Why We Don't Teach Women's Head-Coverings

This topic came up in conversation recently, so I thought I would address it here.  Paul taught the Christian women of Corinth to wear head-coverings. Why don't I teach the same thing to Christian women living here in the Bluegrass? It has to do with the explicit  presence of cultural factors in Paul's reasons.

In 1st Corinthians 11, Paul begins by naming several timeless truths. Jesus Christ is in authority over every Christian man. God placed men (in general) in leadership over women (in general). This male-leadership principle is based on a literal reading of Genesis 3. "Head" here does not mean source (one of the possible meanings of the word kephale ), since God is not the source of Christ. The feminist interpretation of kephale as "source" here involves an implicit Arianism.

Now, there are some Biblical nuances to take into account. For example, Christ is not the head over every man without exception. The New Testament calls Christ the "Head" over the body of Christ only. So we find there is an exception to the principle of Christ's headship.

A second exception is that male headship is not over all women. Other men are not paternal overseers of my daughter. Other males are not spousal overseers of my wife (they'd better not try). Every man everywhere is not authoritatively "over" every woman everywhere. I am not authoritatively "over" the woman teller at my bank, for example. 

Next, Paul says that Christian men who pray or prophesy with their head covered (such as with a yamulke) dishonor their head, and Christian women who pray or prophesy with their head uncovered also dishonor their head (11:4-5).  Did Paul mean that a Christian wife who prays with an uncovered head dishonors her husband (who is her head) or does she dishnor herself, with the word "head" serving as a metonym for "herself"? I think it was the first -- the Christian woman who didn't wear a head-covering while praying symbolically disrespected her husband. But this implied that the head-covering rule only applied to married women. 

now Paul begins to introduce subjective and cultural factors. 

Paul asks, is it shameful for a woman to have short hair? Nothing in the Bible says that it is shameful for a woman to have short hair. But in Corinth it would indeed have been shameful, since the women who had short, uncovered hair were often loose women. Historians have said that a woman with a bare head in Corinth was saying she was "available." In 11:6, Paul's principle is social respectability.

Secondly, Paul says that angels are watching.  11:10. Angels watch our behavior, in every nation, through every generation. God's angels have seen a lot of Christian behavior that was inappropriate and unseemly in one time and place. But that doesn't prove the behavior was inappropriate or unseemly in another time and place. For example, consider this guide to travel in Morocco:

"Clothes are particularly important: many Moroccans, especially in rural areas, may be offended by clothes that do not fully cover parts of the body considered “private”, including both legs and shoulders, especially for women. It is true that in cities Moroccan women wear short-sleeved tops and knee-length skirts (and may suffer more harassment as a result), and men may wear sleeveless T-shirts and above-the-knee shorts. However, the Muslim idea of “modest dress” (such as would be acceptable in a mosque, for example) requires women to be covered from wrist to ankle, and men from over the shoulder to below the knee. In rural areas at least, it is a good idea to follow these codes, and definitely a bad idea for women to wear shorts or skirts above the knee, or for members of either sex to wear sleeveless T-shirts or very short shorts. Even ordinary T-shirts may be regarded as underwear, particularly in rural mountain areas. The best guide is to note how Moroccans dress locally."  https://www.roughguides.com/destinations/africa/morocco/culture-etiquette/

But these Moroccan rules aren't followed in other places. So, the fact that angels watch us doesn't, in itself, mandate a particular action.

Thirdly, Paul asks is it "proper"for women to pray to God with an uncovered head?  11:13.  His thought is propriety.

Fourthly, he says that "nature" says that long hair is glorious to a woman. 11:14. This was a general observation about how most human beings respond to a woman with long, attractive hair. So this third line of thought was not Scripture, but a generalization from common experience.

And fifthly, he says it is the "custom" for Christian women to wear head-coverings in all the churches. 11:16. This was what everybody did. However, the churches all existed within the empire, which was a unifying setting.

So, Paul's five reasons for Christian women wearing a head-covering were: respect in light of the creation order and gender purpose, angelic witness, propriety, common observations drawn from nature, and widespread custom. Of these five, only one is from the Bible. The remaining four were based in the social setting in which the first was applied.  

This is where I believe timeless truth meets human culture. The Bible did not otherwise teach that God-fearing women had to wear head-coverings. There is no teaching about this in the Old testament. Moses' Law never mentions it. Jesus Christ never mentions it. But, a head-covering said to other people of the time that you were a God-fearing woman who respected God and her husband. That's why Paul wanted these Christian women to wear them.  

Paul uses this same sort of approach in 1 Corinthians 8 when he talks about eating meat dedicated to idols. He builds on timeless truths (there is but one God, idolatry is a grave sin), but incorporates circumstantial social factors (does your host think you are compromising? Will it wound your conscience? Will it negatively influence a weaker brother?). 

How shall a Christian woman live out her respect for God and her husband in a given society? In that time, loose women wore short hair and no head-covering. God-fearing women wore some sort of a head-covering, at least in public prayer. This visibly expressed their respect for God and their spouse.  Even today, certain hair styles communicate certain cues. I recall a story told about Moody Bible Institute many years ago having to amend its short-hair-for-men rule. When long (ish) hair symbolized teenage rebellion -- think the Sixties and Seventies -- Moody required short hair on the male students. But times changed, and in Chicago it came to pass that very short hair on guys became emblematic of homosexuals! So Moody changed its hair-length policy.

Wedding rings are also a cultural symbol of marriage. Nothing in the Bible requires that we wear wedding rings. It is a purely cultural symbol. However, a man who knowingly removes his wedding-ring when he's on a business trip violates his vow, even if nothing immoral happens.

A saleswoman who removes her ring while she's on the job, or turns it around to hide the diamond because she finds she attracts more male customers this way, also violates the spirit of her vows. This would be a way to apply the same timeless truths, but in Western societies where women are not expected to wear head-coverings.

I am not just waving a magic "it's all cultural" wand over this passage, to make the practice of head-coverings go away. We see that there is explicit evidence in the passage for seeing head-covering as a culturally-modified practice that expressed timeless principles. We are not just snapping our fingers at a Scripture rule.

The timeless truths of who Christian men and women are in Christ, and toward one another in marriage, never change. But how we live out those timeless truths in a specific community, in many little ways, do change. If some Corinthian Christian women were publicly parading their "liberation", and giving themselves, the church, and the faith a bad name, then Paul wanted that to stop. In fact, there are many places in the world today (like Islamic countries) where a Christian female missionary should still wear some sort of head-covering, if they want to be regarded as a respectable woman. 

1 Corinthians 11:1-16 translates timeless truths into a specific culture. God is the head (not source) of Jesus Christ, Christ is the head of Christian men, a Christian husband is the head of his Christian wife. at that time, a Christian woman wearing a head-covering in the public service was the respectable way of symbolically embodying those principles. 

However, I take this view because there is explicit evidence in the passage that shows how Paul factored in local, cultural, and non-binding ingredients into his direction. This differs from 1st timothy 2:11-14, where those ingredients aren't present.