Religious Tolerance and Curbing Extremism go Hand in Hand

Two recent events have caught my attention: the first is the flood in Pakistan, where c. 10 million people are displaced, many without any access to food, water or medical care in the middle of a Pakistani August (to put this in perspective, a friend of mine from Pakistan was chatting with her Mom there in June, when it was 50C – that’s about 130F for my American family and friends). Needless to say, they’re in a very rough situation, and it’s only getting worse. An MSF doctor was on CBC last night saying their medical centre is completely full, with people on the floors and on the lawn, and still about 50 people show up every day looking for treatment for intestinal problems (water-born illnesses), most of them children. Quick reminder for you, diarrhea remains one of the leading 5 causes of death in children under 5.

On the other side of the world, a Muslim group in New York City are building a Mosque and Islamic Centre adjacent to 9-11′s Ground Zero. Touchy issue. Or is it? Well, it has certainly become one in the last few days, but ironically, when

Daisy Khan, wife of the "Ground Zero Mosque"'s Imam

they started building it wasn’t. See this article from the Washington Post for more info: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/08/17/AR2010081701473.html?hpid=topnews But basically the Imam of the Mosque said years ago that they were building it because of its location. In fact, it’s situated exactly where some of the wreckage from the Twin Towers fell. That’s because, as he says, this centre is the antithesis of what happened on 9-11. They are actively working to fight against extremism. Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham interviewed the Imam’s wife on the O’Reilly factor, and said “I can’t find many people who really have a problem with it. . . . I like what you’re trying to do.” Well, unfortunately, in recent days the tone has changed a lot and many people now see this mosque as an unpopular group pushing their rights insensitively in the faces of people still in mourning.

So, what do the floods and the Mosque have in common? That we, who are not Muslims in the West, have the opportunity of either helping extremism along, or helping to quelch it. Not through dropping bombs on extremists (anyone notice how that tends to breed more extremists, not fewer?). For someone who is desperately thirsty or hungry, they’re not going to refuse water or food for their children. Pakistan, unfortunately, has several hotbeds of extremism, but the majority are moderate Muslims. If the West turns away from them in their hour of desperate need, while the extremists provide aid, who do you think is going to win their favour? In New York, when a progessive group of Muslims tries to actively engage in community building to foster better relations between Muslims and other people, and to provide Muslim youth with positive direction, should we support them or suppress them? Who do you want teaching young Muslims the way of Islam?

Hmong Story Cloths

By far, one of the coolest things to come out of my internship this summer with Mennonite Central Committee is this: Hmong story cloths (pronounced “mong” – the “h” is silent). First, a little bit of background. This summer, I have had the great honour of serving with MCC by spearheading a pilot project to collect oral histories of former refugees who came to Canada through the MCC private sponsorship of refugees program (find out more here). Because MCC Ontario has sponsored 15 000 refugees since the program began in 1979, I clearly had to narrow it down. I decided to focus on the first group, the people from Southeast Asia, more commonly (and inaccurately – not to mention less-than-sensitively) known as the “Boat People.” When images of the humanitarian crisis in Southeast Asia in the late ’70s started flooding televisions in the west, people began jumping up and down insisting something be done. That something took the form of sponsorship. In Canada, MCC became the first signatory with the Canadian government, creating the private sponsorship of refugees program. Important side note: to this day Canada is the only country in the world that has private sponsorship of refugees – O Canada!

Vietnamese Canadian Federation members

Anyway, because this wave of immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were the first to come, they were the ideal group for several reasons. First of all, practicality. In trying to find participants for oral history projects, you have to be able to actually find them. I had a stack of Notice of Arrival forms, housed in the MCC archives, that listed the person(s) sponsored, the church/business/group that sponsored them, and the person who was point of contact. I then contacted the sponsors in order to track down the contact in order to find the people sponsored. Phew. Thankfully, helping this along, were many commemorative celebrations in the last year or so. See, many of these people came to Canada 30 years ago, and had celebrations with their sponsors to commemorate that.

Well, interviewing these people over the past summer has been one of the most rewarding and challenging projects I’ve undertaken. Even more than that, though, having the opportunity to speak with these people has been a truly great honour. The stories are incredible (you, too, can appreciate their stories, just as soon as I get the project web site up and running! I’ll post about it here when I do).

I’ll speak more about the project when I finally complete the project’s site and post about it here, but today I want to focus on what, as I already said, was one of the coolest discoveries for me, the Hmong story cloths, of course.

The Hmong are an ethnic group from Southeast Asia who have no homeland.

