This is the fifth in a five-part series on head coverings. See the index here.

We’re going to conclude this series by responding to the objections raised in Dominic Bnonn Tennant’s S1E9 podcast. There is no transcript and manual transcriptions are time consuming and error-prone—their New Zealand accent is sometimes hard to decipher—so I’ll use informal paraphrases (i.e. misquotations) instead of my normal proper quotations.

Tennant does the podcast with his co-host wife. Because he believes in headship—that women must be under the authority of their husbands—I will attribute the entire podcast to him alone. I presume that she says nothing that doesn’t come from him, since he would not presume to allow her to teach on her own authority.

My response to the podcast will proceed chronologically, if you want to try to read and listen.

As you read and listen, you’ll probably notice something ironic. A majority of my objections are in response to what Bnonn Tennant’s wife says, and much less with what he says. She’s just not very good at producing logically valid arguments supported by evidence, while avoiding emotional or anecdotal appeals. IMO, he should stick to long-form writing and leave his wife out of his teaching ministry.

I don’t object to women teachers, I object to female teachers who are bad at teaching. I also object to male teachers who are bad at teaching.

Time Marker: 0:00

Tennant argues that head coverings signify “the new cosmological order inaugurated by Christ” under the New Covenant. Men are not supposed to cover because there is nothing between them and God, but women who are under men must signify their place by cover themselves because they’d be raising themselves to the glory of God. I bring this up because this is not in Paul’s argument on head coverings. It’s not found anywhere else in the New Testament. It’s not found in the Old Testament either. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s made up.

It is also illogical. Tennant claims that men are not supposed to cover because there is nothing separating men from God. They are not stealing glory from God, so why would women be stealing glory from God if they were also are uncovered just because they are under men? If anything, going about unveiled would mean they were stealing glory from their husbands. But, that’s not the argument that Tennant makes. He believes that an unveiled woman steals glory from God.

Throughout his podcast, Tennant conflates veiling with head covering. As we’ve seen throughout this series, 1 Corinthians 11 has nothing whatsoever to do with veiling (i.e. covering the face) and everything to do with covering the head. But much of the references to divine covering, especially with respect to the glory of God (e.g. the Seraphs), involves covering the face. And yet, despite this conflation, Tennant does not recommend that women wear opaque veils that cover the face (as, for example, in Islam). I consider it a logical flaw that he fails to distinguish between head covering and face veiling.

NOTE: I’m well aware of Heiser’s Divine Council theology and Tennant’s adoption of that viewpoint, but you may not be. I covered this error in “Semantic Mischief” and “Dr. Michael Heiser,” as well as discussed Tennant’s irrational views on the doctrine of the Trinity here.

Time Marker: 2:10

The first objection Tennant discusses is against the notion that head coverings are cultural. He discards this view as the weakest and worst counterargument that exists (!!). He says that if you read Paul honestly—necessarily implying that men like myself are not merely wrong but are actually dishonest—he gives the reasons for head covering. He claims they have to do with “unchanging creational norms.” As we’ve noted, this is hardly clear at all! It is a highly debated stance. I think Tennant is deeply wrong, but I wouldn’t argue that he was dishonest, even though he was excommunicated by his former church.

First, contrary to Tennant’s absurdly overconfident dismissal, the cultural argument is extremely and overwhelmingly strong. Head covering has always been driven by cultural practices. The different covering practices in Corinth were cultural (as Tennant is forced to acknowledge by its diversity). The different local and regional practices throughout history were driven by fashions and trends, so much so that it is possible for anthropologists to tell the general location and time period of a person by their headgear alone. Even the modern rejection of coverings was driven by fashion (and the reduced need for practical headgear). Moreover, the codification of covering in Anabaptism was a matter of fashion, not ancient traditions. The seven  (or eight) reasons for covering given below are all cultural. None are specifically religious.

