@jander I recently came across this comment again while on the search for something else. Your raw honesty still encourages me.
With all that you and @tbbayly have said, would an accurate summary be that, amongst all the other things to address in your church, you don’t see that the end result is worth the pain of getting there?
Oh, you just had to go and bring this up, huh? Are you trying to get me stoned? 
In short, my soul hates this topic, and I also can’t get it out of my conscience. In the years since writing this, I have only grown to be more convinced that our refusal to reform on head coverings is a stronghold of our sexual rebellion in the church.
Since you prize raw honesty, here’s my dramatically-stated hypothesis. Despite all the strides being made to recover manhood and womanhood in the church, this issue will remain the fortified city of Jerusalem, still held by the Jebusites long after the days of Joshua, waiting for a David and a Joab to rise up and finally take it (1 Chronicles 11:4-9). Then once it is taken, the church will later come to recognize that it was something of a capital city all along. In that day we shall look back and wonder why we let this bastion remain lost to us for so long. Unless this fortress be taken, no matter how close we get to recovery of biblical anthropology, we will always fall short of full victory. The hermeneutic that won’t attack this stronghold is the hermeneutic that allows the Canaanites (feminism) to remain in the land (the church).
Until we’re willing to apply the same hermeneutic to 1 Cor. 11:2-16 as we do to 1 Tim. 2:11-15, our arguments stop short of a full effort, and to anyone paying close enough attention, our true allegiances are exposed.
I still believe the exegesis is plain. The cost is just way too high. (EDIT: I’ll add that even among those who agree close enough on the exegesis, the application then becomes something to disagree on)
And the cost would have to be paid in more ways than just making some women mad. The whole premise of the headcovering would have a regulating effect on how corporate worship is approached. It would by nature demand that corporate worship take on a more reverent, subdued, sober tone. It would be incompatible with the modern rock concert paradigm, and the casual pastor in skinny jeans sitting up there with a bar table and his iPad and a cup of coffee.
It would be incompatible with tough guy, ballcap-wearing Mark Driscoll-type church, where even though there’s a lot of soundness to what’s stated from the pulpit, the whole thing is still wrapped in up as an internet brand-building production, with an androgenous consumerism feel.
I think also of Millicent Sedra. What an anomaly we have there. Here’s a young woman “pastor” who seems – all things considered – refreshingly sound in the faith, traveling the world with her pastor husband to preach against feminism. She is emerging as a champion of biblical anthropology on the one hand, while living in opposition to it on the other. But all of that would change if church life got serious.
Suffice to say, I think all of modern church life and thought is built in such a way that is wholly incompatible to the doctrine of head coverings. And since we can’t contend against ourselves exegetically, we assuage our consciences by saying things like, “Well, it’s just a symbol. We can have the substance without the symbol.”
Oh yeah? Well, God commands the waters of baptism. He commands the Lord’s table. He commands that men lift up holy hands and pray. He commands that we greet one another with a holy kiss. God has the right to command us to do external things to demonstrate an internal substance, and he gives us those external things to ensure that we don’t lose the substance.
When it comes to headcoverings, we all know the truth. We we didn’t abandon the external symbol because of developments in exegesis. It was abandoned because we hate the substance. And there is no room in modern thought to bring it back.
It takes a David and a Joab. And some real Deborahs. Not wannabes.
Lots to agree with there, though certain disagreements, too. Thank you for your continued honesty. You outline what is haplening today very clearly, but do I detect that you are being tempted by, as the kids say, a black pill?
I fully agree that head covering is necessary to stop the sexual rebellion in the Church and to recover and advance the biblical doctrine of Man. But we need details. How will it do that? No one will rally behind head covering with a vague, general assertion!
For what its worth, I have seen a variety of doctrines and theological themes in the 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 passage, e.g. federal headship, creation, the gospel, the family of Man, the image of God in the family of Man, woman corresponding to the Spirit, angelology, theosis… If head covering was understood to nestle within these topics as they touch anthropology, it would lend energy to the fight.
