S3 | E2 Headcovering: Cultural Relic, Biblical Command, Or A Christian Liberty? {Part 1} – Reformed Faith and Family
Believers are quietly rediscovering the long-neglected practice of headcovering in Christian worship. Second-wave feminism largely eradicated this practice from Western Evangelicalism in the mid-20th century. Pastors, yielding to cultural pressures, often ignore or dismiss it. Many view this section of Scripture as obscure, antiquated, or even taboo.
Yet, a growing movement within the Body of Christ is reviving headcovering, sparking curiosity, conviction, and, in some circles, controversy. This renewed interest in biblical fidelity is indicative of a reformation, a purging of secular influences that have strained the Modern Church’s tether to Scripture.
Reevaluating What We’ve Been Taught
As believers return to God’s Word as the ultimate authority, they are reevaluating traditional teachings. Many now recognize the distinction between time-honored biblical practices and modern interpretations shaped by cultural pressures.
Growing up in the church, I never heard a single sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, the well-known passage on headcovering. When mentioned, it was quickly dismissed as a cultural relic, relevant only to “them, back then.” My church leaders’ approach led me to mentally skip these verses during personal Bible reading. Christian teachers assured me they didn’t apply to modern believers, and I trusted them. Like many, I avoided these uncomfortable and inconvenient verses.
Ironically, I was surrounded by conservative Christian women who wore modest clothing and adhered to a “skirts only” dress code, yet none wore headcoverings. If your experience is similar, you likely never saw this practice either.
Recovering What Has Been Neglected
As I matured and studied the Bible and Church history independently, I was astonished to learn that Christian women consistently practiced headcovering for centuries. It wasn’t a subtle shift but feminism’s cultural dominance that nearly eradicated it from the Western church.
This isn’t a new revelation but a recovery of an old one, a command faithfully observed by the Church for centuries until recently. The Apostle Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 are not obscure or cultural but rooted in Creation.
Below, we’ll explore the biblical context and rich history of Christian headcovering. Even if you’re not convinced, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of its significance.
The Headcovering Passage
In 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, the Apostle Paul gives praise to the Corinthians for holding firmly to the teaching he had delivered to them concerning the practice of headcovering. He not only praises them for their actions, but proceeds to deliver a set of arguments that establishes a foundation for continued practice and a deeper understanding of headcovering as part of established church order. He rooted his argument in Creation and proceeded to explain it as a symbol of the proper display of biblical manhood and womanhood within the corporate worship setting.
2 Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you. 3 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. 4 Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. 5 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. 6 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. 7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; 9 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. 10 Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God. 13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, 15 but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering. 16 But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.
We will examine six key arguments Paul gives us in this text:
- Apostolic Tradition
- Glory Inherent in Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
- Hair Length, Authority, and the Created Order
- “Because of the Angels”
- The Exclusive View of the Historical Church
An Apostolic Tradition
It is important to note that contextually, Paul is shifting from a discussion of Christian liberty in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 to a new section on church order in chapter 11. He begins with headcovering, continues with the Lord’s Supper, and moves into spiritual gifts. These are all elements of corporate worship. Lumping headcovering into the category of “Christian liberty” as many do would be a misreading of both the structure of the letter and the consistent witness of Church History.
In 1 Corinthians 11:2, the Apostle Paul writes, “2 Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you.“
In this particular verse, Paul is praising the Corinthian church for getting something right. He affirms their practice of headcovering during worship, because it shows their obedience to his prior teaching. He praises them for holding fast to the traditions just as he delivered them at a previous time.
Many take issue with that term “traditions” used in the modern translation, claiming that this refers to traditions of men and not a command of God such as an ordinance like the Lord’s Supper. Sometimes it is used this way in Scripture, but not always. This is where a little understanding of Greek can be helpful.
The word “traditions” here is paradosis in Greek, also used by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 3:6 to refer to apostolic teachings. These were not man-made customs but binding instructions from the apostles themselves. The burden of proof lies not with those who uphold the practice, but with those who would discard it.
Glory Inherent in Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Due to our feminism-saturated culture, it is difficult for men and women alike to read 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 without getting bogged down in all the biblical manhood and womanhood jargon. It is an inconvenient truth, and so therefore we find it easier to explain away. We believe we are more enlightened than our patriarchal forefathers. What does the Bible have to say?
3 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. 4 Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. 5 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. 6 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. 7 For a man ought not to have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. 8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; 9 for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. 10 Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. 12 For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God. 13 Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14 Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, 15 but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering.
Glories
Bnonn Tennant has an excellent series on headcovering. You can read it here. In one article, he discusses that there are three distinct glories present in worship: the glory of God, the glory of man, and the glory of woman. It is scandalous for any glory other than God’s to be on display during worship. Paul tells us that man is the glory of God, woman is the glory of man, and a woman’s hair is the glory of a woman.