For thousands of years, the who, what, when, where, why, and how of head covering has been cultural. Even America still assigns significance to head coverings. For example, both men and women are asked to uncover during the national anthem, and it is considered uncouth to cover one’s head indoors. And, of course, people cover their heads when it is too sunny, rainy, or windy using culturally appropriate articles of clothing. So it has always been.

Second, Paul does not explicitly mention Adam and Eve. This seems to be an allusion, but Paul also states that men and women are both dependent upon one another and equally dependent on God. So while Paul allegedly acknowledges the creational order, he also dismisses its relevance (the corresponding chiastic pairing makes this clear).

Third, the dismissal of the cultural relevance begs-the-question (i.e. circular reasoning). Paul states that there is no formal law (implicitly) or informal custom (explicitly) on head covering and that each person should judge for themselves what is the most natural or instinctive thing to do. By implication, he doesn’t establish a universal doctrine because individuals choose for themselves what they think is right.

Fourth, there has never been a universal practice of head covering in the church. We know that throughout history, including in Corinth under Roman law and culture, that head covering practices were diverse and stratified by socioeconomic status. Covering was considered a privilege of the elite, something that is no longer the case. Some, like slaves, were not permitted to cover. We have references from the Old Testament through to the Patristic age of the practice of non-prepubescent unmarried women (e.g. widows) not wearing head coverings.

Fifth,there is a legitimate argument that Paul is arguing against creational order norms. It all depends on where you put the punctuation that doesn’t exist in the original Greek, or whether or not you think Paul was using figurative language.

Time Marker: 3:05

Those who oppose head coverings often believe that they are humiliating and that they have no spiritual significance. Tennant claims that these are mutually exclusive, but this is an error in reasoning: a false dilemma. He believes you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

However, the claims are clearly both true at the same time. First, head coverings are humiliating because they indicate explicit inferiority in today’s culture whereas they indicated elite (middle to upper class) status in Corinthian culture. Second, head coverings have no biblical significance—other than abitrarily and culturally in Corinth—because headship isn’t a biblical concept, it is a medieval anachronism that took centuries to develop.

One thing I agree with is that there was no standardized approach to head covering in Corinth, a diverse multi-cultural city. This diversity means there was no standardized head covering. Conceivably anything from a bare head, to a small cloth or band, to a Roman palla, to a full face-covering veil could have been used. This diversity is why Paul says—in 1 Corinthians 11:10—that women should have authority over their heads because of the angels: they should decide for themselves whether to wear a covering or just have long hair. And if they were a lower class or slave woman who didn’t have a mantle, their long hair could be their mantle.

They conclude that because Corinth was multicultural that they—for a reason I could not fathom from the explanation given—couldn’t have been contentious about specific veiling practices….. which is obviously wrong. Have you ever been in a multicultural social media environment? If anything, multiculturalism leads to even more contention about who is right and who is wrong! Paul told them that covering was optional and to stop fighting about it.

We all agree that the reasons for veiling were varied. Here are the seven reasons that the ancients might have veiled:

Notably, Massey missed the eighth—and possibly most common—reason for covering: due to weather (e.g. wind, rain, sun). He did this even though the exclusively Jewish word for the veil (e.g. Gen 24:65; Song of Songs 5:7) in the Greek Septuagint is, literally, called the “reaper” or “harvester” (θέριστρον; see G2327) for its use by women who worked the fields during the harvest time.

What we do not agree upon is that the ancient reasons for veiling was ever a matter of authority and submission, instead of one of the reasons given above.

Time Marker: 5:10

Tennant spends a few minutes admitting that head covering was stratified by socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and marital status.

Time Marker: 10:58

Tennat admits that head covering and religion are difficult to separate. I would add the other factors (such as social standing) as well. The point is that there was never an identifiable universal head covering practice in the church.

Time Marker: 11:35

Tennant claims that women are hardwired to belong to a man and that symbolism of head covering is inherent in its design. These are some large, highly loaded and debatable claims. To support them, he cites modern attestations. One pagan woman wrote—in a feelings-based personal anecdote—that covering helped a woman feel more mature.

