Head Coverings: The Traditional View

Here is the second post in our summer blog series….

The Traditional view regarding the head coverings passage of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 actually has a lot of parts to it. This blog series is not an exhaustive study, as there are bulky doctoral dissertations and commentaries that explore this passage in-depth. But here in this Veracity blog series, we will try to hit the highlights in bite-size pieces.

Everything about head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11 (well, maybe not “everything,” but we try to hit the highlights here at Veracity)

A Traditional, Verse-by-Verse Analysis of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16

This first “bite” will give you something to chew on, but it will set you up to better appreciate different perspectives in later “bites.” Let us first review the passage in question, highlighting the phrases that stand out for the Traditional view (from the ESV translation):

2 Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. 3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. 4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, 5 but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. 6 For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. 7 For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. 8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; 12 for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. 13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, 15 but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. 16 If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.

After Paul commends the Corinthians for being faithful in upholding the teachings that he had passed onto them (verse 2), Paul lays out the theological principle he wants the Corinthians to uphold in verse 3:

• Christ is the head of every man
• The man is head of a woman (or husband is head of his wife)
• God is the head of Christ

There are a few issues to note in verse 3. First, the word for “man” and “woman” can easily be translated alternatively as “husband” and “wife.” For that reason, most interpreters conclude that this theological principle is grounded in creation, as taught within the first few chapters of Genesis, which teaches primarily about the basis for human marriage, between a man (husband) and a woman (wife).¹

Secondly, notice that the relationships Paul specifies are not in a linear order. It may look like the order is God-Christ-Man-Woman, which designates a hierarchy, and many Traditionalists do see it that way. The Mike Winger video, featured in the first blog post in this series, roughly follows this thinking (though he is not as rigid about it as other Traditionalists are).

But by starting off with Christ, and by inserting the man-woman relationship prior to the God-Christ relation, it would appear to some that Paul is deliberately scrambling things to avoid the idea of a purely top-down, chain-of-command style org chart, so to speak. As a result, there are those who challenge the Traditional view who reject the notion of a strict hierarchy being taught by Paul here.

It is also significant to note that Paul is specifically speaking of “Christ” and not the language of the “Son.” For if this was about the Father being the head of the Son, it might give the misleading impression that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father. Rather, by speaking of “Christ,” this gives us the clue that Paul has in mind the Son’s incarnate ministry through Jesus of Nazareth, where the Son temporarily and voluntarily has given up his co-equal status with the Father to enter into our humanity.²

Third, there is an ongoing discussion as to the meaning of the word “head” (kephale, in the Greek).  Some say that “head” here denotes a notion of authority, of the husband being in authority over the wife, like being the “head of an army.” Others say that “head” denotes a notion of source, as in Adam is the source for Eve, like the “head of a river,” which does not carry a sense of authority. However, a growing consensus among scholars suggests a meaning that lands somewhere in the middle between the two extremes just mentioned, as in a notion of preeminence, as in like being at the “head of a line.”  In other words, this is not some top-down, military-style chain of command, but nor is it just a sense of being the source of something else. How commentators understand the context of the rest of the passage largely determines what this idea of “male headship” is all about.

For the Traditional view, the understanding of “head” as some sense of authority is the dominant assumption, while others who still lean towards the Traditional view understand “head” more in the sense of “preeminence” (or “prominence”), with less emphasis on authority.³

Amish women at the beach in 2006, heads dutifully covered. (Photo: Pasteur/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Digging Deeper Into Paul’s Argument in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, from a Traditional View

Once again, we can review the first few verses of this passage, which set up Paul’s discussion:

2 Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. 3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

The rest of the passage is about the application of this theological principle, using a series of four arguments to reinforce Paul’s teaching:

• The order of the home (Woven through in verses 4-12)
• The order of creation (First found in verse 3, but restated more thoroughly in verses 7-12)
• The order of nature (Verses 13-15)
• The order of church custom (Verse 16)

The concept of honor and shame stands out concerning this issue of head coverings. Verse 4 warns that praying/prophesying for men with their head uncovered brings shame on him, dishonoring his head, who is Christ. Likewise in verse 5, when a woman prays and/or prophesies without a head covering, this brings shame on her, and dishonors her husband. Note that the head coverings practice applies to corporate worship gatherings. Nothing is said about other contexts outside of Christians worshipping God together.

4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, 5 but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.

It is important to acknowledge right from the start that the Traditional view recognizes that Paul believes that women should be free to prophecy and pray in the worship service. The only restriction here has something to do with head coverings. What is not so clear is if the teaching is applicable to all women or only to married women. The Greek word for woman, gune, could mean any woman, but it could also mean wife. Some translations opt for “woman,” while others opt for “wife.” Other Bible translations mix these translations of gune throughout the passage, based on what is perceived to be the specific context. Traditionalists might disagree on this, but since any woman can become a wife, if not one already, it is generally thought that Paul’s directive applies to all women. and not just to the specifically married ones. Nevertheless, the teaching here is thought to be grounded in the order of the home.

