John Wesley's View: Head Covering P/10

 

                                                      Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to discuss the subject of head covering since today there is a movement called the Head Covering Movement based on 1 Corinthians 11:5 and beyond

 And every women who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head - it is just as though her head were shaved....

In this post I will share the viewpoint of well known minister John Wesley (1703 -1791 A.D.)

The founder of Methodism was also a writer, evangelist and missionary. His tireless efforts had a profound and lasting effect on the church. His teaching on the role of women in the church was much different than many others who had come before him. One great area of difference was that John Wesley encouraged women not only to become involved in the ministry of the church, but also to become preachers of the gospel. He thought deeply and wrote extensively about the role of the woman in the church. Although women were allowed to preach in the Methodist ministry, the veil covering on a woman's head was required as a sign of "headship" to Christ. Concerning the theological significance of the veil, Wesley wrote, "For a man indeed ought not to veil his head because he is the image and glory of God in the dominion he bears over the creation, representing the supreme dominion of God, which is his glory. But the woman is a matter of glory to the man, who has a becoming dominion over her. Therefore, she ought not to appear except with her head veiled as a tacit acknowledgement of it."

 

My Comment

John Wesley did indeed allow women to teach and preach, no doubt, influenced by the example of his mother Susanna Wesley, Nevertheless, he apparently still believed that women ought to have their heads veiled as a sign that the man has dominon over her. He, thereby, shows that he misunderstood the creation account in Genesis 1:26-28 in wich God gives both the man and the woman the task of ruling over creation as confimed in Genesis 2:18. It is clear that, even he, unfortunately, followed the long-established man-made tradition of the so-called "headship" of the man and the so-called "headship" of Christ which has as its background pagan cultural influence brought into the Church by early Roman Catholic Church Fathers.

Read Part Eleven HERE