Hmong New Year celebration

To get a quick idea of what their history has been like, think of the Kurds in Iraq, or the Jews in Russia. Not a happy history. After the Vietnam War and the Secret War in Laos, the communist regime and the Viet Cong targeted the Hmong for retribution. The Hmong had worked with the American forces and so were ruthlessly hunted down as a people. (Side note: while the situation is not as dire as it was in the mid-70s, life is far from safe for Hmong people in Laos and Vietnam today). It is estimated that upwards of two-thirds of the Hmong population in Laos was killed.

Ban Vinai Refugee Camp

Not surprisingly, many Hmong fled to neighbouring Thailand, where they landed in refugee camps such as Nong Khai and Ban Vinai. To read an excellent Hmong family memoir, I highly recommend Kao Kalia Yang‘s The Latehomecomer. For those who don’t already know, refugee camps are not happy places. They are filthy, overcrowded, unsanitary, undersupplied prisons. Many Hmong spent several years in these camps. In order to whittle away the time, but even more importantly, in order to make sure future generations would not forget what had happened, Hmong women turned their tradition of needlework to recreating their own stories. Hmong women would embroider intricate pictures on wholecloth quilts, illustrating their escape from Laos into Thailand. Some quilts are small, and some are quite large. This had a practical element, too. Once completed, the Hmong would sell these quilts to foreigners working in the camps, and to friends or family who were already overseas, in order to create an income for themselves and their families. The quilts display images of village life, warfare, escape across the Mekong River, and life in the refugee camps.

Hmong story cloth

When I told my husband about these quilts, he replied, “Well, there’s your dissertation right there!” We’ll see – the idea certainly has merit! But for now I’m just so thankful they were brought to my attention by one of the women I interviewed.

Bridges of Understanding

This is such a great shot:

 This past May, there was a meeting at Floradale Mennonite Church, in Floradale, Ontario, Canada, where several recently arrived refugees and their sponsors met in celebration. This is the write-up from Mennontie Central Committee:

“In my job, I see miracles everyday.” Moses Moini was speaking at Floradale Mennonite Church at a gathering organized by refugee sponsoring churches and Mennonite Central Committee Ontario. Moses, the MCC Refugee Co-ordinator, was sharing his experience with a group of recent refugees and their sponsor families. One of these miracles was connecting with Idirsa Pandit of the Muslim Social Services of Kitchener-Waterloo to explore the possibilities of working together in settling Palestinian refugee families who have been stranded along the Syrian boarder since the Iraq war broke out in 2003. 

“To my amazement, Idrisa was not a stranger to MCC. When she also mentioned that she was married to a Palestinian, I almost busted out with a loud ‘praise the Lord!’,” he said to laughter from the audience. “I was so encouraged by Idrisa’s willingness, readiness and commitment… these are the kind of partnerships and community connections needed to translate such a project into reality.”

The kind of partnership Moses speaks of is one that builds bridges of understanding.

Idrisa Padit has partnered with MCC Ontario for several years through the ground-breaking Interfaith Bridgebuilding program in Kitchener-Waterloo that sees Muslims and Mennonites meeting regularly to share with each other and build relationships. That evening at Floradale, she shared a story from the Koran of the Christian King Negus who welcomed with open arms a group of Muslim refugees who were fleeing persecution. Speaking to the mostly Mennonite audience, she noted that “Negus was living the Biblical commandment of ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’, by offering refuge to fellow human beings, just as you, faithful Christians in our community have extended your love and generosity to strangers who are already beginning to look more like family.”

Fred Redekop, pastor at Floradale Mennonite Church, told an astonishing story similar to that of King Negus – but in reverse. Fred’s ancestors were part of a group of Mennonites who fled Southern Ukraine when the Russian empire told Mennonites that they were no longer exempt from military service. After an arduous four month journey, they arrived in present-day Uzbekistan, hungry, tired, and landless. 

“When they arrived, they were welcomed by the Muslim communities… The local imam (religious leader) knew they were religious people and offered them the mosque to worship in until they could find their own church building. They allowed them to bury their people in their own graveyard.”

The Mennonites remained for nearly fifty years in this Muslim community. To cap off this incredible story, Fred says that “each year, at the beginning of planting season, the local imam still goes out to the old Mennonite cemetery in Uzbekistan and thanks God for the Mennonites who brought to them good farming techniques and thanks God for those relationships that were nurtured long ago.”

The final story of the evening came from Omar Awsage who came to Canada in October 2009 with his young family after spending four long years in a refugee camp in Syria having fled his home in Iraq. Through MCC’s refugee sponsorship program, Omar and his family were paired with Tavistock Mennonite Church who sponsored them and helped them get this far. Omar shared some photos of their time in Syria – they portrayed a world of despair and hope, of loss and survival. He thanked God for the miracles that brought his family to Canada. He knows there are many fellow Palestinian refugees in south-western Ontario but there is one man he dearly wishes were with him – his younger brother, 24-year-old Ali who is still awaiting sponsorship at the same refugee camp in north-east Syria. “My parents died in Iraq and my three brothers – we are all that we have… we want to stay together.”  He is currently trying to find a way to raise enough money to bring his brother to Canada.

