And then this: https://disrn.com/news/demi-lovato-said-she-cut-her-hair-off-to-liberate-herself-from-christian-norms/
Long hair, the glory of women, hated by the world. (Whether covered or not.)
3 Likes
In other news, Demi Lovato’s understanding of Christian sexual ethics better than 99% of Christians.
10 Likes
This is just a conveyance of a personal anecdote, not a judgment on the issue - I have younger cousin who moved to Bloomington a few years ago and I told her she ought to visit Clearnote (now Trinity Reformed) Church. She came from a “contemporary” non-denominational church. She commented that the people she met on Sunday were very welcoming and kind, but specifically called out the head coverings she saw there as the primary reason she would not return. “It was just too traditional.”
This surprised me as she’s rather cosmopolitan, and hails from a generation which seems in many ways to embrace old world traditional aesthetics (craft beers, handmade products, etc.) I guess head coverings are yet to become ironically hip.
4 Likes
We just need a good Youtube/Twitter handle and it’ll take off!
1 Like
“radtrad” Z and millennial Catholic women are into chapel veils. I think it’ll happen to Protestants, too. It will require mapping to different reactionary rallying points…
2 Likes
without old world traditional ethics
3 Likes
This is why the more I look into this the more I want to see our society return to women veiling /in public/ (like my great-great grandma!)
Outside of church, there seems to be no /explicit/ mandate, though there’s Jewish tradition with Rachel veiling herself for her master (like Tim mentioned). That’s carried on today in modern Jewish practice: married women veil themselves all day. Christian women did the same thing up until recently, even though veiling /outside of the assembly/ was not explicitly required. Calvin is split-brained on this in that he says that 1 Cor 11 is cultural (I think he’s wrong), but later on he mentions that if women were to stop wearing the veil in public, society would go into disarray – “what would be next”, he says, “women showing their breasts”? He even mentions a woman may in extraordinary circumstances forget her veil at home when she has to run out /in public/ to help her neighbor in an emergency – and this this was permissible since you have to take into account extraordinary circumstances (man with a broken leg can’t kneel to pray).
This was Christian practice for 1900 years and now we’ve recently abandoned it in the west. And many people will now read 1 Cor 11 and become convinced of covering in the assembly, and to that I say, God bless! And then when it comes to the outside world they’ll say “well, it only talks about the assembly” and to that I’d say let’s recover our culture! Let’s recover public modesty! Let’s return to Calvin’s time (or my great grandmother’s!) – let’s have our women veil /in public/ as a middle finger to feminism which recently burned the veils.
No, it’s not strictly spelled out in scripture, just like it’s not strictly spelled out that we should strive for men in leadership in the public sector (derived from 1 Timothy 2) – but which way are we /bent/? Are we trying to ask the question “how can I best showcase God’s glory in this?” or are we asking “what’s the absolute minimum I have to do to skate by?”
This would not be easy, by the way – especially if a man became convinced of it and then asked his wife to do it in public – oh the backlash! Take that thing off! You look Amish! (or Arab!) (or like a Nun!)
She’d get questions “you know the Bible doesn’t say you have to do that?!”, “are you some kind of legalist?!” – to which she can reply “I am obeying my husband” – and what a beautiful picture!
^^ This is all pontification so far – still in cage stage trying to work out how my wife and I might approach this. Dreaming of a retrofuturistic world with flying cars, cheap rocket flights to Mars, and, off on the left side of the painting, a man and his veiled, Christian wife, enjoying ice cream cones before taking the next spaceship to Europa.
For now, I think I’ll leave this thread be.
1 Like
Two corrections, if you don’t mind: first, in modern usage, “veils” cover the face and are not head coverings. Thus veiled women/wives has not been the church’s norm. And I think you missed the fact that Rebekah had been traveling in the presence of men out in public before she veiled herself, and when she did so, she was not yet married.
Second, striving for men in public leadership is no inference from Scripture, but a direct command: “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” It’s hard to figure out how the Apostle Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit could have made it more explicit, and then you have Isaiah prophesying the lament of God over the shame of his people having children oppress and women rule over them.
I’ll leave it at that, brother, although I’d love to defend Calvin on this. Love,
3 Likes
I don’t mind, I welcome it!
I was using veil as a shorthand for head covering, as the Catholics who call them “chapel veils”. I can use the longer term to not confuse. If a woman wants to wear a face veil, I personally would not prefer it, and would ask my wife not to, but that’s not what I’ve been referencing. But I’ll change my terminology.
I’ll have to look more into the Rebekah thing.
Calvin on the topic:
What? Is religion placed in a woman’s bonnet, so that it is unlawful for her to go out with her head uncovered? Is her silence fixed by a decree which cannot be violated without the greatest wickedness? Is there any mystery in bending the knee, or in burying a dead body, which cannot be omitted without a crime? By no means. For should a woman require to make such haste in assisting a neighbour that she has not time to cover her head, she sins not in running out with her head uncovered. And there are some occasions on which it is not less seasonable for her to speak than on others to be silent. Nothing, moreover, forbids him who, from disease, cannot bend his knees, to pray standing. In fine, it is better to bury a dead man quickly, than from want of grave-clothes, or the absence of those who should attend the funeral, to wait till it rot away unburied. Nevertheless, in those matters the custom and institutions of the country, in short, humanity and the rules of modesty itself, declare what is to be done or avoided
Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.
Not a sin to go without one in public. But let’s get our society back to this standard of modesty which we have hastily dropped.
1 Like
Along an encouraging line, it looks like some in the apologia crowd, who have been head covering for a while, have started to wear them in public as well. What a blessing.
Interesting, but not necessary.
1 Like
Sure, but encouraged. Jewish society had women wearing them and Christians ran with that for a long time until recently. An article you might find helpful from the Jewish perspective.
Also
.
The queen leading the way Photos of Queen Elizabeth in Headscarves - Queen Elizabeth's Top Fashion Moments