Oh no, a bit I have trouble agreeing with. Sorry, this may go on a bit. It’s Sunday morning too, all the time in the world…
Paul is still in Dolly Doctor mode I guess, answering questions from readers, and this one is about how they’d rather not make women cover their heads in church.
Paul is strongly in favour and throws every reason he can think of at it. I’ll offer counter arguments as I list his.
He makes an argument from nature, men go bald and women tend not to I suppose. It’s a visual differentiator. Long haired men and short haired women is just wrong. A female style head covering complements this natural differentiation.
Counter: Paul didn’t live in the 1960s. Men had long hair and women had crops, and the sky didn’t fall. Plenty of biblical men had long hair. Samson! Growing it was associated with vows of holiness and separation for God. Cutting it, women included, was a sign of mourning. Paul could have grabbed those quotes if he wanted to argue the other way. It’s all relative.
He makes an aesthetic argument, long hair is a woman’s glory. Counter: same as above.
A creation argument: woman was made from man, but God made man directly, so man can show his head directly to God, but woman was created two steps away from God, so needs to cover.
Counter: Paul makes it himself in verse 12 – “For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.” All our creation stories start in the womb of a woman. She is our first image of God. Jesus, the new Adam, came from a woman without man having a role. Should Jesus have covered his head while praying? There are even two creation stories, in the first one man and woman are created directly “in God’s image”. Take your pick!
He makes a theological argument, just as God is the head of Jesus, so man is the head of the woman. The dreaded male headship.
Counter: John 1:1-3 is one of the clearest explanations of how Jesus and God the father relate. If that relationship is the template of “headship”, let’s substitute man and woman:
“In the beginning was the Woman, and the Woman was with the Man, and the Woman was the Man. Woman was with Man in the beginning. Through Woman all things were made; without Woman nothing was made that has been made…”
That’s fairly silly, ok, but you get the drift that using God and Jesus as models for the “head” relationship doesn’t inevitably lead to a theology of no sermons by women, yeah? Paul talks about being a metaphorical head of a relationship in the context of covering literal heads, so he’s perhaps trying to make some sort of word play. What, if anything, he meant “headship” to include outside of not covering your head is not clear here. And the volumes of conflicting stuff written about it surely supports that conclusion.
Paul makes an angel argument, that failure to cover heads upsets angels.
Counter: the consensus of the commentators is that we can only guess what this is about.
The upshot is that modern churches seem happy to forget the angel bit, the aesthetic bit, even the actual bit about covering your hair, which is the point of the whole passage, and clearly was what Paul himself was passionate about.
But, our church at least, makes an absolute meal of the headship bit, which is only one of multiple reasons Paul throws at the head covering issue.
Rant ended. So what do I think, if anything, is God actually telling me in this chapter?
If we accept that women’s head covering is a serving suggestion only, perhaps it’s about church branding. Not only to outsiders, but for insiders. A visible way of saying that faith is important, it makes a difference.
I grew up with the concept of “Sunday best” We clean up, we put on clothes that aren’t shabby, not play clothes, because we are doing something communal, disciplined and serious. Not playing.
The Salvos have their uniforms for Sunday, and for social good work, which has been very effective branding, and even bypassed the gender issue, but is hopelessly antiquated today. It’s hard to come up with something new.
The Muslim women who run my company mostly wear hijabs. I must admit, though I initially have a cringe reaction at the subservient look the hijab gives the women, as I go on I find it does also mean I relate to them as their personalities more than their gender in a weird way too. But I think it’s better still if men respect women no matter how they choose to dress.
I don’t wear Sunday best any more. But I would still expect women, and men, who were leading a service to think about clothes and what they say. I dress a bit more thoughtfully if I’m playing music.
There’s a cheeky Instagram “preachers and sneakers” that has fun listing the outrageous prices of the casual looking footwear worn by prominent American pastors. Being obsessed with expensive shoe brands is not a good look!
I looked up a survey of Australian attitudes to the church… The question was “does religion make a positive contribution to society?” The response was roughly in thirds: yes, no, and slightly more than a third, 35%, neutral.
To me that 35%, many of whom may have even had some childhood experience of church but found it irrelevant, calls for us to have more impact.
For Paul, writing to this young church, is about being consistent with the ‘branding’ of the larger whole. He talks about how all the churches do the same, so pleading with them not to be contentious about it.
Maybe that’s why the laundry list of reasons, some of which are rather weak. Because he’s trying to convince rather than command.
Christ’s church has to be a solace, a loving place, a place to get your shit together and start living a disciplined and careful life, not selfish, hurtful and self-indulgent. We need to signal that to each other, so we don’t all sink to the lowest common denominator, and to the world.
That idea runs through the other issue in this chapter, unholy holy communions where the poor members of the church starved while they watched the richer members eat lovely suppers they bought for themselves. Again, not a good look!
No answers, but I will think about this.
I saw a forgotten item on my to do list the other day, which was to get some aboriginal visual element into our church, where we have an active aboriginal ministry. You wouldn’t know it to look at it! It’s like being in a village church in England! These things matter!
I’ll ask for help at Message Stick church tonight. That might kick start it.
“Branding” in a positive way. This is serious, this is different, this is holy.
inheriting the earth 