On covering one’s hair, and why many Christians don’t bother.
1 Corinthians 11.3-16
I was asked to say a little something about this controversial passage, so what the heck.
I’ve gone to Protestant churches all my life. Visited Catholic and Orthodox churches too. In most of the churches I’ve visited, American Christians utterly ignore this passage. Our women don’t cover their heads.
Now yeah, there are parts of the bible which the bulk of Christians figure no longer apply to us. Like the curses upon humanity, Ge 3.16-19 which we figure Jesus undid. Or the commands about ritual cleanliness and sacrifice, which we figure Jesus rendered redundant. Or all the commands in the Law, which we figure Jesus nullified—which is absolutely not what he said. Mt 5.17 In general, Christians tend to assume Old Testament commands (except maybe 10) are out, and New Testament instructions are in.
Yet this is totally New Testament. Comes right before the apostles’ instructions on how to do holy communion. Those instructions we totally follow. But not the head-covering bit. Why not?
I’ll jump to the punchline right now: Because it’s cultural.
In the ancient middle east, men had shoulder-length hair, and women had floor-length hair. Women didn’t cut their hair; they let it grow. If you remember the stories where women cleaned Jesus’s feet with their hair, they didn’t have to bow their heads all that much for their hair to reach his feet. Their hair was plenty long enough.
Custom was for them to cover it with headscarf of some sort. Not burkas, but the custom of covering up did originate from the apostles’ particular part of the middle east. Go further east and it evolved into burkas. Go west and it became hats.
Originally these veils had practical purposes: Kept one’s hair clean. Kept it from getting snagged or pulled. Over time it became a modesty thing: Women who uncovered their hair would get the same reaction as if they uncovered their breasts—then and now. You can see why the women who cleaned Jesus’s feet with their hair got such a startled response.
So that’s how things were in the first-century middle east. But in the rest of the Roman Empire, women didn’t bother to grow their hair as long, nor cover it. They’d walk around with their heads exposed—startling middle easterners. Much like it startles westerners when we encounter a tribe where people don’t bother with clothes, or otherwise have very different standards of modesty.
For Paul and Sosthenes, their attitude about veils reflects the middle eastern standard of modesty. But to their minds, this wasn’t just a middle eastern standard. It was a universal standard. God himself had meant for women to cover up.
Hence this passage, where they try to defend the idea.
- 1 Corinthians 11.3-16 KWL
- 3 I want you all to know Christ is the head of every man,
- the man the head of his woman, and God the head of Christ.
- 4 Any man praying or prophesying against his head, disgraces his head.
- 5 Any woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled, disgraces her head.
- One may as well shave her: 6 If a woman isn’t veiled, cut her hair short.
- And if it’s disgraceful for a woman to cut her hair short or be shaved, then be veiled!
- 7 A man isn’t obligated to cover his head—being God’s image and glory.
- But a woman is her man’s glory, 8 for man isn’t out of woman, but woman out of man—
- 9 for the first man wasn’t created through the woman, but woman through the man.
- 10 This is why the woman’s obligated to exercise power over her head—because of the angels.
- 11 Still, neither a woman with no man, nor a man with no woman, in the Master:
- 12 Just as woman came out of man, likewise the man comes from woman. And all out of God.
- 13 Judge for yourselves: Is it appropriate for an unveiled woman to pray to God?
- 14 Doesn’t nature itself teach us when a man has long hair, it dishonors him?
- 15 —and when a woman has long hair, it’s to her glory? That hair gives her a covering?
- 16 If anyone wishes to debate this…
- well we just don’t have such a custom. Not in God’s churches.
Why’s this a controversial passage? Simple. All those Christians who ignore it, no matter what they claim to believe about the bible and its authority, demonstrate in practice what they really think: They get to pick and choose which parts of the bible they consider universal standards, and they haven’t chosen this one. Because uncovered heads don’t offend them. Now, homosexuality might totally offend them, so they’ll preach against it on the regular. Veils? Despite the clear and obvious teaching of the apostles? Meh.
Some of ’em will come right out and say it, and some of ’em will avoid ever saying it for fear it undermines everything else they teach about scripture, inspiration, and literal interpretation. Yet their practices expose all: Contrary to Paul and Sosthenes, they figure head-covering isn’t a universal, eternal, God-decreed standard. It’s merely the apostles’ personal cultural hangup. So it can be dismissed in the present day. Otherwise they’d have serious qualms about flouting this instruction—and they totally don’t.
This isn’t the only situation where they treat the scriptures as if it’s all relative. It’s just the most obvious. Use it as a litmus test if you like. I do.
