Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.
The Gatekeeper—Headcovering
Throughout the Christian world the gatekeeper of the role of the sexes in society has been the headcovering of the Christian woman; this has been true for over 2,000 years. Recently this symbol has been removed in the West, America especially, while the rest of the world continues the practice—though weakly.
Today, women are, literally, rioting in the streets of our major cities for the right to kill their own babies. We may well ask, “How did we come to this place?” Here, in America, Christian pulpits stopped teaching headcovering as recently as two generations ago. Just a few days ago I say in a local
Headcovering held the wall against feminism for almost 2,000 years in Christian countries. Because it taught the God ordained order in the home, church, and government. When the "teacher' (the headcovering) was removed the lesson it taught was soon forgotten. The result is women run amok. The modern woman sees childbearing as counter productive to their mission of equality with men. The sex revolution of the 60's of the last century has made the modern woman as sexually aggressive as males, however pregnancy is seen as an unfair consequence to their sexual freedom. The removal of the headcovering was a watershed moment to this downward spiral of womanhood into the abyss
One may wonder why we spend so much time and energy advocating for the Apostle Paul’s teaching of headcovering for Christian women, especially when the pulpits of the Western world are all but silent on the issue. The answer to such a question is simply this: The respect for authority and headship is all but lost in America, and as Westerners we are not in spiritual nor scriptural order; not in our homes, not in our country, but especially not in our churches — headcovering would go along way toward remedying that shortcoming.
The modern woman finds herself in a different world, with different norms, than she would have fifty years ago. Women today are heads of large corporations. Also, women find themselves seated in the pastoral chairs of many churches. Women are elected bishops in some denominations. One should be concerned about the elimination of the lines of demarcation between the roles of the sexes.
There is, by and large, an undue lack of respect and honor coming from the sector of Christian women toward the authority which Yahweh has placed in the home, and civil government, but especially in the church. The pain of all this is that the same attitude is reflected by the children that are nurtured by women, who themselves, fail to reflect respect for authority. The children have zero respect for father, when they see that mother has no respect for father. (Sometimes, more often than it should be, the man has given his wife nothing to honor. Rather than raise children in a home where the man of the house is unrespectable, a mother has a responsibility to her children to provide a suitable role model. There are far worse circumstances in the home than divorce.) Consequently, the boy children grow up with no sense of respect—neither to receive it nor to give it. Therefore, those whom the (boys grown to be the) fathers should respect, such as our leaders, law enforcement, and pastors, are not respected. Todayʼs fathers, raised by mothers who did not demonstrate respect or honor for their heads, do not, themselves, expect to receive such from their wives or children; thus, a society is produced where authority is despised and civility is but an old shoe that is discarded as yesterday’s trash. It is not an untrue statement that, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”
Ecclesiastical Bra Burning
In the sixties, when the feminist movement was getting under way, it was common to see pictures in the newspapers, and on the evening news, of women burning their bras in public, as a symbol of throwing off male headship. Since that time women have made great headway in the public arena, but, to the detriment of the western family and the morals of society in general. We need not list the items of deterioration in our society since the decade of the sixties. Let it suffice to say that the Bible was kicked out of the public school system in that decade. When the Bible went out, armed policemen came in, and now patrol the hallways of our institutions of learning; not only at the high school level but also in middle school and even lower grades. Teen pregnancy has continued to escalate unabated. Drugs have become pandemic. Abortion and Gay Rights, twin sisters of hell, are the rule of the day. All of this should serve to illustrate how important it is to civilization for the woman to stand her post in the home. When mothers leave the home to enter the marketplace, other voices become the moral conscience of the younger generation. When the women, in general, left their God appointed position to excel, and even compete, in the marketplace, with their male counterparts, the home was forsaken and a generation has become lost. Yes, feminism has advanced women in the marketplace of the world, but at the expense of Western civilization itself.
It was in the same decade that Christian women laid aside their God ordained headcovering in the house of God. I remember those days. I remember the women saying: “We do not need to wear the symbol to keep the principle. We will recognize the order of headship, and keep it in our hearts; it is not necessary to wear the headcovering to keep the principle.” There is a saying that; “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Well, we have had over half a century of eating the pudding, and there is poison in the dish.
God, in His wisdom, gave us symbols that were object lessons to teach principles. He knew, even if our most gifted theologians do not, that if the symbol is neglected, the principle will be forsaken. Jesus taught this very thing in the parable of the Wine and the Wineskins. He said, “You put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” In this parable, Jesus taught that the wineskin preserved the wine and was, moreover, fundamental to the preservation of it. Now, of course, the wine is the important thing, not the wineskin. Just as the Western Church reasoned a little over fifty years ago that the principle of headship was the important thing. However, in Jesusʼ parable the wineskin was the preserver of the wine. Even so, the headcovering had been the preserver of the principle of headship for two thousand years in the Lordʼs Church; now, only fifty-sixty years removed from the discarding of the headcovering we see the destruction of the morals of a nation, and the deterioration of Western Christian society altogether. Now, weʼre not saying that the removal of the headcovering caused the collapse that we see going on around us (for the sin was in the heart long before the headcoverings were removed from the head); but, we are saying that the removal of the object lesson, which taught the principle (the wineskin that preserves the wine), removed a constant reminder, from before the eyes of men and women, of Godʼs appointed roles. The old adage “out of sight, out of mind” has never been truer than here. When the visible reminder is removed, men and women forget.
Just as the secular women of the sixties burned their bras to demonstrate against male headship, so the Christian women of the same era removed their headcovering to make the same statement. It was the same demonic spirit working in both the secular and religious arenas. Removal of the Christian womanʼs headcovering was nothing less than ecclesiastical bra burning.
N. O. W. (National Organization of Women)
Before I go on from this section I want to ask this question: “From whom are Christian women getting their marching orders? the Bible? or N. O. W. (National Organization of Women)?”
Following is a quote from N. O. W.'s publication, Under A. "Religion Resolutions"
"Because the wearing of a head covering by women at religious services is a symbol of subjection within many churches, N.O.W. recommends that all chapters undertake an effort to have all women participate in a 'national unveiling' by sending their head coverings to the task force chairman. At the Spring meeting of the task force of women and religion, these veils will be publicly burned to protest the second class status of women in all churches. (Dec. 1969)"
The National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) is an organization founded in 1966. It has a membership of 550,000 contributing members set up for the advancement of women. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
While the women of the world were burning their bras, women of the church were burning their headcoverings. All dancing to the same demonic spiritual beat.
To be continued:
Apostolically Speaking,
☩ Jerry L Hayes
Also read:
Also read:
Athanasius Against the World; God's Order of Headship, Part 1
Athanasius Against the World; God's Order of Headship, Part 3 of 3
https://bishopjerrylhayes.blogspot.com/2020/03/athanasius-against-world-part-3-god.html
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