If you have ever wondered why some Christian groups adopt the practice of women wearing head coverings during a worship service, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is where they get this from. Of course, this naturally raises the question of how cultural custom relates to a divine command found in Scripture. Advocates of the Traditional practice of continuing to wear head coverings say that the argument from creation which Paul brings to bear makes this a transcendent directive, and therefore a non-culturally limited practice.

However, other Traditionalist interpreters suggest that there is a difference between the principle of creation that Paul sets forward in verse 3 and the application of that principle from verse 4 onwards. In other words, the principle is that men and women are different, as male and female are created in the image of God. Gender is not a social construct. But the specific way a culture honors the difference between male and female changes from culture to culture.

The Traditional view advocates who consider the practice of head coverings as a cultural custom, and not a universalizing command, propose that when Christians gather together for worship, they should do so in a manner that honors the difference between male and female which makes sense within that particular culture. For example, clothing styles change from culture to culture, but in nearly every culture you can detect different ways men and women dress. Head coverings themselves are not the point. Rather, it is the principle behind the head coverings that is ultimately important. To fail to respect the difference between male and female, in a culturally appropriate way is to bring shame instead of honor to one another, and ultimately to God. We will return to the question of culture later, but let us examine more closely how the theological principle is worked out within most Traditionalist viewpoints:

One can see how Paul works this out when you look at verse 6. Paul is saying:

6 For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head.

In the Traditional view, Paul is acknowledging that the Corinthians already believe that women should not cut their hair too short, or shave their heads, for the Corinthians already knew that such behavior was disgraceful for women. Nothing in Paul’s writing prescribes any exact length of hair. This apparently is left up to the discretion of the reader.

Paul’s “Hey, you already know this about the length of hair, so apply the same thing to head coverings” argument sounds really weird to us because we do not live in the same culture as first century Greco-Romans and Jews. Yet setting the application question to the side for now, the assumption here is that Paul is dealing with a situation of rebellion among at least some of the Corinthian women, who were disregarding appropriate dress when gathering together for Christian worship.

Paul then reinforces his argument with a more explicit reference to the order of creation in verses 7-10. Woman came from man, and not the other way around. Therefore, having women wear head coverings and men not wear them is a symbolic way of showing that Christians believe the Bible when it teaches about the creation of man and woman: Adam was created first, and then Eve came from Adam.

7 For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. 8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.

Advocates of the Traditional view say that verse 9 is often neglected by egalitarians, for in it Paul is offering an interpretation of Genesis, explaining the purpose for why God created Adam and Eve as he did: Man was not created for woman, but woman was created for man. There is an asymmetry in the relationship between male and female in verse 9 that rubs up against the modern sentiment of today’s secular culture. However, there is some egalitarian pushback to be brought up in future blog posts in this series.⁴

Advocates of the Traditional view generally stumble over what to do with verse 10.

10 That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

The thing about the “angels” just freaks a lot of readers out, making a weird Bible passage sound even weirder, so we will skip this for now until we cover the “Supernatural Sexual Modesty View” in a future blog post in this series.

The Traditional view goes on to say that verses 11 and 12 teach that from creation we know that man and woman are not independent from one another. Verse 11 introduces Paul’s idea with a cautionary “however,” to emphasize that the idea of male headship can be easily abused to suggest that the man, or the husband, is the “be all” and “end all” of the male-female relationship. Instead, Paul is balancing out what was stated in the earlier verses in order to show that man and woman need one another, and so the elevation of man can easily lead to the devaluing of women, and Paul warns against such an elevation of the male that would minimize the female.

Paul wants to emphasize that both male and female are equally important and valuable to God, so the principle of order with respect male and female should not be misused to diminish in any way the value or worth of women. In fact, the opposite is true, in that Paul wants the feminine to be honored and treasured by showing that both male and female are interdependent with one other.

11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; 12 for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.

Verses 13 to 15 illustrates Paul’s final argument, in that nature itself illustrates the order between male and female, such that women are to wear longer hair than men. Even in ancient times, Paul’s readers in Corinth would have known, like we know today, that men are more prone to baldness than women, and that women’s hair naturally grows longer than men’s hair. Sure, you can always find exceptions, but Paul is speaking from what happens most often, as opposed to focusing on anomalies.

13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, 15 but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.

The last verse in this passage is interpreted to suggest that Christians should not be arguing about these things:

16 If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.

Most advocates of the Traditional view follow the above logic, but then generally begin to diverge when it comes to application. Does this mean that Paul is teaching that women should wear head coverings, in an absolute sense, for all times and all places? In Western, more secularized countries, like the United States, this pure head covering view is the counter-cultural rarity. You can still find this practice in certain Christian traditions, such as some branches of the Mennonites and the Amish. There is even a resurgent “Head Covering” movement in some churches, and among some individuals and families who attend more megachurch-style evangelical churches (see videos below).⁵

But the cloth hair covering practice largely goes against the Protestant evangelical norm in America today. A lot of historians point to the divergence in practice starting around the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. Up through the 1960s, it was standard practice in many churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant, for women to wear some sort of head covering when attending a worship service. Only in 1983 did the Roman Catholic Church remove the head covering as a requirement for attending Mass for women, though if a woman wants to wear a veil, she is permitted to do so.