My slow and intermittent goal is to ferret out what is behind head covering and somehow show why fighting for this tradition to return to the Church is worth the effort. I’m still working it out, but I am excited by what I’ve uncovered. My next step is to convince my fellow elders that it’s worth even opening a discussion about it. No, I am not going to be a David or Joab…and I’m extremely confident I’m no Deborah!…but this seems to be a subject I return to often to puzzle out, so why not see what I can do to glorify God through it?
Here are some disagreements:
I’m not sure why. It would make services more masculine, perhaps, but head covering, to my mind is not incompatible with different styles of service.
We hate the substance because we have accepted the enemy’s framing of the substance. He saw our sinful abuses of assumed truth and told us they are inevitable outcomes of those truths. But what Satan meant for evil, God meant for good. I agree modern thought has no room to bring back the substance of previous assumptioms, but we cannot assume anymore. We need to build biblical doctrine that expresses the truths about sex and about Man that will challenge and thrive in modern thought. Or is the Reformation over?
Whatever happens, I am fully convinced that the head covering tradition will return. It may take the collapse of Western Civilisation, but the Church will return to God’s Word.
I’m a married pastor with 13 children. No black pill here. 
As for the rest, God bless you in your studies. Be charitable and humble with your fellow elders. Be open to their reproofs and counsels.
I suspect that the only way to do this is to plant churches from the ground up where women covering their heads in worship (and men, not doing so - male worship leaders in baseball caps does graunch the gears a bit), is in place from the getgo. Trying to retrofit a change in practice - any change in practice - once a church is established, is difficult to impossible.
No. I refuse to believe that. There have been many a seemingly immovable problem in the Church. God delights to topple them.
Dear brother Alistair,
No, that would not be an accurate summary. For the sr pastor of a church decades old to ask his wife to start covering her head in worship and prayer is an act of reform that Mary Lee and I gave ourselves to which was not, and still is not, easy for either of us. It is a difficult submission to God and we are grateful our Heavenly Father has helped us in it.
Should it have been made a rule at Trinity when I was still serving there—which would have been a reform of the church corporately, and not just Mary Lee and I, individually?
Our church was acclimated to reform. It was the center of our founding, and continued in many different areas when was the pastor there, so I do not believe one should cede congregations to errors and practices that are its legacy because reform would be difficult and disruptive.
Still, discretion is the better part of valor, and Calvin recognizes the propriety of mediatory steps in change there in his comments on the communication of the Jerusalem officers to Antioch recorded in Acts 15. Which is to say that reform sometimes has to burn the building down and many other times should avoid burning the building down by working towards its incremental and judicious growth.
I’m still not of a good conscience about my leadership of my former congregation concerning headcoverings, but neither have I concluded I/we were wrong.
Love,
Well, yeah, but one can think of the many times in church history in which changes in practice have required the establishment of new church structures. The Reformation is the standout example, but the history of Presbyterianism in England, Baptists in England (reformed and otherwise), early Methodism, also come to mind.
The thing that struck me about the exegesis is how much the “head coverings not required” camp’s exegesis resembled Arminians trying to deal with Romans 9. They will climb trees (cultural practice!), throw sand in the air (wedding rings!), and on and on and on, and won’t just deal with the plain text. Once I saw that I couldn’t un-see it.
I asked my wife and daughter to begin covering at our church gathering a couple of months ago, and they have. Practically speaking, it’s been fine, and spiritually speaking, it’s been a relief to my conscience. I am a nobody at church, and you men in leadership have my sympathy—it was not easy for me to reform my own household. Though I will say that the fear of reform was much worse than the reform itself. Isn’t that the way so often when we need to obey our Savior and his apostles?
Thank you for this comment @tbbayly. It’s the kind of pastoral realism that I think is easy for younger reformation-minded ministers (like myself) to miss. Also so appreciate the honesty and ability to be self-questioning.
I trust you did not think my question implied criticism. I am in no place to offer critique of ministries and men I know only snapshots about. My question was really a musing following on from @jander ‘s honest comment and your agreement with it and has more to do with the somewhat segregated nature of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 from the rest of the Bible.