Through these stories and connections, the spirit of mutual respect, love and cooperation was strengthened and the potluck-style dinner served afterward was equal parts eating and talking, and laughing. 

The spirit of this inter-faith partnering was summarized poignantly by Idrisa’s hope:
“Living with one another in harmony, with respect for each other’s beliefs and values, and embracing each other rather than merely tolerating one another, would make all of us, children of God, worthy in His eyes.”

Bonnets and Burqas: What Mennonite Women can Learn from Veiled Feminist Muslims

I mentioned in a previous post that I would be presenting a paper on this topic. Sadly, I got a bad case of laryngitis and it never happened! However, I was asked to preach one Sunday, and so modified the paper to be appropriate for this setting. Here is the end result:

Mennonite Central Committee Interfaith Bridge Building Program

By Laura Stemp-Morlock

Preached May 30, 2010 at Rockway Mennonite Church, Kitchener, Ont.

Mennonites love dialogue. Along with borscht and quilts, it’s one of the things that we do best. We dialogue within our congregations, we facilitate dialogues between offenders and victims, and we dialogue with people of other religions. Today, I’m going to focus on dialogue with Muslims, because that is the group with whom I have the privilege of being closely connected.

Throughout the Bible, there is a strong theme that encourages us to dialogue with people who know God in radically different ways. The Book of Ruth, as well as passages in Micah and Isaiah, show people of other nations and religions to be righteous and God-fearing. In the passage just read from John 16:12-13 Jesus lets his followers know that there is truth outside of our knowledge parameters. This is one of the reasons that talking with other people who are connected to God – sometimes in very different ways – has the potential to reveal new truth to us.

Too often, though, I believe we limit the impetus for dialogue with Muslims to a better understanding of one another, in order to promote peace. While I certainly have no opposition to such dialogue, I believe that we have a great deal to learn from Muslims – not just about who they are, but about who we are. I propose that Muslim theology has the strong potential to inform our own.

Mennonites, perhaps more than most other Christian denominations, can relate to Muslims. Both communities identify themselves outside of the mainstream, and both have earned the term “radical.” This is most visibly represented in attire, in that both Mennonites and Muslims have a tradition of covering their women. It is a talking point that is immediately identifiable with both communities. In fact, many Muslim women explain part of their rationale for wearing the hijab as representing their religion: “When I go out in hijab, everyone knows I’m Muslim.” The current debate over Quebec’s proposed ban on the niqab (the Muslim face veil) brings into sharp relief how visible and contentious religious attire can be, even within the Muslim community itself. That being said, it is important to remember that Mennonites need not wade into the internal debates of the Muslim community in order to learn from their theology.

Let me be clear about what this is not: I am not calling for a re-institution of conference dictates on hem length or head coverings. I am not admonishing “frivolous young women” to dress more “modestly”. And I am not saying that all is perfect with Muslim women and that the veil has never been used as an instrument of oppression. It’s important to remember that a history of oppressive theology is wrapped up in discussions of Christian women’s dress. What I am saying is that feminist Muslim women, who are quite familiar with negative theology directed at themselves, can convey to us that there is a possibility of combining a self-empowering theology with a modest and particular one, demonstrated through their attire.

I propose that Christian women (Mennonites in particular) can learn a great deal from Muslim women on how to demonstrate their theologically based self-empowerment through their attire, without dismissing modesty or adopting legalistic and damaging mandates. This may seem like a conversation more suited for old order participants than the more mainstream churches, but in fact, that is my very point: engagement with Muslim women reminds us that this is an important issue.

But why? Why should we care? Why am I resurrecting this issue of “dress” when most Mennonites have given up dress codes, and only discuss the topic in reference to the Mennonite theological dark ages, where a skirt that hung above the knee was immodest, and therefore displeasing to God? Because, quite simply, how we dress and what we wear still has theological significance.

The subtle (and not so subtle) theological messages wrapped up in our clothing have the potential to shape our understanding of God. The old paradigm, that God wants us to look prim and proper, teaches us that God wants cleaned-up lives and happy masks. If, however, our church welcomes people in jeans, this message has the power to convey a God who wants us to “come as we are.” This theology teaches us that God wants us to come before our Creator in our brokenness, in all of our messiness, and that it is through broken vessels and not perfect people, that God works.

