Progressive Christianity: The Issue of Christian Women Covering Their Heads

When I first saw some women of Mennonite faith with their simple and quaint bonnets. I did not understand the spiritual or historical precedent these women had to cover their heads. I assumed that it was some cultural expression of this group's separation from mainstream society. Separation from a worldly society is certainly a valid theological motive for women covering heads, but the issue is much deeper than that and applies to all women of Christian faith.

Standard Christian Women's Head Covering

Covering the History of Women's Head Coverings

Mennonite and Amish women equip themselves with what are essentially prayer head coverings. These women wear head covering the majority of the time as obedience to the concept of being in a constant state of prayer. I realized that it was in obedience with 1 Cor. 11:3-16, which indicates that men should not dishonor God by having their head covered. This would indicate to those in that society that the man was under another authority besides Christ. Women in service to the Church should honor God by covering her head to show her acceptance and obedience to the authority of the Church and Christ. The primitive Christian women veiled their heads in the church, but also when they were in public as was the custom for most women of this period of time.

Looking to the historic context in which St Paul was speaking, I discovered that the Christian women continued to maintain this practice of covering their heads while at worship every century until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During the 19th century, much of Christendom in the United States and Western Europe started to allege that the long hair constituted a sufficient head covering for women in the sanctuary. Therefore, many concluded that the practice of women covering her head in worship was a unnecessary burden to women of faith. Some churches still saw the necessity of women covering their head when in the church.

The rich and middle-class and women donned some rather extravagant hats in place of prayer veils. Covering your head in the worship in the Anglican Communion was more an indication of a Christian women's taste in the millinery fashions of the moment ;then a statement of her modesty and faith.The significance behind wearing hats was lost.
Today, the women Christians in the Eastern churches always cover their heads in the church. In the west, women of the more austere Christian separatist groups always come equipped the with a prayer veil in the church. This is true in congregations with many African American women, many of whom don hats at worship.

Some women in the "high church "wing of the Anglican communion practice the wearing of veils when attending the Eucharist and other worship services. Normally ,these Christian sisters do not cover their heads when about their daily activities in public. Generally, in the west today, exclusively women in Mennonite, of Amish, and of Hutterite sects always practice the habit of covering their head when in public.

Catholic Head Covering

Understanding the Theological Context of Women Covering their Heads in Worship

The need for this direction to the Christian gatherings at ancient Corinth better is understood when we realize that it was generalized then practice for women of sound reputation to always be veiled in public. Only those women of compromised sexual morals appeared bear headed in public.

Pagan priestesses, who served at pagan temples, followed practice of removing their veils to speak supposedly inspired prophecy. They dramatically removed their veils and to let their hair hang disheveled and wild. This drama was for the benefit of the worshiper at the pagan temple. It was proof the priestess had been in a divine trance. Certainly, such practices the women of Christian communities did not want to become associated with this kind of religious fraud. Paul sought to restore correct theological practice to this individual Christian community.

Among the doctrinal truths expressed in the mass is the hierarchical nature of the church. The church, the mystical body, is composed of Christ the chief and those which were baptized in Christ, his members. The corporal body of Christ is set in order for the proper functioning of the whole church. The ministerial priesthood is, on the one hand "head" of lay members of the body of Christ and the Servant to the lowest member of the Body of Christ.

This truth is not sacramental discrimination against women; rather the Lord's wish that the sacraments remind us is very real ways of the obligations of all those in the body of Christ to serve and minister to one another. We may as members of the body of Christ have a hard time showing outward signs of the work of grace and sacrifice by the influence of the Lord and His saints in our everyday lives.

Using the Sacraments to understand this concept will help make us more inclined to charity to all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. There is no Sacramental inequality between men and women in God's church. In that liturgical, the sacramental order, normal distinction between the sexes and in the marriage are not liturgically significant. In the baptism, there is no more male or female (Galatians 3:28). Thus ,men and the women take part today also in the life of the Church do so as spiritually equal baptized members of the Body of Christ

Creating Sacred Space for Personal Piety by Covering Your Head

While it is absolutely evident there are no canonical or moral reason for women in the body of Christ today to cover their heads, it is a wonderful expression of a Christian women's personal piety .It is a reminder to herself and others of God's sacramental truths. It can be a preparation psychologically for a busy distracted mother to put her thoughts towards God and away from her daily obligations Still sister who chose to cover their heads when they approach God's alter should not be in judgment of women who do not. Women , for whom covering their head for worship has no significant spiritual meaning; should also not judge the worship practices of women who chose to cover their heads.