I am not swayed by feelings-based “arguments.”

Time Marker: 13:00

Tennant claims that because anti-covering is rooted in Eve’s rebellion, it is opposed more strongly by non-Christian women. This massively begs-the-question.

For example, I—a Christian man—opposed mandatory head covering on doctrinal grounds even when the women around me defended the practice. Eve’s rebellion didn’t factor into it.

Time Marker: 13:30

Tennant states that many women naturally and intuitively find the practice of head covering reviling.

It’s not instinct. The purpose of head covering is not a secret, nor are the loaded word games (‘submission’ and ‘subjection’ but not ‘subservience’) difficult to understand. As we discussed earlier, 1 Corinthians 11 in English has been openly translated in a biased way that makes this blatant.

The whole point of subservience is that it is unquestioning obedience.

The prime example of both is translating v10 to read “…a symbol of authority…” This removes the active sense that a woman has meaningful authority to decide for herself and replaces it withthe passive sense. She now has a grammatically-based domain over her head covering (i.e. it is her covering and not anothers), though of course it’s a not a choice since she’s obligated to wear it in unquestioning obedience. So she gets to own her covering and put it on herself, rather than having her husband put it on her. What freedom in Christ! The reality is that instead of having her own authority—what Paul actually gave her in his own words—she’s forced instead to acknowledge that she has no meaningful authority or agency at all.

The whole “they know it is humiliating, which only proves that it is legitimate” is all a bit insulting to the intelligence. But, I guess since women are inherently inferior to men they are supposed to be too dumb to notice this? (See: “Time Marker: 51:11”)

The ancient practice of head covering—in all its variety—was largely about sex, modesty, and social signaling. We noted—in Part 1 and Part 2—that the earliest writers—Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, and Cyprian—were concerned with modesty, not authority. It wasn’t until the 4th century that people began to consider this possibility. This is why we find John Chrysostom explicitly denying that Paul was referring to rule and subjection in 1 Corinthians 11, even though he actually believed that wives were supposed to be subjected. Only in the medieval era did this belief in headship crystallize into a full-fledged doctrine.

Those who support head covering today do not do so for reasons of modesty, they do so for reasons of power dynamics.

Time Marker: 13:36

The irony is that Tennant just got done explaining that head covering practices in Corinth (and elsewhere) were diverse and inconsistent, yet somehow claims that it was consistent and universal in the church.

If one era has head coverings for women who work the fields, to keep the sun out of their faces, while another era has head coverings to indicate that a woman is married, these are both head covering practices, but they are neither consistent, nor universal. Despite head covering being practiced in both eras, the practices are unrelated. This should be obvious, but apparently is not.

If two people come to the same conclusion about head covering (e.g. Tennant and Tertullian) but their reasons for this are mutually exclusive, then they don’t actually agree in any meaningful way. They are opposing viewpoints. Their surface-level “agreement” does not constitute a consistent and universal practice.

Tennant and Alice Morse Earle claim that only modern women refuse to cover. But, this is simply ignorant of church history.

Tertullian was writing against the practice in the church to not require head covering, but rather to leave it up to personal discernment. In fact, the reason Tertullian was writing at all is because it was not the historic practice of the whole church. Tertullian was explicitly disagreeing with others in the church outside his own sphere of ecclesiastical authority. He gave his opinion on the subject, just like we all are. As the other early writings show, these opinions were not universally accepted by the church.

Time Marker: 15:26

Tennant objects to the idea that Paul is talking about hair, viewing the citation of verse 15 as a cheap rhetorical “Ah ha!” jab rather than a serious observation. Tennant calls this a “bafflingly dumb interpretation.”

