No, it’s not about chocolate. Though this will explain the logo of a certain company. It seems there is a bit of chatter going on about the issue of head coverings. There is a website that apparently goes to a movement, that is trying to bring back the idea that women should have their heads covered. I suppose there is no harm in this. Sure let’s follow all the outright commands as well as those that can be shady from the New Testament. Why not? I don’t really see the harm, I suppose at some point it could be a hardship or offend a brother but that should be worked out as Paul works out the meat sacrificed to idols later in I Corinthians. But what is Paul saying in I Corinthians 11? I think it is important to think it out, as with anything.
First of all, Paul is clearly addressing the issue of head covering in a congregational worship setting. Which means, first that we should have congregational worship settings, second that there should be rules for them, and third that the rules are different for women and men. The next thing that is clear from history is that this was a response to a cultural issue. The temple prostitutes of the day had shaved heads. So, you wouldn’t want to associate yourself with them. But just how did prostitution become connected with a shaved head? Is that an unnatural connection? I don’t think so, more on that later. Another issue is, concerning the nature of the covering. Is it just hair or something additional? I believe it is hair. It makes sense in the form of the argument from vs. 6; if you are going to chop off your hair you might as well chop it all the way off. This reminds me of another chopping passage, with a similar argument, something to do with circumcision, but I digress. Later he appeals to nature, and speaks of hair as a covering given by God. Of course for women to have long hair in a worship service they must have it all the time.
So, what about us today. Well any arguments to nature still apply. All cultures and all people are under nature. Which brings us to Lady Godiva. The myth, tells us a story about a woman who felt compassion for the servants that were under her husband’s authority. She begged him to release them from the heavy taxes. He sarcastically said “If you take off all your clothes and ride naked down the street then I will.” So she did. She instructed all the people to stay inside and close their doors and windows. Then she rode, covered only by her hair. The image is striking. It brings to mind the idiom of “to uncover her nakedness” from the Old Testament. It was an idiom for ravishment or rape or even incest. It is a serious thing and so nature an nature’s God has seen fit to cover her with long hair.
Lady Godiva by John Collier
The appeal to nature is strong even today. I feel it, do you feel it? We understand it when it comes to children, little girls almost always have hair. The great tragedy is the little girl with cancer and no hair. But we grow older and must be sophisticated and practical. What of the function of a covering? Models get it. Artists get it.
Today we also have a culture. I think it is fair to say that in our culture long hair is feminine and short hair is masculine. Of course there are exceptions, but they are usually burned out pot heads or ski bums with long hair, or homosexual women with buzz cuts. Hmm I wonder if there is any connection to temple prostitutes here? God is very clear, men and women are different and so they should look different. Deuteronomy 22:5 I have studied the history of our particular church a little bit as well. Every older woman I have talked to about the the history of Grace has made a point to tell me that no woman would dare go to church without a hat. A few of them still do, but they are passing away. What made this change happen? Did we have a church meeting and decide that scripture had been misunderstood all these years and that we should phase out the hat wearing? I think not. We followed the fashion of the world. Hats went away, even veils, skirts got shorter, women swim in their underwear and when they get over 30 they chop off their beautiful locks. I need another picture to get that foul image out of my head. . . ahh that’s the stuff, now we see why he is so struck.
Frank Dicksee-La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Further Reading: Doug Wilson’s Blog
Good thoughts in here. I definitely agree with you, which is why I’m curious about the Godiva painting. Why did you include it in here? The style and skill of the painting is beautiful of course, but the fact that she’s actually quite exposed, in spite of her hair, has me thinking that we shouldn’t be looking at her. Like you said, it’s a shameful thing to see a person’s nudity. Yes, I’m sure it was to illustrate your point, but my lowly opinion is that it detracts more than it adds to your message here.
Well, I think she is more covered than a trip to the mall would reveal to one’s eyes. Certainly the beach. I thought through the same issue as a librarian for a Christian school. Should we have art books with nudity? Of course we have to be careful. Other leaders in this area drew a distinction between nudity that was meant to be lusted after, pornography, and nudity that was meant to express some other aspect of beauty or truth, art. An example was the nudity in Schindler’s List. It certainly shouldn’t evoke lust, if it did, it was because there was already a serious lust problem in the person. I think that is a fair argument. It would be similar with alcohol or even food, just because people abuse it does not mean banning it is the solution. It’s a heart problem bla bla.