Yet is it not odd that a relationship with God would have no affect on our wardrobes? With all the time, money and energy that we invest in our clothing decisions, is there a way to honour our Creator in how we dress? Feminist Muslim women who veil often explain their choice as providing them with a sense of freedom and rightness with God. Is there a way for Christian women to have a similar experience through how we dress? This is a conversation that must walk a very fine line, for both Muslims and Christians. From the Christian perspective, it is very easy to slip into traditional concepts of “modest Christian dress,” that are in fact little more than attempts to control women’s bodies.

Within the Mennonite tradition, concern over beauty, and appearance in general, was considered vainglorious and sinful. “Fashion” was a worldly concept that contradicted Mennonite non-conformity. With the rejection of Conference determined dress codes in the 1950s and ‘60s, Mennonite women were free to shorten their hair and their hemlines. But what if fashion could be embraced as part of a non-conformist theology? As Mennonites, we have not yet accomplished this. While there is a somewhat particular style of dress that characterizes some Mennonite congregations – vests and beards on the men, and scarves and peasant blouses on the women (both genders wear Birkenstocks), this manner of dress is really more of a reflection of tradition and secular style than theology.

Many Muslims, on the other hand, have embraced their theological particularity in manners of dress and have created culturally based haute couture. Muslims refer to this as “fashionably faithful.” If you Google this term, this Islamic fashion is simply stunning.

I am by no means suggesting that Mennonites adopt the hijab. Instead, I seek to move beyond mandates of starched shirts and learn from Muslim women’s appreciation of their own beauty.

Muslim women veil not out of shame but because they wholeheartedly believe that this is what God asks of them. Veiling is an act of submission, and it is this concept that Mennonites need to resurrect. This is where Christian feminists become uncomfortable (and I include myself in this). The term “submission” carries an almost insurmountable negative connotation, no matter how it is defined. What I seek is for Christians to reclaim submissiveness and yieldedness, not to be “thrown down and run over”, as John Howard Yoder put it. This submission stands in contrast to the blind community obedience that dominates individuals. It goes beyond gender, and applies equally to men and women. While I do not suggest that Muslims have mastered this radical submissiveness, feminist Muslims feel no dischord in explaining wearing their hijabs as acts of submission to God, and as a means for being judged for who they are, rather than how they look. My hope is that through dialogue with Muslims

The believer’s baptism rejects the notion that as individuals we make choices that have no impact on others in our communities. We choose to be accountable to the community of believers, but we have a say in what those standards are.

Our community has embraced the “come as you are” theology I began this paper with. The problem with this is that it does not require much, if any, preparation. Our lives are frantic and focused on ourselves. In church we have an opportunity to be still and focused on God. Muslims have a strong sense of this, performing ritual cleansing before each prayer, and wearing specific attire for both men and women. When we wear our street clothes to church, we can fail to appreciate the transition. Author Steve Lansingh provides a strong analogy: “It’s kind of like the difference between dressing up for a big date and just hanging out with someone at home. The casual evening allows you to be yourself, but the formal event gives you time to anticipate and prepare and be ready to meet the other person.”

Worship is not supposed to be limited to what we do on Sunday mornings. This is hardly a new concept in Mennonite theology, and used to be part of our dress. Unfortunately, through dress, Mennonite women encountered a faith that justified their subjegation. I want to reclaim this notion, however, that getting dressed each morning has the potential to be an act of worship. Exodus 28 provides a detailed description of the sacred garments Aaron must wear as the High Priest of Israel. Through this mandate of physical ritual, God is reminding Aaron to make preparations to meet with the Almighty God. God is concerned with our hearts, not with our outward appearance, but the physical directly affects the spiritual.

1 Timothy 2:9-10: Part 1 of 4

I am very excited, because I get to combine an assignment for my Master’s program with my interests represented in this blog. For my course, Reading and Teaching the New Testament, with Dr. Tom Yoder Neufeld, I am examining the passage in 1 Tim. 2:9-10:

“I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” (TNIV)

Or, as the NLT has it:

“And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do.”

To examine this text, I will be writing a series of posts. First, I will set the context by looking at women in the first century Greco-Roman society and the Jewish culture. Then we’ll look at different interpretations of 1 Tim 2:9-10, beginning with the historical Mennonite interpretations that lead to plain clothes and then looking at what  several Biblical commentaries, such as The New Interpreter’s Bible,  The New Century Bible Commentary: the Pastoral Epistles, and the Women’s Bible Commentary have to say. Finally, we’ll finish with some concluding remarks that brings this all together and looks at the passage’s relevance for today.

1 Tim. 2:9-10: Greco-Roman Women, Part 2 of 4

This is part two in my series on 1 Tim. 2:9-10 (see what this series is about here.) Today, we’ll be looking at women in the first century Greco-Roman world.