Besides the other pieces of evidence, this dismissal simply ignores and discounts three basic facts that refute his claim:

First, Paul never once uses any word for a veil, whether cloth or otherwise, clear or opaque, or small or large. Recall what we noted in part 4:

Paul violated grammatical and linguistic norms by failing to identify the direct object. Thus, in order to determine whether he is talking about veils, hair, or both, we are obligated to look at the full context. Doing what is proper invalidates the pro-head covering position, which simply assumes without sufficient warrant that Paul is talking about veiling.

It is not a simple matter and begging-the-question is not a strong position.

Second, verse 15 is the chiastic pair of verse 6. The context of both is the length of hair (short and shaved vs long), not the nature of a cloth covering.

Third, verse 6 also mentions being “covered over” not merely “covered.” The sense of mantle (in verse 15) corresponds exactly to being “covered over” (in verse 6). NOTE: this is not translated into English.

Notably, these last points are two separate—not merely one—linguistic parallels within an existing chiastic structure. Paul’s use of the chiastic structure—which is just as essential as the words he uses—really emphasizes his intended meaning.

The fact that Tennant does not know these things continues to highlight his ignorance on the topic. It’s fine if he wants to think his argument is better, but to call the opposing argument “bafflingly dumb” only ends up revealing his own limitations.

Time Marker: 15:44

Epiphanius is the most notable early writer who understood Paul to be referring to the length of hair. John Chrysostom is another.

In argument, it is very difficult to make an exclusive claim (e.g. “…without historical precedent…”). But it is often trivial and easy—taking just one counter example—to disprove an absolute claim.

By contrast, Paul’s phrasing (κατὰ κεφαλῆς ἔχων) is actually historically unprecedented. In all the extant literature we have, we can’t find it anywhere else.

Time Marker: 16:00

Tennant notes that verse 6 is incoherent and tautological if Paul is talking about hair. I agree, but this does not imply that Paul was not talking about hair. We’ve already given a number of perfectly rational reasons why Paul would choose to say it this way (including the possibility that the statement was fully intended to be self-refuting). For example, John Chrysostom’s explanation is as plausible as any.

Tennant has failed to consider why Paul would want to speak “blabbering nonsense.”

Time Marker: 16:46

Is it true that the anti-coverers have not noticed verse 4? Quite the contrary. As stated above, Paul does not provide an explicit direct object to κατὰ κεφαλῆς ἔχων. Tennant seems to presume that Paul did, in fact, provide a direct object, when he very clearly did not. This highlights Tennant’s sheer ignorance of the topic, as well as his presumptiveness to freely provide to you what Paul chose not to provide.

Time Marker: 17:10

One Greek-speaking writer—Epiphanius—understood Paul to only be talking about hair, thus refuting Tennant’s claim. Another, John Chrysostom, also understood Paul to be referring to hair.

Time Marker: 17:30

Tennant assumes that “prayer and prophecy” refers figuratively to the whole of “going to church.” This is not supported by the Patristic references which almost universally apply covering only to prayer. Most writers presume that women did not prophesy.

This is, incidentally, why Anabaptists call it a prayer veil. In other words, even one of the most notable pro-head covering groups does not agree with Tennant!

Tennant’s assumptions, rather than the text itself, rule his interpretation.

Time Marker: 17:58

Tennant reveals his ignorance. In America, men wear hats in Cowboy Church. Yes, that’s a real thing. I talk about it here.

Time Marker: 18:10

Tennant is perplexed—cannot see where Paul’s instructions come from—because he’s got the wrong assumptions and is often speaking in ignorance on this topic. It does not logically follow that Paul is talking about “priestly service,” something that he doesn’t mention and requires huge amounts of unwarranted inference to shoehorn into the passage.

This is rather subtle—and unintentional—argument from personal ignorance.

Time Marker: 18:22

The ideas about covering come from the culture. They didn’t spring out of nowhere, they were already there. This is summarized in Paul’s statement “judge for yourself.”

