Prayer with hair

Nora Ziegler

I want to speak with you today about women’s hair, which was a controversial and politicised topic for the early Christians and still is today. And I want to speak about the women in Northern Syria who have been fighting to defend the monumental achievements of the women’s revolution in Rojava.
We heard a reading from one of the apostle Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. Paul writes:
‘God purposely chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise, and he chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful. 28 He chose what the world looks down on and despises and thinks is nothing, in order to destroy what the world thinks is important.’
These are powerful words. But reading Paul’s words as a woman gives them a whole other layer of meaning. ‘God purposefully chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise’. The world often treats women’s wisdom as nonsense, dismissing it as ‘old wives tales’ and ‘gossip’. God ‘chose what the world looks down on and despises and thinks is nothing, in order to destroy what the world thinks is important.’ The world looks down on and despises women.
I think the Christian women in Corinth would have identified strongly with Paul’s words. They would have felt seen and welcomed to fully participate in the church as equals.
We know that women were leading prayers and teaching in Paul’s churches, and that he was supportive of this practice. We know from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, that some women were breaking with a traditional custom and were proclaiming God’s message in public worship without covering their heads. It is likely that women felt encouraged to do this because Paul taught that in Christ there were no differences between men and women, free person or slave. All were equal.
However, in this letter, Paul argues that women should cover their heads when leading public worship. He writes, ‘any woman who prays or proclaims God’s message in public worship with nothing on her head disgraces her husband’. Interestingly, the word Paul uses which is translated here as ‘disgrace’, is the same word he uses in chapter one when he writes that God, ‘chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful’.
Paul is giving the women of Corinth mixed messages. On the one hand, he preaches that God chose the weak to shame the strong. At the same time, he argues that women must not shame men; that they should accept their lower status. Paul is fully aware of the contradiction he finds himself in. He awkwardly goes on to say that: ‘In our life in the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.’ He recognises that his advice to the women sits in tension with the inclusive message of the gospel.
This contradiction reflects a wider tension that the early Christians wrestled with, which is still relevant for us today. How do we live and survive in a society, while also challenging that society? Where do we make compromises and where do we put our foot down? How can we be peacemakers while also speaking out against injustice?
Paul believes that the women of Corinth should conform to a patriarchal custom rather than challenge it. I can offer an extremely charitable, feminist interpretation of Paul’s position. In the beginning of his letter, Paul shows that he is concerned with people seeking individual status. He is critical of people using their intellect and education or their wealth and social status to lord it over others. It is possible that some women who had wealth or high social status were using their privilege to take liberties which lower class women could not afford. Wealthy women may have been able to flout traditional customs, whereas if lower class women did so, they may have risked violence and marginalisation.
We know that Paul prioritised the needs of the community over the freedom and desires of individuals. So, it is possible that Paul was concerned that women were seeking individual status, rather than working to shift the power dynamic between men and women more broadly, which we know takes time, requires immense patience and compromises along the way.
Paul wanted Christians to be unified as one body in Christ. But whose responsibility is it to create that unity? Who must make the compromises and swallow down their pride to smooth over divisions? If a woman praying with her head uncovered disgraces men, maybe that is a good thing. Maybe the men should be ashamed that they are treating women as inferior even though women are called by Jesus Christ to be equal partners in his kingdom.
Hierarchical power dynamics have a way of turning shame around. It is the victim who is made to feel ashamed for the hurt that has been done to them, instead of the other way around. For example, it is shameful that in the UK, one of the richest countries in the world, almost one in three children is growing up in poverty. But who bears this shame? The rich are celebrated and admired, while the poor are blamed for their poverty and humiliated.
In January 2026, there was a video on social media of a male soldier in the Syrian army who cut off a female Kurdish fighter’s braid and proudly displayed it like a trophy. In response, Kurdish women around the world braided each other’s hair in videos shared on social media, at protests and on the front lines of the war. They show that women’s hair is a symbol of strength and dignity. It is only shameful to those who would deny women their freedom.
When women turn their shame around against the men who oppress them, this is an act of love. Shame can move us to repent, to seek forgiveness and draw closer to God. But if the shame of injustice is turned against the oppressed, against women, against the poor, we remain divided, from each other and from God. God chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful; to heal us and restore our relationships with each other and with God. Amen. ▪️