The Glory of Submission

A Brief Take On Head Coverings

Introduction
Women wearing head coverings in church seems to be making a bit of a comeback. And some of my friends are part of the resurgence, and I’m quite sure that a whole bunch of it is driven by an honest repudiation of every vestige of feminism (and good riddance), and a sincere desire to recover a truly biblically-obedient patriarchy. On which principles, we whole-heartily agree. However, on the question of whether the Bible requires women to wear shawls or some sort of hat or veil in church on Sundays, I believe that wide-spread ancient custom was a pious tradition that is permissible but not required by Scripture in the New Covenant. 

All of Scripture
As always, we must take all of Scripture into account, and one of the rules of interpreting Scripture is interpreting the less clear passages in light of the clearer passages. Of particular interest is the fact that the Bible clearly teaches that women ought to be silent in church (not teaching or leading the service) and adorn their hair modestly: “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (1 Tim. 2:11-12). Clearly, women are not to teach or preach or “share” or lead men in worship, and this would have been a very easy place to remind the women to make sure that their hair was covered by a shawl or veil. And that would certainly have put a major damper on braided hair and ostentatious gold flakes or pearls woven into the hair. But that was not mentioned. The clear command is modesty, especially with the hair (which apparently everyone can see), and not leading or teaching or having authority over men in church. 

The one passage that can certainly seem like it may be requiring head coverings in worship is 1 Corinthians 11. But before landing there, one more clear text from later in the same letter: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law” (1 Cor. 14:34). So once again, the clear instruction (from the law) is for women to remain quiet, and I take this together with the passage from 1 Timothy 2, to mean that they are not to lead out loud, upfront. Women may pray and sing with the whole congregation, but they may not speak out since they are to be in submission to their own husbands and fathers and the male leadership of the church. 

Honoring Headship
This brings us to 1 Corinthians 11, and we should note that Paul defines his terms at the beginning rather carefully: “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” (1 Cor. 11:3). So, the primary “head” that Paul is says he is talking about is what we would call “headship” – the office of “covenant head.”

Then, as he turns to discuss covering or uncovering “heads,” he begins with the man: “Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head” (1 Cor. 11:4). Except, in this first instance, it doesn’t actually use the word “cover.” The Greek simply says “having against (or down) head.” It is a reasonable translation given what follows, to suggest that he means “cover,” as in, “having something on his head,” but it’s also striking that having defined his terms so carefully (“head” means “covenant headship”), that he initially uses a phrase that suggests being in some way opposed to or against your head (and not the same word “cover” used elsewhere in the text).

The question is: in the next verse when Paul describes a woman praying or prophesying “with an uncovered head” is he now suddenly talking about a woman praying or prophesying without a veil or shawl? If so, that’s a bit of a lurch, since to this point, “head” means “headship/submission.” Given the rest of Scripture regarding how women are supposed to be quiet in worship and not taking on leadership roles, I believe the most straightforward reading of this verse is that Paul is saying that any woman who leads in prayer and prophesying (or teaching or preaching) in public worship is doing so “against” her head and therefore without a “covering,” and that is dishonoring and shameful, just as shameful as if she had her head shaved. In other words, the central driving point is not whether there is fabric covering a woman’s head; the central driving point is whether women are worshipping as women under their heads (husbands/fathers/pastors). Are they honoring that creational and redemptive order or are they defying it or going against it by speaking out in worship? 

Sometimes it is suggested that with the outpouring of charismatic gifts in the first century, it was likely that many women were speaking out in tongues and prophesying in the Christian worship services, and perhaps some were *trying* to do that, and I believe Paul is correcting that misconception. Just because a woman may have a charismatic gift (and some certainly did, cf. Acts 21:9), doesn’t mean she may overturn the natural order. She is still to remain silent in worship as the law says (1 Cor. 14:34). It’s possible that the original custom was for a prophetess to cover her head with a literal shawl or veil while prophesying outside of worship to underline the fact that she was not attempting to act like a man or usurp the authority of her head. Perhaps that pious tradition was imitated by other women and spread into the church as a sign of modesty and submission. 

An obvious question would be: but then why does a man dishonor his “head” if his head is covered? Well, again, it doesn’t initially say that. Our English translations make it sound like verse 4 and 5 are the same words but they aren’t. A man dishonors his head if he prays “against his head,” if he prays or prophesies “being insubordinate” to his head. This is what Paul means by “uncovered.” He means insubordinate, rebellious, and rejecting God’s creational and redemptive order. This is why he presses this point: if a woman is being insubordinate, trying to take the role of a man, especially in worship, she ought to shave her head so her hairstyle matches her actions. She’s acting butch, so she ought to get a butch haircut. Which of course, many modern women have done, but it’s still shameful. But if you realize that a woman with a shaved head is shameful, then she ought to be “covered.” She ought to cheerfully acknowledge and be submissive to the male authorities in her life and not take on a leadership role in the church. 