Time Marker: 25:01

By associating prophecy with singing (with respect to 1 Corinthians 11), Tennant’s view on covering goes against the early witness of the church, which mostly teach that women did not prophesy anymore and that women were only required by Paul to cover while praying.

This shows that what the early writers wrote is not authoritative with respect to doctrine.

Time Marker: 26:26

Tennant objects to the idea that Paul wrote something that exists in the Bible—preserved for all time—that contains teachings that only applied to the people to whom it was written.

This is known as the appeal to consequences fallacy.

Quite a few of Paul’s preserved writings are personal letters. They were not written to us, they were written to a specific audience for a specific purpose. These letters may contain direct or indirect precepts, but that is not their purpose.

The Epistle to Philemon is the most obvious example of this, which is why it is rarely quoted. In the Old Testament, the Song of Solomon also has minimal practical utility with respect to pastoral or teaching roles.

Related, both the Old and New Testaments explicitly reference other works that are lost. This means we lack the context to fully understand what is being discussed. We make due with what we have.

Jesus spoke a number of prophesies which have already been fulfilled. Quite a few of these prophesies were fulfilled within a single generation. Some of these prophesies were only written down in the books we have after they were fulfilled. Yet those prophesies were so carefully recorded that we have them today, even though they no longer apply to us.

It is logically invalid to conclude that Paul—or any other writer—must be talking about universal principles that apply for all times and places. Rejecting a teaching because you don’t like the consequences (e.g. its applicability) is fallacious.

Time Marker: 26:50

“If…”

I don’t base my doctrine on speculation.

No one should derive doctrines from unclear passages. We should limit our understanding of essential doctrine in passages to what is clearly stated, while leaving the rest up to personal discernment.

Time Marker: 27:28

Oh, women are not supposed to be preaching, eh? That’s a mighty fine line you are definitely not crossing!

Time Marker: 27:36

It is simply false that 1 Corinthians 11 is clearly about veiling. There is no command to veil, because there is no mention of veiling at all. It is an assumption or implication based on a number of ambiguities, misquotations, and mistranslations.

Time Marker: 28:00

This is a false equivalence. In the New Testament, baptism is explicitly commanded for new disciples, but head covering is never once explicitly mentioned, let alone mandated.

If you want to talk about actual equivalences, the debates over baptism of infants (specifically) and head coverings of women (e.g. headship) are both impacted by anachronistic doctrinal developments… unlike the baptism of adults.

Time Marker: 28:27

Tennant states that those who oppose mandatory head coverings are not humble, fail to read God’s word properly, and blame God for not being clear enough. That’s one possible way to paint your opponents as villains, I suppose.

Time Marker: 28:36

“God was actually clear” begs the question.

Time Marker: 29:13

Really? Crowns don’t cover? The crown and the veil are polar opposites? Are you serious?

The priestly crown was literally part of the covering.

Time Marker: 29:39

The problem is that Tennant thinks that women’s glory is competing with God’s glory, when Paul “says” that woman’s glory “competes” with men’s glory. There is no implication in 1 Corinthians 11 that going about unveiled steals glory from God. This is seen by the fact that only married woman were required to veil. It was their relationship with their husbands, not their relationship with God, that was the issue.

Time Marker: 30:43

Tennant cites Chrysostom, but fails to note that Chrysostom understood “kephale” as a matter of honor, not authority.

Time Marker: 31:50

“…because of the angels”

Tennant claims that 1 Corinthians 11:10—the central point in the chiastic structure—can’t be simply explained, asserting that the reference to angels stands as a reference for a whole cosmological framework (which, if you know anything about Divine Council Theology, ironically involves a lot of extra-biblical material).

Or, you know, it could just be referring to his earlier teaching in the same letter:

But this actual context doesn’t allow for Tennant to push his preferred and highly complex theological narrative.