A Roman Catholic mass in 1968. Note that only the ladies have their heads covered. (Photo: Mrjgardiner/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Some Traditionalists are quick to point out that the decline of Christianity in Western culture is almost in lockstep with the decline of head coverings for Christian women in the West (among other cultural changes). Those inclined to accept this reasoning would say that the reason why head coverings seem so weird to us in the 21st century is that for several generations we have forgotten Paul’s teachings in 1 Corinthians. Whether you agree or not with that cultural analysis, it is worth thinking about.

Our last blog post in this series will address the question of head coverings being a culturally limited practice or not in more detail. But for now, the point of agreement among all Traditionalists is that 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is teaching us that there is a way that men and women are to appear distinct from one another, when we gather together to worship God, and that some type of cloth head covering has served for centuries as a culturally relevant expression of a theological principle: men and women are created in the image of God, and therefore God is honored when men and women gather together in the name of Jesus, and live out that distinction between genders.

If you find yourself still scratching your head about this after reading this blog post, rest assured that you are not alone. While the Traditional view is very much “traditional,” for some this viewpoint just raises more questions. This will explain why other viewpoints have arisen which all challenge the Traditional view to some degree.

In the next blog post in this series, we will address what might be called the Hyper-Conservative view of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. It has grown increasingly popular in certain circles within the evangelical church in recent decades, so it is worth taking a fair look at what is being taught from the Hyper-Conservative perspective.

Until next time!

Notes:

^{1. Chapter 4 of Kevin DeYoung’s Men and Women in the Church contains a succinct exposition of the most common Traditional view regarding 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, starting at p. 42. For a Veracity review of Kevin’s book, see this blog post from last year.  For a lighter approach to the passage from a somewhat more moderate, Traditional view, I would recommend Andrew Wilson’s 1 Corinthians for You: Thrilling You With How Grace Changes Lives, starting at Kindle location 1642. Wilson writes at Kindle location 1682:}

 ^↩

^{2. At this point Tom Schreiner argues against Wayne Grudem’s case for the Eternal Subordination of the Son, in which Grudem draws largely upon this passage for support of his view. Tom Schreiner’s commentary on 1 Corinthians also helps to answer Andrew Bartlett’s question in his Men and Women in Christ (p. 176), “Where in verses 4–16 does Paul write about the authority of God over Christ?” While the text is not explicit, it is not entirely silent. Schreiner says (p. 301): “The reference to the Messiah points to Jesus’ earthly ministry, to the incarnation, and not to his eternal sonship as the second person of the Trinity.” While a distinction between headship as authority versus preeminence could be still made here, the text is not without consistent logic. Lucy Peppiatt rejects the traditional view of headship as authority, as this would suggest that God the Father has ontological authority over God the Son, drawing on her understanding of John Chrysostom’s teachings that such an interpretation that “head” in this passage must have a different sense in each relation, in order to avoid a heterodox view of the Trinity. See Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women, p. 72. (A Veracity book review of Lucy Peppiatt’s work is linked here). But Schreiner’s careful understanding that Paul used the term “Christ” to speak of the Son, and not “Son,” avoids the necessity of trying to come up with different definitions of “head” within this single passage. ↩}

^{3. For a more extended treatment of the terminology of “head,” please see earlier Veracity blog posts which dig into the broader discussion as to what the Greek word kephale means, which is often translated as “head” in most English Bibles (Kevin DeYoung’s approach;  Lucy Peppiatt’s approach;  Andrew Bartlett’s approach), Graham Beyond and Jane Tooher’s approach). Also, see Tom Schreiner, 1 Corinthians Tyndale New Testament Commentary, p. 296. Schreiner identifies certain passages, such as Colossians 2:19, kephale probably means “source”: ” .…and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” For where kephale probably means “authority”, as in Colossians 1:18: “And he [Christ] is the head of the body, the church….  ” Other scholars, like David Garland, suggest a more middle view, that of “pre-eminent” or “foremost” for kephale.  See this summary of Wayne Grudem’s work.  Also, see an egalitarian response to Grudem, by Ian Paul.  The literature is vast. The dispute continues to rage and divide evangelicalism’s finest scholars. ↩}

^{4. See Andrew Bartlett’s excellent discussion of kephale starting on page 87 of his Men and Women in Christ.  Bartlett’s discussion of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 begins on page 168. ↩}

^{5. In Protestant evangelicalism, there is a resurgent interest in the practice of wearing head coverings. See the Head Covering Movement website for more details.  There is even a “Head Covering Movement” YouTube channel. Below is an introductory video covering why some (but not all!) Traditionalist interpreters of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 advocate the wearing of head coverings for women (and NOT for men). After that is a video with testimony of a Christian woman explaining why she practices wearing a head covering.  ↩}