On the other hand, God did create the uncovered female form to invite certain types of looking. Good art would reflect this and so may always be a temptation. Given that that post is the one most often clicked on, I am given to wonder. But it really would be a shame to throw out every artist who portrayed nudes.
Someone threw a chair through one of my favorite Bouguereau paintings “The Return of Spring”. He thoguht it demeaned women. I thought it glorified spring. The artist was astonished for he meant no such thing. He was merely expressing Spring. There are these rich stories complimented by large bodies of art, most of which we never heard of. I simply want to uncover them.
I see your point. Your comments intrigued me and I have been reading some other sources about this. That must have been a hard decision about what to include in the library, especially as it was for children? My gut feeling is that this is an area that requires extreme carefulness, as you said, because there is so much connotation of sexuality with the bare human body——at least in our culture. Because of this it seems to me that more caution is needed in approaching the subject than in offering someone a second bottle of beer or an extra helping of food. One person I read pointed out that women throughout the centuries have nursed their children in public with no covering, and because it wasn’t considered a sexual act, it didn’t inspire lust except in the most perverted.
Your point about it being a heart issue, that it is not up to the painter to prevent lust if he has good/pure intentions in portraying the nude subject, was interesting. That same thing is what many young women say when they want to wear something that most of their parents would say is immodest and too revealing. “It’s a heart issue; and my heart is right. It’s the guy’s fault if he struggles because of what I wear.” It’s this strain between the incompleted glory that we have during Christ’s reign on earth, and the perfected glory that will be at the end of time. In heaven, there will be no lust or sin connected to the naked body, but here, there often is. How much of the heavenly vision do we bring down here, without it turning on us?
About the painting itself, I wonder why the painter chose the angle we see, and the amount of hair we see. (Right, it’s less exposure than beach wear, but the fact that we know she’s unclothed makes the imagination fill in the rest, which could be good or bad). Perhaps it’s to tell the story better, to show the severe humbling that this act did to her. The artist was okay with painting her, I’m guessing as the “sovereign storyteller” and not pretending to be an eyewitness, since he would/should have had his shutters closed if he had been there himself. Some of Collier’s other paintings show a lot more, and verge on the pornographic in my opinion. Those may be in the name of story as well, but how do we know he wasn’t portraying nudity to get more popularity as a painter? I do agree that we need to uncover many of these old paintings and discover the rich stories behind them, but some may not be worth uncovering.
I think perhaps with this post, there is a little more danger. The point had something to do with the idea of what is attractive, with what we desire. I was struck recently by Doug Wilson describing females in combat as ‘kinky’. It could also apply to females acting like males, by physically fighting or acting like men. I think this is perfect. It has sexual connotations and the idea of something not quite right. ‘Kink’ is like C. S. Lewis’ ‘bent’ from his Space Tirlogy. It is a good thing twisted a bit into something that is not right, something evil. We shouldn’t desire those things.
I suppose the opposite could be ‘attractive’ or ‘sexy’. Which is hard to discuss or point out without being at risk of turning into lust. So the painting is getting at or even being suggestive of what I think the ideal should be; a wife with long hair who is covered even when she is naked. It is the glory of her husband. But we have to look before we become husbands, we should desire God defined beauty and then seek it out, without letting it turn into lust.
Right! And the main point of this post was right on. Thanks for circling back to that. Though it’s unusual to hear that a woman’s hair is given as a covering for her entire body. Makes sense, though, from a literal understanding of the text. Practically it’s not possible for every woman to grow hair that long! And I also wondered why women stopped wearing hats to church, and if it was considered an act of shamelessness or defiance at the time, or if it came about in one fell swoop, like when women started wearing pants during/after one of the world wars. Feminism is such a weird thing. Most women hate to be told they’re embracing feminist ideals, or that they’re a product of a feministic culture, but if they only knew how very different it used to be….
So long hair is definitely feminine in our culture, and in Paul’s culture, but what do you think about the Nazirite vow that men took to not cut their hair? Was it a similar symbolism to the “rock not cut with hands”—a sign of being set apart by God?
And, not to carry on the art discussion ad nausaeum, but what’s with the Vatican and all the nude Old Testament patriarch statues it contains? I was definitely grossed out and it seemed like a ton of pagan Greek influence and humanism/human body worship to me, but I’d like to hear your perspective.