Because of the Angels
Now at this point, Paul begins playing with this imagery, pointing out that a man’s head is Christ and the image and glory of God (1 Cor. 11:3, 7), and therefore a man should not “cover his head,” and here, Paul finally uses the same wording for the man, and I take that to mean that a man ought not to act or dress like a woman in worship. This prohibits all effeminacy in church, especially breathy male worship leaders. But Paul is also moving into describe the differences in the creation of man and woman and yet their mutuality or mutual dependence. Man was not created from the woman, but the woman was made from the man and for the man, and for that reason, she ought to have “authority (or power) on her head because of the angels.” 

Side note: I’ve sometimes said that perhaps we ought to more commonly explain things this way. Why do I park my car that way? Because of the angels. 

But seriously, why the angels? At least two reasons. One reason is that in worship, we really do come into the heavenly presence of God and all of the angels (Heb. 12). Angels are God’s holy ministers that guard and uphold the laws of nature and providence. And so we honor their ministry to us and for us, when we honor the order of nature. When women worship as women, in submission to the men God has placed over them, they honor the authority and power that God has established in the world. 

The second reason is because in the New Covenant, Christ has ascended far above the angels, “being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they” (Heb. 1:4ff). After the Fall, Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden and were under the angels, as symbolized by the cherubim that guarded the entrance back into the Garden, and the cherubim engraved over the Ark of the covenant and woven into the veil of the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle and temple. And the Bible says that the law was given by angels (Acts 7:53, Gal. 3:19). So in Christ, we have been raised into the heavenly places, and seated with Him above all principality and power, above the angels. Both men and women share in this great glory, but we still share in it as men and women, male and female. Therefore, when a woman joyfully accepts her glory as a woman and the authority over her, that is a picture of the curse of the Fall being removed and is even a testimony of the gospel to the angels. Alternatively, but related, Jason Garwood suggests that this is a reference to Christians judging the angels (cf. 1 Cor. 6:3). 

No doubt in the first century there were proto-feminists who thought that since both men and women shared equally in the inheritance in Christ, that meant that women could pray and prophesy and preach and lead worship just like men. Which incidentally, is still what many claim today: if a woman has the “gifting” why shouldn’t she use it? Paul says, yes, we have the same inheritance in Christ and many similar spiritual gifts for mutual edification (there is no distinction of male or female in forgiveness and eternal life), but the distinctions between men and women are still important, still part of the created order and are still to be honored even in redemption, even in the church and worship. And Paul appeals to nature and custom to underline this point: it just isn’t proper/appropriate for a woman to lead in worship like a man, in the same way that it’s unnatural for a man to have long hair or for a woman to have very short hair like a man. But God has given a natural sign of a woman’s glory in her long hair. For a woman to have longer hair is a glory for her and it is given to her for her natural covering (1 Cor. 11:15). And here, Paul suddenly uses a new word for “covering” – it is her mantle, her garment, her veil – something literally that is thrown around you, like a royal robe. 

Conclusion 
Putting all of this together, it is understandable why it appears to have been customary in many places and many times for women to wear a hat or scarf or handkerchief or shawl in worship: to picture or signify the true “covering” of submissive glory. And so long as it is done in true modesty of heart and submission, it is a perfectly fine tradition. But it is not required by the law of God. What is required is a submissive heart and a quiet, joyful submission to the order of nature which persists even in redemption. 

In seems to me that in some ways an insistence on a shawl or veil is a sort of mild Judaizing, a sort of ceremonial law imposed in the New Testament. For example, in the Old Covenant, priests were required to wear literal head coverings when they went into the Holy Place (Lev. 10:6). And that seems to have represented the veil that separated God and man (because of the angels), but now in Christ, we all with “unveiled faces” behold the glory of God (2 Cor. 3). Men and women both approach with unveiled faces (and heads) in that ceremonial sense because Christ has torn the veil in two. To require an extra veil or symbol of submission beyond long hair seems like a subtle return to the ceremonial symbols and shadows of the Old Covenant. 

But – and running back around the other side – this doesn’t mean that our male/female differences evaporate, and that is why God has given women longer hair to symbolize in a modest but glorious way that they are the glory of man. 

[For more, and variations on all of this, see Lusk and Wedgeworth, and for a very different approach, which was stimulating but ultimately not convincing to me, see Garwood.]

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash