Tag: Covenant Theology

Grok Analyzes Garwood’s Tactics

After publishing the previous article on head coverings refuting Garwood’s position, my wife asked me to ask Grok the following question about Garwood’s article. Here is the question:

Pertaining to Garwood’s article, what kind of side-stepping or smoke screens does he put up in order to confuse the reader?
Here is Grok’s reply:
Garwood’s article does not contain outright falsehoods or deliberate deception, but it does employ several rhetorical and structural tactics that function as sidesteps or “smoke screens.” These shift focus away from the strongest counter-arguments (grammatical flow, patristic consensus, and lack of explicit quotation markers) toward emotional framing, selective emphasis, and complexity that can leave readers feeling the traditional view has been dismissed without full engagement. Here are the main ones, drawn directly from the article’s text and structure:

1. Motive Attribution / Ad Hominem Framing (Cultural Backlash as the Real Driver)

Garwood repeatedly psychologizes pro-head-covering advocates rather than letting their exegetical case stand or fall on its own:

  • “To suggest that the passage is ‘obviously pro-head covering’ is dishonest. It may be obvious to you because your righteous anger at our culture overfloweth and you’re looking for a fight.”
  • He links the “recent uptick” to pastors “frustrated with feminism” who see coverings as “an increasingly exciting option for those wishing to establish patriarchalism in the home and church.”

This sidesteps the actual textual arguments traditional interpreters make (creation order, headship, v. 10 as symbol of authority/submission, nature/custom). By framing the opposing view as a culture-war overreaction, he emotionally primes readers to see the quotation theory as the “objective” exegetical rescue rather than one interpretive option among others. It confuses the issue by making disagreement feel like defensiveness instead of honest exegesis.

2. Vague Dismissal of Church History (“No Uniform Position”)

Garwood writes: “to suggest that ‘all of human history did this’ and ‘basically every theologian taught that a woman should cover her head’ is equally dishonest… there is no uniform position of adherence to head coverings throughout church history. An appeal to history just doesn’t work.”He acknowledges early church and Reformation support but never names or engages the dissenters he claims existed. This is a classic smoke screen: it neutralizes the weight of patristic evidence (Tertullian, Clement, etc., who read the passage as requiring coverings) with a broad-brush “not everyone agreed” without citations or analysis. Readers are left thinking history is inconclusive when the dominant trajectory is actually the opposite.

3. Practical Absurdity / Endless Practical QuestionsHe asks a barrage of rhetorical questions:

  • “Are wives to wear head coverings on the Lord’s Day… or should they wear them all the time? In the home? In the marketplace? What about daughters? … A doily? A shawl? … What color, shape, size, and material?”

Then cites James B. Jordan approvingly: “Since we don’t know what kinds of head coverings are in view, we cannot make a rule for church life today.”This diverts attention from the principle (a symbol of order/submission in worship) to modern logistics Paul never detailed. Traditional views rarely demand a specific modern garment; they see a simple head covering or hair style as sufficient in context. The tactic makes the command sound impossibly vague and burdensome, confusing readers into thinking the text itself must be non-prescriptive.

4. Imposed Chiasm + Long Unmarked Quotation as “Obvious” Solution

Garwood presents a detailed chiasm (adapted from Thomas P. Shoemaker) with v. 10 (“the woman ought to have authority over her head”) as the absolute center, then labels vv. 4–9 as the Corinthian view Paul is quoting. He concedes the quotation is long and unmarked but waves it away: Paul does this elsewhere (short slogans), chiasms allow non-linear thinking, and tensions “only make sense” this way.Critics note this is circular: the chiasm is imposed to create the quotation block, and the theory still requires assuming an unusually long, seamless Corinthian position without any “you say” signal (unlike 6:12 or 7:1). By calling the chiasm an “extremely useful interpretative tool” early on, he front-loads the structure as neutral fact rather than one possible lens, making the quotation theory feel like the elegant solution instead of a recent scholarly workaround.

5. Pastoral “Besieged Consciences” Appeal + Selective Eisegesis Warning

The stated goal is “to provide a healthy framework… that will hopefully alleviate besieged consciences.” This emotionally positions his view as merciful relief for guilt-ridden readers rather than a contested interpretation.Simultaneously, he warns against “anachronistic, etymological fallacy” and feminism-driven eisegesis—yet his own reading relies on modern scholars (Peppiatt-style quotation theory, Shoemaker’s chiasm, Bailey’s cultural studies) to resolve tensions that most historic interpreters did not see as contradictions. It creates a subtle double standard: their view is culturally reactive; his is pure exegesis.