What does it mean to be someone’s glory? Glory is what makes something beautiful or praiseworthy. Consider how flowers are the glory of a field or stars the glory of the night sky. In 1 Corinthians 11, we are told that one of God’s glories is His image in man. Man’s glory is woman, and a woman’s glory is her hair. In worship these glories rival one another, and God does not compete. This is why man, as the image bearer of God, is commanded to leave his head uncovered and woman, as the image bearer of man, is directed to cover her head.
Cultural Customs
This isn’t about cultural customs. It is rooted in Creation. What was said to be a “glory” in ancient times could not then be dismissed in modern times. The glories that are rooted in the Creation order still exist today, clearly defining principles with accompanying symbols of biblical manhood and womanhood. Paul is not giving room for cultural influence or dismissal. As R.C. Sproul put it in his teaching series “To Cover Or Not To Cover,”
“…the thing that is most astonishing here is that he appeals to creation, not to Corinth. If anything transcends local custom it is those things that are rooted and ordered in creation. That’s why I’m very frightened to be loose with this passage.”
Tennant wrote, “For Paul, glory, origin, purpose, and authority are bound up with each other. While many things can be a glory, he has in mind the glory which is tied up with honor and hierarchy (1 Corinthians 11:3–5, 10). He knows that it is glorious to rightly represent the one for whom you were made—to fittingly serve him—and he is concerned to preserve this glory in worship, ensuring its correct place in the hierarchy.” (Article on Headcoverings #1)
So why must a woman cover her head? Because it is a visible act of honoring the created order and symbolically concealing her own glory, so that the glory of God stands alone in worship.
Hair Length, Authority, and the Created Order
As a former good Southern Baptist, I felt allergic to symbols and liturgy once upon a time. It took reading God’s Word with an open mind and a loose grip on tradition to see that symbols are biblical.
We baptize believers as a symbol of being buried, dead to sin and raised alive in Christ. We practice the Lord’s Supper with bread symbolizing Christ’s body and wine as His blood. Symbols have always been part of Christian worship. Until just recently, headcovering was one more symbol instituted by God to reflect the truth of the Gospel. We’ve suppressed this truth through a lack of understanding caused by a lack of teaching.
Paul clearly states that worship must conceal one of the glories, and he roots this in Creation. Hair length, as strange as it sounds to modern ears, matters. Paul writes that it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off. The Greek word for “disgrace,” atimia, is the same used in Romans 1 to describe homosexual acts. That parallel should cause us to pause before we dismiss it.
This isn’t about hairstyle preference. It’s about honoring the created distinctions between men and women. Modern discomfort with this stems not from Paul’s chauvinism but from our own cultural saturation with feminism.
Some argue that long hair itself is the covering Paul refers to, but this interpretation doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. If long hair were the covering, then Paul’s argument in verse 6 makes no sense:
“If a woman does not cover her head, let her also have her hair cut off.”
If long hair is the covering, then she would already have short hair. The logic collapses. Further, Paul uses two different Greek words: keirō (cut off) and xuraō (shave), indicating he’s talking about an additional, external covering, not just hair.
Ultimately, headcovering for women is about concealing a woman’s natural glory that distracts from the worship of God. It is a symbol of what was made perfect in Creation, the created hierarchy of authority. It acts out the Gospel picture, a kind of recalibration of the Created order that sin destroyed, but Christ came to redeem. This leads us directly into understanding what is a more obscure passage:
10 Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.
“Because of the Angels”
Paul gives a seemingly mysterious reason for the headcovering, “Because of the angels.” We know that the angels love the Gospel (1 Peter 1:12). They yearn to see the Day of our Lord as we do. The angels have watched and taken part in the overarching story of God’s grace from the beginning. Angels witness our worship and understand the significance of authority and order.
Here, Paul tells us that women ought to have a symbol of authority upon their heads during corporate worship “because of the angels.” John Calvin has this to say in his commentary on this passage:
We know that angels are in attendance, also, upon Christ as their head, and minister to him. When, therefore, women venture upon such liberties, as to usurp for themselves the token of authority, they make their baseness manifest to the angels. This, therefore, was said by way of amplifying, as if he had said, “If women uncover their heads, not only Christ, but all the angels too, will be witnesses of the outrage.” And this interpretation suits well with the Apostle’s design. He is treating here of different ranks. Now he says that, when women assume a higher place than becomes them, they gain this by it—that they discover their impudence in the view of the angels of heaven.
God’s design, hierarchy of authority, and plan of salvation are deeply tied to this symbol of headcovering. Our culture would have you see headcovering as a sign of oppression, but God would have you see it as a sign of His design. We dare not spurn it.
The Regulative Principle of Worship
God takes the way he is worshipped quite seriously. Today, we consider our worship services to be more about the people we attract into the service, than about the One we are there to worship. The regulative principle of worship is this according to the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689:
The acceptable way of worshiping the true God, is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representations, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. (22.1)
In 1 Corinthians 11, we see the Apostle Paul regulating corporate worship in his prescription for headcoverings, the Lord’s Supper, and use of the spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues and prophecy. In this case, Paul is commending the Corinthians for practicing headcovering appropriately within the worship service, as he had previously advised them. It was not a matter of preference, but for their good and the delight of the angels.