Time Marker: 32:46

In trying to resolve an unclear passage, Tennant cites another passage (1 Corinthians 14:34-35) which is itself unclear due to (1) its variant manuscript readings that suggest an interpolation; (2) ambiguity over its presumed punctuation; and (3) the fact that there is no such law and the commentators can’t agree on what it might be. This is an example of Tennant defending the unclear by citing the unclear (and highly debated) rather than first citing the clear.

Time Marker: 33:39

It’s not intuition. It’s a reference to what he wrote earlier in the letter.

Time Marker: 34:09

That’s not what Basil the Great taught.

Time Marker: 35:06

“…pray without ceasing…”

Tennant fails to mention that the primary, almost universal, reason the church gave for covering was modesty, not worship. This is a serious omission.

The reference to praying without ceasing with respect to head covering is logically absurd, and the fact that Tennant isn’t making head covering a requirement all the time does not make this citation any less absurd. If women were really supposed to wear a head covering at all times because they are to pray without ceasing, then men are logically never permitted to wear hats at any time, a position that I have never heard expressed by anyone. Nobody who believes both “pray without ceasing” and “women must cover while praying and men must not” actually believes in literally praying without ceasing. I’ve never seen a man say:

Time Marker: 35:47

While Tennant is completely, totally 100% clear that Paul wants every woman to cover, Tennant has no clear notion as to when she must. He can’t draw the line, concluding that it is a feelings-based intuition. For some reason, he doesn’t see this as inherently refuting his position. His inability to clearly enunciate a cogent practical position on head covering is a good example of why Paul said that a woman, not a man, should have this authority to decide for herself.

Time Marker: 36:33

Christian cultures did not develop the tradition of covering all the time (during worship and in public). This type of covering as a practice, while not universal, absolutely preceded Christianity. In the early church, women did not cover all the time.

It is possible, I suppose, that much later doctrinal development changed this, but I reject non-apostolic doctrine.

Time Marker: 36:42

Offend God? Seriously?

The blood of Christ has removed all offense against God. That’s the basic gospel message. The gospel is why we can worship unveiled.

Time Marker: 36:47

Tennant believes that a woman needs two coverings because her hair is “[additionally] a covering.” But, the preposition that Paul uses is anti which strongly implies substitution, rather than a comparison or addition. To wit:

Here is a literal translation:

If a woman does not have a mantle or is forbidden from wearing one (e.g. she is a lower class woman or a slave), or if she chooses to wear her mantle along her shoulders, then her long hair is given to her instead of a mantle.

Tennat makes a big deal about this being “a covering” instead of “the covering” but it makes no sense at all to say that her hair is given to her as “the mantle”:

It’s rather obvious why Paul used the indefinite article here. Tennant is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Time Marker: 37:07

Tennant potentially conflates head coverings with face-covering veils. These were not the same thing and did not accomplish the same goals. By tradition, maidens—like Rebekah—veiled her face before becoming a bride in the wedding ceremony. This is why unveiling is an idiomatic euphemism for having sex and why married women often veiled in public (only their husbands could ‘unveil’ them). The sexual overtones implicit in veiling and unveiling have been lost to us.

Time Marker: 37:39

Tennant claims that the purpose of veiling is to cover the hair.

Scholars do not agree on this. Veiling refers to hiding and concealing in general. Even in scripture, there are a number of references indicating that the purpose of veiling is to cover the face, head, or lower body parts. In fact, there are no explicit Old Testament references to veiling for the purpose of covering hair. There are none in the New Testament either, including 1 Corinthians 11.

The best reference is found in Numbers 5:18, which literally states “uncover the woman’s head.” This explicitly refutes Tennant’s position.

First, if this refers to hair being unbraided (i.e. let down), as one translation attests, then it supports the idea that Paul understood hair to be a covering all by itself.

Second, if this refers to a cloth head covering or veil, then it obviously doesn’t refer to hair.

Either way, Tennant’s claim is not supported by scripture.

Time Marker: 37:52

Tennant doesn’t like the head coverings used by many Anabaptists. So much for judging for yourself.