What I mean is this. Even among many (most?) of us who agree that head covering should be practiced today, it is an oddity that does not readily connect with the gospel in the same way baptism and the Lord’s Supper do. Nor does failing to practice it produce a barrier for the proclamation of the gospel. Nor is its non-practice a sin that produces grief - we men do not feel disrespected when our women do not cover (v5) nor women shame (v6). As such, for me at least, it is not always easy to feel any urgency about it or emotionally accept that the cost of reintroducing this tradition is worth paying when there are so many other pressing matters to attend to in the Church.
Reading Jason’s comment, I wondered whether that was a factor in the mix. Is that at least part of why it is difficult to address it? You said no. I believe you.
I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t connect with the gospel. The gospel is the most anthropological thing there is (first Adam second Adam). We can’t obscure the doctrine of man without obscuring the doctrine of Christ.
Does that mean headcoverings are a “gospel issue proper” as people say it? No. I don’t want to overstate it. But I do believe that there is a traceable thread between the relatively recent rejection of headcoverings, and the exegetical abuses of Galatians 3:28 which gave rise to woman as pastors and the androgenizing of Adam’s race, and the promulgation of wokism and social justice in the church.
Someone—perhaps you—raised this objection a while back here, and I chewed on it some. I think it’s a red herring, brother. After all, what precedent did “from the tree of good and evil you shall not eat” have? What tie to the gospel? Any analog to baptism or the Lord’s supper or even circumcision or the Levitical sacrifices? No, it was just a simple command and it needed to be obeyed because God is God and we are not.
Well, I would hope you were criticizing me. Or something? But no offense taken.
Yes, there is a connection. I agree and have worked up an explanation myself in some detail. But the connection is not explicit in the text and I cannot recall ever hearing or reading someone who has preached or taught on 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 who has made a connection or even mentioned the gospel.
Absolutely agree.
Strongly disagree. It is not a herring, red or otherwise. While any command from God must be obeyed, there is a reason people fear that head covering is legalistic and relegate it to a cultural symbol. They don’t understand it, and understanding is the very thing Paul wanted for the Corinthians in the passage (1 Corinthians11:3).
What precedent did a command given at the Creation of the world have? None. But as it applies to us now, it set up the circumstances that led to the gospel, to the need for the gospel.
There is a whole area of thought on why God gave that command and what would have happened if Man had remained in sinless fellowship with God. Surely a return to that fellowship is the goal of the gospel!
Dear brother,
Do you think women’s heads being covered would help the church and preacher proclaim the Gospel to an unregenerate woman or man of Generations X/Y/Z walking into a worship service, or not?
If no, then I think you’re not considering the matter carefully enough or don’t understand the sufferings of the souls you live among.
If yes, then why the talk of what is Gospel and what is not Gospel? My guess is that it is more the anger of “Christian” parishioners which determines what we avoid preaching than any anger from the lost who might, by mistake, have strayed inside our sanctuaries.
Another question needing to be asked is what doctrines, specifically, are taught by women’s heads being covered in worship? Surely they aren’t second tier or tertiary doctrines if we’re to have our women cover their heads “because of the angels,” right?
But honestly, it’s my conviction none of us have a clue what is at stake when we dismiss man’s headship over woman as merely a tertiary matter. In fact, it has nothing to do with rebellious women and everything to do with the Fatherhood of God. Modern man hates authority, and therefore hates fatherhood, and most especially the fatherhood and authority of God the Father Almighty. Love,
There is some disconnect here. I encourage linking head covering to the gospel not solely for evangelistic purposes.
Yes, the rejection the tradition in the Church has everything to do with our rebellion against the Fatherhood of God and the heresies we believe about the sexes, but head covering is also easily refuted because the Church can manage quite well without it - or so even many of the historic Reformers argued. If it can be shown how it is connected to the gospel, the central teaching of the Church, then it becomes a an essential tradition, rather than a cultural practice.
And it is linked to the gospel. It is a tradition that
There is more, but if the Church understood the tradition (v3) then covered heads would help proclaim the gospel to unregenerate people, as long as Church members knew how to answer inevitable questions. But if men and women in a church were embarrassed by the tradition or in their hearts saw it as misogyny, then it would be a stumbing block.
