A response to Bernard's views on women's hair: Difference between revisions
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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. | ||