Defending the Underdog?

Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head.  But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved. (1 Corinthians 11:4,5 NASB)

Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. (1 Corinthians 11:20,21 NASB)

We Americans love to defend the 'underdog'.  We love it when the 'little guy' wins.  There are probably a host of reasons for this, and they probably apply in a wide variety of degrees only in the most general of ways.  But I know I do.  Captain America is one of my favorite characters because he's the scrawny yet plucky little guy from Brooklyn.  Had he been another 'great' seeking to be greater, his character would not have held my interest.

Anyway, with this passage, it seems we have one social underdog winning, and one not.  Paul seems to defend the poor in his correction of the Lord's Supper practice, but then seems to be correcting women instead of defending them about the 'head covering'.  The poor win, the women lose?  This passage is one of the ones referred to when people say that Paul seemed to have it in for women in churches.  I'm not inclined to agree with that assessment.

Paul, in some passages, does seem to land pretty hard on women, and treat them with a degree of contempt.  But not so far in 1 Corinthians.  He refers, in the first chapter, to Chloe's people, a clear reference to a church leader who also happens to be a woman.  Chapter 7 is amazingly balanced in its treatment of men and women, almost excessively so.  Keep in mind that chapter 7 is about marriage, so this is not necessarily the topic in which to be balanced if he were truly against women.

In this chapter, Paul seems to have some sort of problem with women prophesying and praying in worship without a head covering of some sort.  What sort of head covering is unclear, so that can't really be the take away from this.  But what often gets missed is that Paul never says here that women shouldn't prophesy or pray in worship.  What ever else is considered in terms of what Paul says about women's roles in church, this needs to be included in that assessment.

In fact, one of the most common 'mistranslated' elements is the word 'symbol' added to modern translations.  In the King James version, it says, "...ought the woman to have power on her head..." If 'symbol' or 'sign' is removed (and it should be), then the verse reads more accurately, "...the woman ought to have authority on her head...'  This carries a very different meaning.  Paul isn't saying that the 'man' has authority over the woman, but rather that she has authority over herself, in a sense.  In other words, the point of his correction of women in chapter 11 isn't that the natural order is 'men-over-women', but rather to maintain the natural distinction between the genders.  It's relational, not hierarchical, if that helps.

But even with that, Paul does correct the women, and it does seem to be a 'loss' for this social segment, already seeming to struggle against so many social ills.  Why add another?  I think the answer is really obvious.  Because they were in the wrong in this particular point. 

That may seem overly obvious, but consider that what this means is that Paul doesn't prefer the women over the men because of their social hurdles.  That actually elevates women as well.  He's spent a lot of time slamming the conduct of men or male references to leadership gone awry.  This shows that he's not playing favorites.  He's not calling on the men to 'fix' this issue with the women, he's calling on the women to adjust to correct this practice.  In a sense, this is a sneaky practice that sets women on a higher social level by assuming one precedence in the background of an argument in the foreground; if the argument is accepted, then so is the assumption in the background.  Lawyers try to accomplish this in litigation, and it's not easy.

So, because Paul addresses women and their practice, calling on them to adjust their practice to align to Scripture, then women stand at the same level of men on whom he has been calling all along in this letter.  When the men accept this correction of the women, they accept their elevation to their level within the church.  It may not work that way in their Roman/Greek/Jewish homes, but in church...well, Paul has adjusted something rather subtly.

This doesn't really establish a complete view of Paul on women in ministry, but it needs to be considered as one is pieced together.  One of the problems is that too often, single passages are preferred over others, and no cohesive treatment is applied.  If we want to really get a picture of how Paul views women's roles in church, then we must consider all his references, evaluate them within their literary and cultural contexts, and then try and make sense of the mosaic they provide.  That's not easy, and unfortunately, not many want to spend the time or effort to do it.

And before I leave this topic, there are two problems that stem from this, not one.  The obvious one is some, without getting a good sense of Paul's view, improperly use him as an excuse to suppress the activities of women in church.  But the equally wrong approach is to assume Paul is against women, ignore his teaching, and in the void that creates, make up our own rules for the roles of women in church.  There's no shortcut, the work must be done.  Our Master didn't inspire Scripture with the caveat that we are free to throw out the pieces we don't like any more than we are free to only focus on the parts we do like.

