“That’s not biblical!” How many times have you had that hurled in your face? I’ve heard it bandied around in numerous different contexts and I have come to the conclusion that often it is not being used correctly. So here is the bottom line: Just because a particular thing does not appear in the Bible in a literal sense does not mean that it is not biblical. Computers do not appear in the Bible, but you won’t be going to hell for using one! Someone may use a certain piece of psychological or scientific terminology, but just because that terminology is not actually in the Bible does not mean that in itself it is unbiblical (as I will explain in more detail nearer the end of this little piece). This seems to be a sticking-point for some as they insist that one should not do or say anything which does not appear in the Bible. But that is an unjustified form of extremism which can only lead down a rocky road. [By the way, before I get bombarded with objections, I do not use an upper-case “B” for the word “biblical” because it is an adjective rather than a proper noun. Thus, the word “Bible” as the description of the word of God gets an upper-case “B”, but I do not deem it necessary for the adjective “biblical”].

It is crucial to understand all this, or you will end up in a pharisaic fundamentalist nutjob ‘fellowship’ wearing a headscarf (if you are a woman) and thinking you are the last few genuine Christians alive on earth! Okay, at that point I hear a tirade of questions about headscarves, which can be summed up in the question, “Are head-coverings biblical?” So let’s have a little diversion into that territory. (I like fruitful diversions 😊).

A question that I have often been asked is whether women should wear a hat or other type of head covering during worship or in a time of prayer. I have been aware of a number of women who have agonised about this issue and have even been made to feel guilty and faithless if they do not wear a head covering every Sunday and at prayer meetings or even when they are praying alone. I realise that this can be a divisive issue, and I am not writing this in order to further any divisiveness but rather (hopefully) to clear up some common misunderstandings.

The wearing of actual hats and scarves by women in churches has come about primarily through a misunderstanding of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 (please read these verses so you know what I am referring to). The issue in that passage is about authority and the submission of women rather than about hats and scarves, “Therefore the woman should have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels” (1 Corinthians 11:10). In those days, prostitutes and other ‘loose’ women used to have cropped hair and go about unveiled — thus displaying their contempt for the contemporary symbols of womanly submission (a veil and long hair) and the fact that women should not try to appear like men (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:5-6). We find from Deuteronomy 22:5 that there is a Divinely-ordained foundational principle which states that differences between men and women should be plainly outwardly manifested, “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, and a man must not wear women’s clothing, for whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD your God”. (Yes, that’s right, cross-dressers and drag queens are unbiblical!). Apart from the kind of clothing a woman wears, one of the ways that the difference is manifested is through men having shorter hair and women having longer hair. Even nature reveals that this should be the case (1 Corinthians 11:14). The more corrupt a society is, the more we find rebellion against this principle — i.e. unisex clothing or women preferring trousers to dresses and skirts, coupled with mannish hairstyles on women and long locks on men. The bobbed or cropped style for women is a product of the age of feminism, which began with the suffragette movement. I am always highly amused by women who crop their hair and then stick a hat on top of it to go to church and then think that they are pleasing to the Lord!

When Paul says: “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?” (1 Corinthians 11:14), surely, by analogy, we can similarly say that if a woman has short hair it is a dishonour to her. However, “if a woman has long hair, it is to her glory. For the long hair instead of a covering is given to her” (v.15). Her long hair is her covering. The wearing of a veil in Paul’s day (and in the Middle-East even today) was a cultural phenomenon, indicating submission; but it was not dictated by nature, as veils were not part of the creation. However, for a woman to have long hair is not merely a cultural thing (“Does not even nature itself teach you…”, v.14), but is built into what God has given her by way of a feminine nature. It is THIS which is her natural covering in all circumstances and cultural settings. Veils may come and go as a sign of womanly submission; but shorter hair for men and longer hair for women transcends mere cultural signs and becomes a universal principle by which men and women are distinguished and by which one can observe the devout submissive woman. (I am not referring here solely to a crewcut style for men. It is simply intended to be shorter by contrast to the glorious crown of hair on a woman’s head. The style is by preference, but simply not to be effeminate).

The upshot of all this is that if a woman wishes to honour God and her God-given sexuality, she should have a hair style which is distinguishable from a man’s (i.e., it should be longer than his), and she should follow any local traditions which mark out women as being submissive, while also rejecting any cultural symbols which defy that submission, such as the use of ‘Ms.’ in place of Mrs or Miss, etc. Obviously, in Western society, the wearing of a veil by a Christian woman is unnecessary, as that is not a valid symbol of submission in our culture. And the wearing of a hat is even more unnecessary, as the womanly wearing of hats is often a sign of predatory aggression rather than submission in the Western world — especially that big-fruited variety which appears on high days and holy days, or the weird ostentatious rich-chick symbol of the so-called ‘fascinator’ which one sees at horserace meetings and high-society garden-parties! Fortunately, a woman’s hair has been given to her as a covering — a glory to her, in fact — and it will act as a sign of her womanly submission, so she doesn’t need to feel intimidated into wearing any kind of hat or head-covering by another Christian.

However, if a woman chooses to wear an additional head-covering to her long hair, that is a matter for her own conscience, a personal choice, but it is not really necessary. I would encourage women to have long hair as the preferred biblical way of publicly manifesting submission and femininity. However, I am also sensitive to the high level of brainwashing of women over recent years about how they should dress and style their hair. Being “biblical” so often means taking a stand against the prevailing culture. But to be a Christian is counter-cultural. It is often not easy to stand up for the biblical way — whether to one’s relatives and friends or from the other side to pharisaic churchgoers. Although I believe that long hair is the biblical way for women, I am careful not to become embroiled in foolish disputes on the issue (cf. Titus 3:9; 2 Timothy 2:23). I do believe that if a Christian woman wilfully refuses to grow her hair once these things have been explained, she’s got a problem somewhere with femininity and submissiveness. But only God can properly deal with that.

Anyway, that was a little diversion to show how something becomes regarded as “biblical” (e.g. the wearing by a woman of additional head-coverings to her hair) based on a complete misreading of the text in question.

So how can we define the term “biblical”. Firstly, as already stated, just because a particular thing does not appear in the Bible does not mean that it is not biblical. For that would be an over-literalistic use of the term, leading to an extreme kind of fundamentalism. Essentially, something is biblical if it does not overturn any aspect of God’s moral law; and something is not biblical if it is not in sync with God’s moral law. It is all about principles. There are umpteen principles which we can glean from Scripture both explicit and implicit. So long as a thing does not violate any of those principles, then it is biblical. For example, someone once said to me that my use of the psychological term, “Projection”, is not biblical because there is no mention of the word in the Bible and it is therefore just a piece of unbiblical psychobabble. My response was to say that even though the actual term, “Projection”, is not used in the Bible, the use of projection as a psychological device does occur in the Bible, therefore it is a valid use of a principle which is in Scripture and is therefore biblical. When Ahab called the prophet, Elijah, a “troubler of Israel” that was the principle of “Projection” in action — a perfect example of it, in fact — because it was Ahab who was the real troublemaker in the ranks of Israel, but he was projecting that onto Elijah!

So, please be very careful how you use that term “biblical”; and also, please do not let anyone dictate to you a false use of it. You are a disciple of Christ, not a slave to dumb literalism!

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2023
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]