Time Marker: 39:29

Tennant doesn’t like hats, says they miss the point. But this means that the High Priest didn’t actually wear a veil normally…

…or when he entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement:

In short, Tennant doesn’t think the priestly garb qualifies as a covering, so it’s curious that he thinks that Paul was referencing the priestly service with respect to covering.

Time Marker: 42:23

Speaking of Paul not permitting women to teach, Tennant made a big deal about a woman’s hair being given her as “a” covering, but conveniently leaves out the fact that Paul is addressing “a” woman in 1 Timothy 2:12. I’d like to know if he has some logically coherent rationale for this inconsistency.

Time Marker: 43:31

Without adequate self-awareness, Tennant uses cultural standards to decide if dying hair is acceptable. He thinks some purple hair looks good and is acceptable. Oof.

Time Marker: 46:17

No it doesn’t. Cutting hair is, by definition, unnatural.

Time Marker: 46:59

The two terms translated as “sheering or shaving”—in 1 Corinthians 11:6—include the normal cutting of hair.

Time Marker: 49:37

Tennant acknowledges that putting hair up is not strictly about modesty, but is about being married. The same thing applied to head coverings in Roman culture.

Time Marker: 51:11

Tennant rejects the logical idea that only married women should cover. He claims that Paul was not concerned with the hierarchy of marriage, but the hierarchy of the cosmos.

We know that married women in the early church wore head coverings while the unmarried did not. And Paul says nothing about “the cosmos” (i.e. the extra-biblical Divine Council theory).

Tennant goes on to complain about how the Greek word for man/husband and woman/wife is handled by translators. He calls it a “farce” and “vapidity,” raising his voice in animated agitation. We addressed that in Part 4 and in “Paul Addressed Wives,” where I don’t rely on emotional outbursts in order to make my argument.

Let’s talk about symbolism and why only married women had to veil in the church.

Who you veil—and when—determines what the symbol means.

When modern men force unmarried women to veil, this completely eliminates the symbolism of veiling as representing the authority of a wife’s husband and her submission to that authority. Having unmarried women veil, but not young girls, makes it a meaningless symbol for women who marry. How much more meaningful and significant would it be for a woman, upon marriage, to have to take up the veil for the first time—and for her lifetime with him—in recognition of her new role as wife to her husband? But this symbolic act never happens if she had already been wearing a covering since she was a young teenager.

I have no idea what the pro-head covering folk are trying to prove by having all females except girls veil. If being female means you steal glory from God when you worship (e.g. praying and singing) unveiled, then there is no rational reason to exclude young, possibly post-pubescent girls while simultaneously including wrinkly, ugly, short-haired, sterile old women. If you thought females inherently stole glory from God, you’d veil each and every one of them from infancy, or as soon as they were old enough to speak prayers or sing songs (i.e. a very young age). The way it is actually implemented, the symbol can’t possibly symbolize avoiding stealing God’s glory, because you are letting some females steal God’s glory!

So if veiling isn’t a symbol of a wife’s husband and it isn’t a symbol of keeping female glory from stealing glory from God, then what can it mean? What does excluding girls and including the elderly accomplish? Well, it symbolically ensures that those who veil know just how inferior they are to men (who don’t have to veil). Each girl, when she asks “Why mom? Why dad?” is aware of the symbolic significance of wearing a veil when she first puts it on and becomes obligated to wear it for life. It’s a not-so-subtle act of agency that ensures that she fully knows and agrees with how inferior she is. The humiliation is the point of the symbol. If you veiled females from infancy, the symbol of inferiority would lose its meaning, for she’d never have to go through the humiliation ritual. It would just be another piece of clothing.

Time Marker: 54:37

Tennant’s view is not the teaching of the early church.