That’s a question I’d love biblical scholars to consider and answer. I believe that 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 has been neglected, first because the teaching seemed so obvious that it did not require more reflection, and today because it is either dismissed as cultural or the questions asked of it are limited to application.
As far as I’m concerned, 1 Corinthians 1:2-16 is a rich vein that yields gold. On the surface head covering teaches anthropology - what is Man? Man is man and woman, man created to represent and display God’s likeness to creation; woman to help man achieve this.
In Christ, this purpose was restored and raised up so that now man does not just display God’s likeness, he glorifies God through his brother, the head of Man, Jesus Christ.
A man’s uncovered head and a woman’s covered head in a Christian meeting communicates their purposes: man as head and woman under authority.
There are other implicit and exciting doctrines that can be found in this passage that I can outline if there is interest, but I think this is long enough for now.
Did I answer your questions, Tim?
Dear Alistair,
While you addressed my questions and did much good work answering them, it didn’t satisfy me, and I briefly want to state two concerns.
Who are these reformers who dismissed the apostolic rule? I’d like the references, if possible.
Why no stated agreement with the supreme fact of God the Father’s authority being the fundamental thing displayed by women having a covering? Maybe you agreed, but it seemed to me if you had you would have said so.
Of course, I’m not looking to be agreed with, but to push the points this discussion has missed or maybe even evaded in all the discussions I have read about this through the years, dear brother.
Love,
Here are three quotes from Zwingli, Calvin and Beza (Geneva Bible Translation Notes) that teach that head covering was only a cultural tradition and not necessary if the culture changed.
ULRICH ZWINGLI
“This passage refers to either those teaching or listening to the Word of God. Paul wants men to uncover their heads in the public assembly. Let us discern whether they should follow this from general principal, or for a specific purpose. To be sure, Paul is not laying down everlasting and unchanging laws; instead he is giving instructions as to what is customary and honorable. Therefore this custom does not mandate that men must keep their heads completely bare during winter-time and frost, especially in cold regions or when the cold hurts the head. Naturally, people are free from certain external practices, but in such a way that the public custom is upheld. That which maintains public decency and is customary should not be defiantly disregarded.”
(Annotations on the Evangelical History of our Lord Jesus Christ, p. 473. Zurich, 1529)
JOHN CALVIN
“Let us observe that St. Paul has only taken exception to something that was not appropriate and fitting according to the usage of the land. For (as we have shown) we are not to take those countries and measure them by our custom(s). Yet there was such disorder, as we said, that the men had exchanged (places) with the women, which was intolerable. This is why St. Paul says that a man, when he executes the function of prophesying, or prays on behalf of all so that all may answer, “Amen,” must not have his head covered, as if he hid himself for shame.“
(Men, Women, and Order in the Church: Three Sermons by John Calvin, Presbyterian Heritage Publications, 1992, pp. 12, 24, 25).
A Facebook friend has also written about Calvin and head covering here. John Calvin – Head Covering History . Calvin seems to go back and forth.
THEODORE BEZA (GENEVA BIBLE TRANSLATION NOTES)
“1 Corinthians 11:4
(3) Every (b) man praying or prophesying, having [his] head covered, dishonoureth his head.
(3) By this he gathers that if men do either pray or preach in public assemblies having their heads covered (which was then a sign of subjection), they robbed themselves of their dignity, against God’s ordinance.
(b) It appears, that this was a political law serving only for the circumstance of the time that Paul lived in, by this reason, because in these our days for a man to speak bareheaded in an assembly is a sign of subjection.”
(The Geneva Bible Translation Notes [1599])
Beza appeared to emphasise the “political law” of men uncovering more than women covering.
There are a number of other similar quotes from the time of the Reformation to today by some surprising people.
As for God the Father’s authority, I did say:
To be honest, however, I would appreciate a more thorough explanation as to why the authority of God the Father is the fundamental thing on display in a woman’s head covering. I accept that the image of God includes the authority of the Father shown in the man’s authority over the woman (vv7, 10), but this is not explicit. Is there more you can tell me?