Women in Roman culture were ranked according to several standards. The first was their class — plebeians (lower class) and patricians (upper class). From there women were divided according to a moral standard that separated respectable women from those in a “disreputable” profession, from slave and free, and by age. A woman’s marital status was also a key factor in her social rank, following these distinctions: young virgin, celibate adult, wife, wife married only once, and widow.1

Hellenistic Style

Since 1 Tim. 2:9-10 is dealing with fashion, let’s look at that. The author of 1 Timothy’s appeal to modest attire would not have been news to his audience. In fact, Roman law went so far as to say:

“If anyone accosts young girls who are dressed in the clothes of slaves, his offence will be seen as minor, and even more so if the women are dressed as prostitutes, and not as [respectable] mothers of families. Therefore, if a woman is not dressed as a matron and some-one calls out to her or entices away her attendant, he will not be liable to the action for injury.”2

In other words, women who did not dress “respectably” were fair game. Furthermore, matrons had more protection under the law than the lower class women, but only if they looked respectable.

toga praetexta

Comparatively little academic work has been done on what freeborn girls wore, but it seems as though they wore what their brothers did — namely, the toga praetexta.3 The styles of a toga indicated a person’s status and function, and in the case of the toga praetexta, the reddish-purple (purpura) band woven along one edge signified a liberi ingenui (freeborn boy), or in this case, a puella ingenua (freeborn girl). Veiling was an important part of Roman attire, but would be more suitable to an examination of 1 Corinthians 11. For a quick discussion of this, see my previous post on Roman veiling.

Modesty

Modesty was considered an essential virtue in a respectable Roman woman. Many Roman authorities lamented the preference for Asian silk when it began to be imported, as they felt it revealed too much of a woman’s form.5 Horace notes this when he compares the dress of a matron and a prostitute:

“In a matron, one can only see her face, for … her long tunic conceals all else. But if you seek forbidden charms that are invested with a rampart … many obstacles will then be in your way — attendants, the sedan, hairdressers, parasites, the stola dropping to the ankles, the mantle wrapped round — a thousand things which hinder you from a clear view. In the other — no obstacle. In her Coan silk you may see her, almost as if naked, so that she may not have a poor leg, an unsightly foot; you may measure her whole form with your eye.”6

Class

Obviously, fashion was an important class distinguisher. Romans attached a great deal of religious and cultural significance to their attire. Everything from the colour of cloth used for certain garments at particular life stages to the way knots were tied represented ritual significance.7

1st Century elaborate jewellery

At a glance you could see if a woman was a slave or the mistress of a large household. Not surprisingly, part of these distinctions were marked by jewellery. In Rome, colour, rather than glitter, was most important. Therefore, the most sought after (and therefore the most expensive) jewellery was made from pearls. In fact, “during the first century, authors frequently used pearls as a symbol of expensive jewellery, and wrote disapprovingly of their use.”8 Gold, too, was the preferred metal for those who could afford it.9 Does this sound familiar? 1 Tim. 2:9 specifically states “gold or pearls” and the author was not alone in his injunction against them.

It is important to remember that Romans were ambivalent about their women’s jewellery. In Jewelery as a Symbol of Status in the Roman Empire, Ann M. Stout notes, “Throughout Rome’s history a tension existed between the desire for showy gold, gem-encrusted jewelry and the restraint appropriate to republican values of simplicity and modesty.”9

We know that Hellenistic thought influenced the writers of the New Testament. We also know that these people lived amidst these Hellenistic social influences. Wouldn’t it make sense that this discomfort with excessive jewellery would extend to the Hellenistic Jesus community? But I don’t think that’s all that’s going on here.  1 Tim. also specifies hairstyles.

Hairstyles

Throughout the Roman Empire, women who wanted to keep up with the fashions could do so by using official statues and coin portraits in order to follow the latest hairstyles from the Imperial court.10

Roman hairstyles

Many of these hairstyles were (obviously) quite ornate, and required false hair, pads, or wigs. The complexity of these styles, as well as the time they would take and skill of a hairstylist to complete, restricted them to the leisured classes. A poor woman would, of necessity, wear a much simpler style.11

Hmmm, could there be a theme here? 1 Timothy 2:9 does not want women wearing expensive clothing, or wearing jewellery or hairstyles that would distinguish them as wealthy. Here’s a hint: maybe the author is getting at what is supposed to be the egalitarian nature of worship. We’ll get to that in a later post.

Worship

But as long as we’re talking about worship, let’s take a look at what worship looked like for Roman women.