Many in the church only wanted married women to veil. However, Tertullian—one of the earliest to write on the topic—had a view that directly contradicted Tennant’s. According to Tertullian’s stance, it was actually worse for Tennant to allow his daughter to wait until age 13 to veil than if she had actually been raped. The latter would have been preferable to the former.

Yes, that really was Tertullian’s viewpoint. And, yes, Tennant actually cited Tertullian in defense of head covering in his podcast. Honestly, I am quite perplexed as to why anyone would try to use Tertullian to defend their viewpoint of 1 Corinthians 11, given Tertullian’s weirdly and horrifically sexist views of women.

The problem is twofold. First, Tennant’s specific cosmological viewpoint can’t be found in any early writing. Second, what is contained in the early writings contradicts what Tennant teaches. If Tennant wanted to support head covering from the perspective of the early church, he’d have to give up his Divine Council heresy. This heresy is foundational to his belief structure, so he’s clearly not going to give it up.

Tennant rejects Tertullian’s view that a girl must veil when she has her first moon blood. This reveals the biggest problem: his argument is purely cultural. After spending so much time rejecting any claims that Paul was concerned with Corinthian culture, he then uses a cultural argument of his own. Talk about inconsistency!

Time Marker: 54:53

A form of this “common difficulty” was raised and supported by Basil the Great. He certainty didn’t think it was a hasty, irrational, inconsistent, manipulative, or absurd line of argument.

Now, I don’t agree with Basil, but if you are the kind of person who preaches a universally consistent doctrine of head covering in the church over many centuries, while simultaneously rejecting what the church actually taught about head covering, then you have a problem with…. consistency.

The view proposed by Tennant does not agree with the writers in the early church and exposes his own ignorance on the topic. He thinks it is a childish viewpoint.

Time Marker: 57:25

Prior to the late 1800s, all women wore head coverings as part of fashion. For example, in 1917, Anabaptist women…

…were nearly indistinguishable from what passed for modern fashion among secular women:

It was not until head coverings became unfashionable and women started going to church uncovered that head covering suddenly became a doctrinal matter to be regulated among Anabaptists. A century later, everyone forgot that the traditions of the Plain Folk were not actually ancient.

There is massive irony here. Anabaptists were once primarily known for baptizing adults—in direct obedience to Christ. You knew an Anabaptist because of their devotion and obedience to Christ: you could see them baptizing adults in the local streams and rivers. But how are Anabaptists known today? For their how strangely they dress! Head coverings are a status symbol of one’s devotion to Christ, which as Lastmod noted, does not require any actual devotion.

For this reason, I completely understand why some people claim that head covering is idolatry. Anabaptists are now best known for their social virtue signaling—a visual sign of rebellion against the culture. By forcing themselves to stand apart from proper decorum, head coverings moved the focus from God onto women, which is why many view them as idolatry.

Don’t believe me that head coverings are idolatrous? I recently saw this on Twitter (my emphasis in bold):

This led to all manner of praise and adulation. However, one person correctly noted:

This is precisely what happened. She was bragging to the world about how humble she was, and she was heaped with praise for her testimony.

In my lengthy response, I noted, through a meme, that it was just performative:

You can see, right there in that picture—literally an image—exactly how no one is looking at her, but is focused on the presence of Jesus. It’s a very pretty blue head covering that really matches her blue dress and her long black hair.

…

Hmm? What were we talking about?

So, yes, head covering can be idolatry. And, yes, the Levitical practices—whether showy garb or sacrifices—were, at times, idolatrous. This is why God said he desired virtue over ritual (Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:6-8; Isaiah 1:11-17; Amos 5:21-24; Psalm 51:16-17) and why Jesus himself condemned performative priestly ritual (Matthew 6:1-6; Matthew 23:5-7). When the symbol is mistaken for the thing it symbolizes, or the prescribed act is done for show, it has become an idol to be rejected.

For us Christians in Christ, we have largely dispensed with symbols for something much greater: the thing symbolized. Symbols can be, and often are, fake. But the real thing is the real thing.