#135. Wild Card: Head Coverings in the History of Womanhood

Recently, more and more Lutheran women have expressed curiosity in the ancient Christian practice of female head covering.

In this wildest of Wild Card episodes, Rachel delves deeply into the history and meaning of veiling, examining the New Testament and its cultural context, the teachings of the Early Church Fathers, the Medieval art traditions, Luther’s writings, the Lutheran Confessions, and other sources as she seeks to better understand this now generally defunct tradition.

Why did most married Christian women faithfully cover their heads during worship (and in many cases, in all public settings) throughout the first 1900+ years of the Church’s history? And given this long history, why—and how—was the practice almost universally abandoned by Western Christians in the twentieth century?

Sources referenced in this episode include:

• “Christian head covering” (Wikipedia)
• “Homily 26 on 1 Corinthians” (Chrysostom/NewAdvent.org)
• “A Survey of the History of the Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16” (A. Philip Brown II)
• “Medieval Women Unveiled: Fashion, Gender, and Piety” (ArtUK)
• Luther on Women: A Sourcebook
• The Augsburg Confession, Article 28
• “When Going Out without a Hat Was Grounds for Scandal” (Atlas Obscura)
• Women in the Church: Scriptural Principles and Ecclesial Practice (LCMS CTCR)

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