A response to Bernard's views on women's hair: Difference between revisions
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| (2 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{Top of Page}} | {{Top of Page}} | ||
{{Template:Bernard Legalism}} | |||
= Rebuttal of Bernard's Position on Women's Uncut Hair = | = Rebuttal of Bernard's Position on Women's Uncut Hair = | ||
| Line 71: | Line 71: | ||
What he never says, anywhere in the passage: | What he never says, anywhere in the passage: | ||
He never says women may not cut or trim their hair. He never sets a minimum length. He never states that any deliberate reduction in a woman's hair length is sinful. He never says this rule applies "regardless of culture," as Bernard asserts. He never frames this as a creation ordinance that transcends cultural variation. | #He never says women may not cut or trim their hair. | ||
#He never sets a minimum length. | |||
#He never states that any deliberate reduction in a woman's hair length is sinful. | |||
#He never says this rule applies "regardless of culture," as Bernard asserts. | |||
#He never frames this as a creation ordinance that transcends cultural variation. | |||
Bernard's prohibition — "women should not trim it or otherwise seek to shorten it deliberately" — is not in this passage. It cannot be derived from what Paul says without filling in a significant gap with an assumption that Fee's careful exegesis shows the text does not support. | Bernard's prohibition — "women should not trim it or otherwise seek to shorten it deliberately" — is not in this passage. It cannot be derived from what Paul says without filling in a significant gap with an assumption that Fee's careful exegesis shows the text does not support. | ||
| Line 81: | Line 85: | ||
What Paul gives us is a culturally embedded argument for maintaining appropriate gendered distinctions in worship, argued through the norms of his specific time and place, and concluded with an appeal to church custom rather than a direct divine command. Fee's summary captures it well: "the very fact that Paul argues in this way, and that even at the end he does not give a commandment, suggests that such a 'church custom,' although not thereby unimportant for the Corinthians, is not to be raised to canon law." | What Paul gives us is a culturally embedded argument for maintaining appropriate gendered distinctions in worship, argued through the norms of his specific time and place, and concluded with an appeal to church custom rather than a direct divine command. Fee's summary captures it well: "the very fact that Paul argues in this way, and that even at the end he does not give a commandment, suggests that such a 'church custom,' although not thereby unimportant for the Corinthians, is not to be raised to canon law." | ||
A rule you can derive from careful reading of this text: maintaining visible distinctions between men and women in worship matters, and in any given cultural context the church should act in a way that honors rather than blurs those distinctions. | '''A rule you can derive from careful reading of this text:''' maintaining visible distinctions between men and women in worship matters, and in any given cultural context the church should act in a way that honors rather than blurs those distinctions. | ||
A rule you cannot honestly derive from this text: women may never trim their hair under any circumstances. | '''A rule you cannot honestly derive from this text:''' women may never trim their hair under any circumstances. | ||
Bernard has elevated a pastoral application for a specific cultural situation into a universal, timeless command binding on all women in all cultures. That is not exegesis. It is the kind of burden-laying Jesus reserved his sharpest words for. | Bernard has elevated a pastoral application for a specific cultural situation into a universal, timeless command binding on all women in all cultures. That is not exegesis. It is the kind of burden-laying Jesus reserved his sharpest words for. | ||