cosmological order of things. This is certainly mysterious and a bit beyond our depth to understand at present, but that is where things are headed. We shall judge the angels, after all.

A Bit About Bacchus

Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering. But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.

As I set out to write this, one argument began to commend itself to me. I take Paul’s instructions here to prohibit men from covering their heads to be an allusion to a practice of the cult of Bacchus, wherein men would place ivy laurels upon their head. These ivy coverings were deliberately intended to blur the lines between masculine and feminine. The god of wine invited the throwing off of all restraint, and embrace rebellion against order. Remember Paul’s warning a few chapters later for the worship of the church to be decent and in order. This would be a stark contrast to practices of the mystery cults, like the followers of Bacchus. 

Further, the maenads of Bacchus are well known for their disheveled appearance. Their hair was “loosed”. Corinthian women are depicted in artwork and literature as having their hair “done up”. Paul has dealt with the issue of meat sacrificed to idols (1 Cor. 8:1-13). After this passage he rebukes drunkenness and revelry at the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:17-34), and he will pump the brakes on ecstatic expressionism in the worship of the church (1 Cor 12-14). Both drunkenness and gibberish speech were common attributes of the frenzied rites of the Bacchus cult.

The Bacchus cult was present in Corinth as evidenced by the 2nd century “Mosaic of Bacchus in Corinth.” There he is portrayed with an ivy laurel, which can easily be seen as an artificial way for a short-haired man to have long-hair. The androgyny of the Bacchus cult is a feature and not an irrelevant detail.

Thus, as Paul argues, a woman’s long hair is a glory (11:16). This long hair is her covering. For a man to wear an artificial “wig” is to abandon his masculinity and therefore insult the ascent of Christ, the God-man, to His rightful cosmological place. For a woman to dishevel her hair, as if she were one of Bacchus’ frenzied maenads is to descend into shame and she might as well shave her head like Jewish law required of adulterous women. Paul invites the Corinthians to “judge whether it is comely” for a woman to pray with “uncovered/loosed/disheveled” hair. Our gut (nature) tells us this is icky, and it really is. The Medusa-vibe is inappropriate for the pews.

Paul’s last statement, about “having no such custom” seems to indicate that while various “hairstyles” might differ from city to city, the principle is that men must avoid effeminacy and woman must avoid dishevelment. And all of this is the case because we are made new creatures in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:17).

Some Conclusions

So then, I believe that godly women should nicely fix their long hair; this is particularly true when it comes to our corporate and public worship. This is the covering referenced in the passage. This is a woman’s sign of her submission to God, to Christ, to her husband; but it is also a sign of her present and eventual authority over cherubim and seraphim. Likewise, men should not be girly. A present day instance of this temptation would be young men who paint their fingernails. They may not be gay, but this practice is certainly gay, and is most certainly inappropriate for man to come before God with such a distorted view of masculine and feminine glories.

If you are “pro-head coverings” and are unpersuaded by my arguments here, fair enough. But I would counsel that you run a diagnostic on why you are adopting the practice of head covering. Is it merely to own the feminists? Is the husband really leading his wife well, or is the head covering actually covering other insecurities? If a woman wears a head covering on Sunday, but “wears the pants” at home you have proven that you have not embraced the cosmological order which Paul is actually arguing for in this passage. Nevertheless, if you come to the conviction that 1 Corinthians 11 is requiring a head covering other than long hair, my counsel is to talk with your pastor and elders about it before putting it into practice. Again, Paul’s line about “no such custom” seems to indicate some level of needing to take this issue case by case, or perhaps culture to culture.

Lastly, we live in an androgynous age that takes a perverse delight in emasculating the masculine and defiling the feminine. Our worship services should be a clear exhibition of masculine men and feminine wives. The men should stand tall, the women should be graceful. The men should sing bass and tenor, the women should sing alto and soprano. Men should offer each other firm handshakes, the women should greet each other with joyful hugs. The crisp suits and ties of the men should be contrasted with the flowy dresses of the women (and my wife informs me the dresses are even better if they have pockets). We are the redeemed of the Lord. We are the new creation of God. We are male and female in Christ, and it should be easy to tell the difference between the sexes. Our public worship really is potent, and thus if we get this right in the courts of Jehovah on Sunday, it will be a lot easier to spot sexual glory and shame on Tuesdays.