Aphrodite

Religion provided an outlet for women whose lives were quite restricted. In Roman society there were essentially two kinds of religion: the native state-sponsored cults, and the imported Oriental cults. Some of the cults (the ones that tended to be most popular) provided opportunities for “joy and release.” There were religious festivals exclusively for women where “drunkenness, obscene jests, and lewd behaviour were appropriate.”9

So, in summary, you have a group of women whose lives are strongly defined by their class and gender — largely in a restrictive way. You also have a group of women who are used to religion as a means of “letting go.”

Keep this in mind as we take a look at first century Jewish women in the next post.

1 Tim. 2:9-10: Jewish Women, Part 3 of 4

This is part three of my series on 1 Timothy 2:9-10. In order to understand this post, please see the previous one on Greco-Roman dress.

The Samaritan Woman - a modern rendition

Unlike for Roman styles, there are no contemporary images of first century Palestinian attire. In fact, there are very few sources that deal with ordinary Jewish women at all. With no statues or paintings to go on, reconstructing what Jewish women wore in the first century Mediterranean is piecemeal work. The only surviving material we have from that time was found in the Cave of Letters, located near En-Gedi in the Judean desert. This cave was occupied by the followers of Bar Kokhba during the second Jewish war against Rome. Therefore, assuming that the garments were brought to the cave, and not manufactured there, we have representative textiles for 100 to 135 C.E. We also have a great deal of Jewish literature that discusses clothing, particularly from the Mishnah.

Together, these sources tell us that Jewish dress was essentially the same as it was throughout the Roman Empire, but with some modifications to meet Jewish law. Most particularly, the laws of shaatnez and tzitzit. Shaatnez is from Deuteronomy 22:11: “Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together” (TNIV). This meant that the Roman style tunics (which, incidentally, used the same colour coding to denote status) were woven exclusively of wool or linen. Likewise, the tzitzit came from Deut. 22:12: “Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear” (TNIV).1

The infancy of Moses, west wall of the synagogue of Dura-Europos. One of the earliest representations of Jewish clothing.

Head Coverings

Like Roman women, Jewish women covered their heads. A woman could be divorced without payment of her marriage contract if she went out in public showing her hair.2

Again, this would better suit a discussion of 1 Corinthians 11, but it is relevant to see the importance placed on women’s modesty. It is also interesting to note that the Mishnah allows for the differences in local customs: “Women of Arabia may go out veiled, and women of Medea with their cloaks looped over their shoulder.”3 This allowance for local custom will come back in a later post as we discuss the relevance of these texts for us today.

Braids

Likewise, it is somewhat ironic that the author of 1 Timothy tells women not to braid their hair, because as far as we can tell from the limited sources we have, respectable Jewish women wore their long hair braided and pinned up. Letting your hair down was associated with the orgiastic ecstatic worship in Hellenistic cults.4 Again, this is edging near the discussions around covering women’s hair and the role of women in worship. By the way, if this interests you, be sure to check out my bibliography. Several of the sources have excellent discussions on women in first century synagogues (see, for example, Women & Christian Origins). While undeniably connected, that conversation warrants its own study. Let’s get back to fashion.

So, in summary, Jewish women’s social attire was pretty much the same as it was for Roman women. That means that the admonition in 1 Timothy 2:9-10 would have sounded very familiar to both Hellenistic and Jewish believers.

1 Tim 2:9-10: Interpretation, Part 4 of 4

It is frustrating trying to research 1 Tim. 2:9-10. That’s because few people are writing about it, and those who do are talking about the next part – the role of women in the church. As I have already said, while that is an important discussion, it’s not what I’m after. I’m trying to ascertain what 1 Tim. 2:9-10 is really talking about, and how that affects Christian women today. Even go-to sources, such as Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza‘s In Memory of Her focus their discussion of this text on the role of women in worship and ministry.

What Schüssler Fiorenza, as well as other scholars such as Judith Plaskow, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, Janice Capel Anderson, and Alison M. Cheek (among many others) have done for me (with regard to this study) is to create a lens through which I can examine 1 Tim. 2:9-10. In other words, I read their works to learn how to engage a biblical text in a critical (as in thoughtful, not cynical) way.

So, in order to get at the question I’m asking, I’ll have to go in through a back door, so to speak, by looking at how this passage has been used and interpreted in the past. And where else should I begin, but with Mennonites (seeing as how I am one, after all – but check out my Why Third Way page to understand that my branch of Mennonites dress like the general public).

Mennonite Interpretation

Most people, when they think of Mennonites, think of the Old Order or Amish: horses and buggies, prayer caps and plain clothes. While the majority of Mennonites actually dress “like everyone else,” clothing is inextricably linked to the Mennonite faith.