My application here is to avoid being 'politically correct' in showing the 'underdog' preferential treatment.  What I need to understand is that, sometimes, in addressing the 'underdog', I help elevate them to the same level as everyone else.  In other words, if I only address those who I think can take it (perhaps correction), or who I think will have a more detrimental or positive effect then I'm judging more than just behavior, I'm judging value.  That's not right.  But when I equally apply what God reveals to me, then I hold everyone at the same level without judging their 'value' within the church, but rather acknowledging their value before our Master.  Yeah, maybe that's it...although I'm not sure when I'd have the opportunity to apply such an application.  But when I do...!

Church: Where Women are REAL Women

But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.  Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head.  But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.  For if a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, let her cover her head. (1 Corinthians 11:3-6 NASB)

One of the big reasons I decided to work with 'biblical languages' in my graduate degree was to deal with passages like this.  I wanted to study the hard stuff and see for myself what was said or written.  I wanted to be able to work with the text myself rather than rely on what someone else said about it.  In the process, I discovered that I still don't know anything.  But I also discovered that I'm in good company.

There are passages in the Bible for which we have completely lost the assumed cultural or liturgical context.  In this specific passage, Paul makes some references that no longer make sense.  There aren't other New Testament references which help us understand the reference.  There aren't even things we can find outside of the New Testament that help.  The reference which made so much sense to the church in Corinth because of their specific circumstances (cultural or worship practice or something) is now baffling.

In essence, Paul is advocating that women wear something on their head while participating in either prayer or prophesying in worship.  His reasoning is a bit odd and hard to follow.  He refers to 'head' which here is not a reference to authority, but to relationship: Christ to man, man to woman, God to Christ.  And then makes this odd statement: "Every man having down head disgraces his head."  The first question is typically, "What does 'having down head' mean?"  After that is, "What head? Christ or his noggin?" or "Having what down his head?"  Anyway, you get the point; it's not really clear.

Gordon Fee in his commentary on 1 Corinthians in the New International Commentary on the New Testament really unpacks this whole argument very thoroughly.  If you really want a good treatment of this, I refer you there.  So, what I'm going to do is work off what he wrote, and unpack some application for me today, in this culture.

The really unambiguous element here is a distinction made between men and women.  While in other places Paul says they have the same standing within God's kingdom treating them remarkably equal (see 1 Corinthians 7:1-17), here Paul acknowledges and calls for a marked distinction.  He derives this from creation as presented in Genesis, and applies it to worship; in other words, when the church comes together.  So, the problem being addressed is that this distinction was being blurred (however it was happening), and he addresses the problem by applying the Scripture on creation to correct it.

So, regardless of how women were blurring the lines in that church, it was happening.  Paul writes to address the women blurring such lines.  He makes two interesting caveats though.  First, this isn't about 'authority'.  Second, this doesn't limit or restrain them from praying or prophesying in worship.  The only mention of 'authority' is in the authority the woman has over her own head in verse 10; 'symbol' is an added word that is probably both unnecessary and wrong.  The practice being corrected is the mode in which a woman prophesies or prays, not the praying or prophesying itself.

So, I'm left with asking myself in what ways can I protect the distinction between men and women in my own life.  Keeping in mind that, in many ways, I live on the verge of drowning in an 'estrogen pool', this can be a real issue for me.  I have one specific place that I cannot fail here, I must succeed; and that is with my daughter.  I must help and encourage her as she enters womanhood.  I have to.  It really scares me in some ways  and for a variety of reasons.

I have lived a lot of my life enslaved to degrading images of women.  And I know intellectually that such women live degrading lives, enslaved to an insidious evil.  Having a daughter brings this 'intellectual knowledge' right into my heart.  I hate and fear what our society does to women, and therefore what it might do to my daughter.  I say to my shame that to protect my daughter, I fear at some level that she be pretty.  I realize this, and accept this as a consequence of my sinful track record.  And I also accept that it's something I must not give into. 

I have a responsibility before my Master to encourage my daughter in His kingdom.  That means that I have to encourage her to be all that He has designed for her.  In my case, my Master has made my daughter very beautiful.  It scares me, and I will mercilessly hunt down and eliminate any would-be predator who sets sights on her.  As a bumper sticker I saw lately, "I have a gun and a shovel. You will not be found."  At least that's my intent, what my surging emotions place on me; I'm shaking as I write this.  This world has no mercy on my daughter, and therefore I will give it none in her defense.  Tough talk, and it comes from my fears.

I suppose my application is to remind my daughter that she IS beautiful, in my eyes, and in the eyes of my Master.  She needs to know that.  I have to overcome my fears, for her sake; I can't let her believe the lie that she's not beautiful just to protect her from what I fear.  It's neither fair to her nor being responsible as her father for me to fail at this point.