The Exclusive Practice of the Churches of God
Finally, we come to the end of this passage on headcovering when Paul calls his readers to not be contentious about this practice because it is universally practiced by both the apostles and all the churches of God. For those who want to tie this symbol to a specific time and culture, this verse will stop you in your tracks. On the practice of headcovering, we are called to not argue with it for it was practiced without reservation by every apostle and church of God at that time across the known world. Full stop.
Paul has done about all he can do to argue for head coverings in this passage. He has tied it back to Creation and the intrinsic knowledge instilled in us concerning what are natural distinctions between both the physical traits and sovereignly bestowed roles of men and women. He has even appealed to the angels. If we still find these Scriptures confusing, or stubbornly just do not want to desist from our comfort zone, let us at least look to history. What did our forefathers in the faith believe about this passage?
The Demise of Christian Headcovering
For nearly 2,000 years, Christian women across denominations—Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Anabaptist, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Baptist—practiced headcovering in obedience to Scripture. Early Church Fathers like Tertullian, Augustine, and John Chrysostom, and Reformers like Martin Luther and John Knox, affirmed its biblical mandate. Theologian Joel Beeke notes it was a universal ordinance directing glory to God in worship.
“Head covering was the ‘universal custom (practice) of the churches.’ They rightly call it an ordinance and say that ‘by man having his head uncovered and by woman having her head covered, all glory point to God in public worship.'” – Joel Beeke
Yet, by the 1960s, headcovering nearly vanished from Western churches. Why?
The feminist movement, particularly the Women’s Liberation Movement, targeted it. In 1968, the National Organization for Women (NOW) called for a “national unveiling,” urging women to burn headcoverings as symbols of subjection. This deliberate attack, combined with cultural shifts like the beehive hairdo’s popularity, decimated the practice. R.C. Sproul laments that the Church’s abandonment of headcovering reflects cultural erosion, not biblical insight.
““The wearing of fabric headcoverings in worship was universally the practice of Christian women until the twentieth century. What happened? Did we suddenly find some biblical truth to which the saints for thousands of years were blind? Or were our biblical views of women gradually eroded by the modern feminist movement that has infiltrated the Church of Jesus Christ which is ‘the pillar and ground of the truth.'”
“It disturbs me that the custom or the tradition of the woman covering her head in America did not pass away until we saw a cultural revolt against the authority of the husband over the wife not just in the home or in the church but in the whole of culture and it frightens me that we’re taking our cue not from the Scriptures but from the culture or the fashions where we live.” – R.C. Sproul
Though largely forgotten, echoes of the headcovering tradition still linger in modern culture. When a man removes his hat for the national anthem or bows his head in prayer, or when a bride wears a veil on her wedding day, these gestures reflect the enduring imprint of a practice once grounded in Christian worship. They are fading remnants of a biblical practice that for centuries visibly testified to God’s design for authority, order, and glory in public worship.
The Biblical Command for Christian Headcovering
The question is no longer whether the Church once practiced headcovering. It undeniably did. The real question is why it stopped. And the honest answer is not rooted in new revelation or deeper exegesis, but in cultural compromise. We abandoned this age-old practice because the culture told us to stop. Feminism didn’t just challenge the headship order in the home and church, but it targeted its very symbol.
The beauty of headcovering is that it is not about legalism or mere tradition. It’s a symbol of joyful submission to God’s created order. It is a testimony that Christ is our Head, that God’s design is good, and that our worship is not for our own glory, but for His alone.
We are living in a time where the Church is being sifted. The Lord is purifying His Bride, and part of that process includes recovering truths we have neglected or misunderstood. Headcovering is one such truth. It was never meant to be a relic. It is not a cultural accessory. It is not a matter of mere personal liberty. It is a command rooted in Creation, reinforced by apostolic authority, honored by Church History, and pleasing to God in corporate worship.
Read and Listen to Part II of this series on Headcovering: Biblical Headcovering and the Role of Christian Liberty
Recommended Resources for Further Study
- Michael Barrett’s Head Covering for Public Worship
- Michael Barrett’s Sermon Series on Headcovering
- Bnonn Tennant on Head Coverings
- History of Quotes on Headcovering Since the Reformation
- Head Covering: A Forgotten Christian Practice for Modern Times by Jeremy Gardiner
- R.C. Sproul’s The Hard Sayings of the Apostles: To Cover Or Not To Cover
- Bright Hearth on Headcoverings
- The Head Covering Movement’s Rescource Page
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Want to train your girls up in modesty? It is a lost virtue in today’s world. It’s the Heart Not the Hemline: A Biblical Unit Study on Modesty is designed to be a five week unit study for growing girls completed alongside one or both parents.