In 1943, John C. Wenger, Dean of the Bible School at Goshen College wrote:

“The Mennonite Church is today confronted with the question, Shall simplicity of dress be maintained? In the final test only one foundation is strong enough to guarantee the perpetuation of this distinctive Christian witness: that foundation is the personal conviction that Christian simplicity of dress is a Biblical truth.”1

This is very telling. He goes on to say that while,

“Ministers may plead, and conferences may pass resolutions … the battle against worldliness will not have been won until each believer has decided for himself to live the nonconformed life … and that this break finds application even in one’s dress.”2

So, according to Wenger, and many Mennonites of his day, simple attire was a biblical and essential aspect of the Christian witness against worldliness. Guess what Bible verse his book, Christianity and Dress, uses to support this thinking? That’s right – 1 Tim 2:9-10, in which (according to Wengel) “The Bible dares to be specific in giving instructions on the dress and appearance of the Christian.”3

(If you are interested to know how this discussion evolved, as well as a 1989 update, read this article on dress from GAMEO).

United Mennonite Church, Yarrow B.C. 1938

Biblical Commentaries

When I turned to Biblical Commentaries, I found (by this point, not surprisingly) that 1 Timothy 2:9-10 was only referenced in passing. However, some of these passing comments provide important puzzle pieces. The New Interpreter’s Bible and the New Century Bible Commentary on The Pastoral Epistles both point out that this text is part of a larger domestic code, seen in the larger society that surrounds the first century believers (think back to the similarities of rules regarding Hellenistic and Jewish dress). This means that each group in the community has conduct that is considered appropriate to them.4

In the Dictionary of the Later New Testament and its Developments, P.H. Towner notes that a wife whose husband was an unbeliever might “win him” to faith in Christ if her own behaviour was exemplary, and by extension connected to her own faith. “Outer adornment is the specific aspect of respectable conduct given to illustrate [this] teaching.”5

The New Interpreter’s Bible commentary on 1 Timothy also points out a key piece to the puzzle:

“The warning presupposes the presence of some wealth in the congregations being addressed and a tendency on the part of well-to-do women (often severely limited in their freedom of action …) to find satisfaction in costly attire (the tendency illustrated in poems, paintings, and sculptures of the time). A religion that saw its end result in such terms would be no more than a club for social advancement.”6

While I’m not big on the hint that “girls like pretty things,” Dunn’s final point is crucial – the community of believers was not a club for social advancement. Where I disagree with Dunn is his next statement that this passage makes modern readers cringe (true) and does not apply to modern women.

A stark example of how 1 Tim. can be interpreted

Similarly, in her commentary on 1 Timothy in the Women’s Bible Commentary, Joanna Dewey simply points out that such a description of virtue is common to “Greco-Roman men’s rhetoric describing their ideal of a virtuous woman.”7 Her interpretation is, essentially, that this passage puts women in their place.

John Temple Bristow starts to get where I want to go in his book What Paul Really Said About Women. Not surprisingly, he proposes that the author “was not forbidding the wearing of gold nor the braiding of hair per se, but the practice of braiding gold items into one’s hair.”8 This, he argues, was the practice of prostitutes, and had been adopted by fashionable Roman women. Likewise, he notes that the arrangement of the wording urging women to avoid expensive clothing places the emphasis on “expensive”, or “costly.”9

Like in other commentaries, Temple Bristow says the author is advising women to wear clothing that is tasteful and attractive, not disheveled or ostentatious, and to avoid jewellery that is extravagantly expensive, or prostitute-like. He notes that these qualities can be divisive in the community, and that the author illustrates this with the previous passage.10 1 Tim 2:8 asks men to pray “without anger or disputing” (TNIV). Verse 9 begins with “likewise” or “also” indicating a continuation of his thought.

What I Think

This is, for me, where the rubber meets the road. I believe that 1 Tim. 9 is not so much a dress code as it is asking believers in the community to avoid division. Any study of Greco-Roman fashion shows pretty clearly that it was strongly class based, and that the fashions mentioned in verse 9 were those of the upper class. The author of 1 Timothy doesn’t want believers coming together in order to judge each other by what they’re wearing – isn’t it ironic that that is precisely how this verse has been interpreted in many cases?

Customs have changed, and styles no longer mean what they once did. Therefore, many people argue the author of 1 Timothy’s instructions are no longer relevant to modern Christians — that this is an obsolete passage. I completely agree that the Hellenistic context in which the passage was written is different from our context today. I also don’t think this passage should be used to restrict women and what they wear. I don’t even think there is a “should” to how Christian women dress.

Anne Hathaway in the Devil Wears Prada

But I think the passage still is relevant, and still is important for us. Verse 8 asks us to avoid divisions in the community, verse 9 asks us not to dress in a way that would isolate members of the community, and verse 10 tells us that what is most important in Christians is not how we look, but how we act. What if, instead of using this passage to restrict women from wearing specific items (which are part of an obsolete social context), it was used to remind Christians that in Christ there is to be no difference between believers (Gal. 3:28). What if, instead of using this passage to advocate for denim jumpers over “flashy” clothes as “befitting a Christian woman” we took verse 10 to heart. It’s true, a woman should not be defined by her clothes. This means that Prada shouldn’t define her. But it also means that preferring haute couture is not a sin. Don’t judge a book by its cover, and don’t judge a woman by what she wears. Instead, look at the person and see how she treats others. How should she do that? Try James 2:14-18, 3:9, 13, and 18 for starters. And who knows, maybe to finish off we should read 1 Tim. 2:9-10 alongside James 4:12: “who are you to judge your neighbour?”

Roman veils

I came across this quote in The World of Roman Costume, and thought it was worth repeating (remember that most of the New Testament is written to audiences that included Hellenistic believers):

“The costume of the matron signified her modesty and chastity, her pudicitia. It consisted of her distinctive dress, the woolen stola, which was worn over a tunic; the protective woolen bands which dressed her hair; and the woolen palla or mantle, which was used to veil her head when she went out in public.

While to modern women of Western countries, the Middle Eastern custom of veiling women seems to signify social inequality and even inferiority, to modern women of the East it is a symbol of their honor and of the sanctity and privacy of their family life. In Islamic society today, respectable women veil to protect their honor and to signify their respectability. If a man does not show them respect, their kinship group will feel shamed and will likely take serious steps to avenge the collective family honor. Veiling in Islamic society also is a way of protecting against the evil eye. In fact, the Arabic word for veiling is related to the word for the amulet worn to counteract the evil eye.

Veiled Roman Woman

There are some indications that the Romans viewed veiling in a general way like modern Islamic society.”

Bonnets and Burqas

My apologies for the very long delay since I’ve posted anything. The reality is my blog must always take a back seat to school work and family. But, there’s a slight lull in paper writing, and I feel it’s important to make my very tiny contribution to cross-cultural understanding. To that end, I’m posting a summary of a paper I will be presenting at the Toronto School of Theology in May at a conference. More details to follow!

The idea for this paper came predominantly from the despicable proposal in France to ban the Muslim veil. This was followed up by a case here in Canada this spring where a Muslim woman is lodging a Human Rights complaint against the province of Quebec for ordering her to remove her niqab for a french class. I could write a whole post on what I think about these two events (maybe I will!) but let me just say this: in what way is it possibly liberating to tell a woman how she has to dress? How does one reconcile saying the veil is an oppressive item, used to control women, and then tell those women that they are not allowed to dress how they want to?! That it is against democratic ideals? Isn’t it against those democratic ideals to impose a dress code?!

In any case, here’s my paper outline.

What Mennonites Can Learn from Veiled Feminist Muslims

The Muslim veil has become a key symbol of Christianity’s encounter with Islam, and has usually been misunderstood as exclusively representative of oppressive Islamic theology. Given the tensions between Muslims and Christians throughout the world, it is essential that Christians actively work toward mutuality with our Muslim neighbours. Mennonites, perhaps more than most other Christian denominations, can relate to Muslims. Both communities identify themselves outside of the mainstream, and both have earned the term “radical.” This is most visibly represented in their attire, in that both Mennonites and Muslims have a tradition of covering their women.

In this paper, I propose that Christian women (Mennonites in particular) can  learn a great deal from Muslim women on how to demonstrate their theologically based self-empowerment through their attire, without dismissing modesty or adopting legalistic and damaging mandates. In explaining this, I examine the feminist Muslim theology that insists upon being covered as a practice that is at once liberating and a sign of worship. I propose that this theology can significantly inform a feminist Christian perspective. It is important to remember that a history of oppressive theology is wrapped up in discussions of how Christian women “should” dress. It is precisely for this reason that feminist Muslim women, who are quite familiar with negative theology directed at themselves, can convey the possibility of seamlessly combining a self-empowering theology with a modest and particular one, as demonstrated through their attire.

In examining these issues, I consider the thoughts of Amina Wadud and Fatima Mernissi. I place their arguments within the context of feminist Christian theologians, such as Mary C. Grey and Linda Woodhead. James A. Reimer’s unpublished work on universal moral principles helps create the framework on which I structure this paper. I set these interpretations against the backdrop of more conventional interpretations, such as John Horsch’s Worldly Conformity in Dress, not to dismiss these earlier works, but to demonstrate how more progressive theologies can maintain what is most important in these concepts while embracing a more empowering theology.