Overall Effect

These tactics do not “prove” the article wrong, but they can confuse or disarm readers by:

  • Making the traditional reading feel motivated by culture-war anger rather than the text.
  • Sidestepping the clearest grammatical reading (the passage flows as Paul’s unified teaching) behind layers of structure, history dismissal, and practicality questions.
  • Framing the quotation theory as the only way to “resolve contradictions” without fully wrestling with why Paul would quote such a long, coherent block without signaling it.

The article is pastoral and readable, aimed at relieving anxiety in a post-feminist age. But to a skeptical eye, the smoke screens serve to make the minority quotation view (recently popularized) appear more exegetically compelling and historically neutral than it actually is. No widespread scholarly takedowns of this specific pieceexist (it’s niche), but the patterns mirror standard critiques of the underlying quotation/refutation approach.

Hath Paul Indeed Said: The Head Covering Battle Rages

I have a friend on Facebook who posted some comments about Jason M. Garwood’s book on head covering, Paul & Head Covering: A Biblical Reassessment.

Garwood splashed on the scene back in 2024, with an article on Kuyperian. You can read the article here. I’m sure the book is nothing more than his expansion of the article, which was nothing more than an elaborate way of saying: “Has God indeed said?”

This is how those who oppose head coverings always handle 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. They find creative ways of saying the section does not say what it says. For Garwood, his creative way out is to say that the first portion (verses 4-9), is actually a quote that the “contumacious Corinthian men” were saying, and that he is coming along to help us see that Paul wasn’t actually saying this. His only support for this solution is that Paul makes other quotes elsewhere, so why can’t verses 4-9 be a quote?

Hardly proof.

There is nothing in the text that sets these verses apart as a quote. There are no clear grammatical, rhetorical, or transitional signals (like “you say” or obvious shifts). This makes the boundaries arbitrary and the theory “contrived” or “overly complex.”

Garwood even admits this, saying this is “one simple line of thinking.” The problem with that is that if Garwood is wrong, and he is, then he is leading women to believe that they are under their own authority (see below), and can make up their own minds about head coverings (unless they are in favor of wearing them). He is basically allowing women to sin against Christ’s word, through his “one simple line of thinking.” That is the problem with those who take this position. They have no real clear evidence that their position is correct. Garwood couches many of the things he says in phrases like “it seems” or “I believe,” never focusing on what the text actually says.

Again, this is what people do when they don’t like to accept what a text actually says. They go to great lengths to show just how complicated the text is, asking all kinds of questions, giving all kinds of irrelevant opinions, all in the hopes of making it look like they are the only ones that can make sense of the passage. And of course, the only sense they can make of the passage is that it is not saying that women should wear head coverings in worship or while praying, even though that is what the text is saying.

You never see those of us who advocate for head coverings in worship, looking to the culture of the Greco-Roman world, or the culture of Corinth, or the culture of the Jews. This is because we know that the surrounding culture is irrelevant. While head coverings for men were prescribed in the Old Testament, as Garwood notes, Paul isn’t writing to those under the Old Covenant. He is writing to those under the New Covenant. Things have changed.

The veil in the temple was torn, meaning that men who belong to Christ do not have to wear coverings on their heads as those under the Old Covenant did. Through Christ’s blood, we are admitted into the holy of holies. As the glory of Christ, men are not to cover so that Christ’s glory shines forth. Women do cover so that their glory does not compete with God’s in worship (see Bnonn Tennant’s article here).

Now, here is Garwood’s main point. Using a chiastic structure, he shows that verse 10 is the focus of the text, which reads: Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

He makes the case that the word “a symbol” is not in the Greek. (It is not, and I’m in favor of leaving them out of the translation). But then goes on to say that the Greek phrase that means “authority on her head” is like a king who wears a crown. His authority is on his head, and therefore, her authority is on her head.

Basically, Garwood is saying that the woman has her own authority and can make up her own mind about head coverings (unless she chooses to wear one, then she is sinning — see Uri Brito, who doesn’t go as far as to say the woman is sinning, but makes it clear, head covering is not welcome in his church).

The problem with Garwood’s position of the authority on a woman’s head as her own is that this isn’t possible given the context. We are already given the order of authority before we get to verse 10. It is what Paul expressly says he wants us to understand… in other words, this is Paul’s main point: But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.

This headship is one of authority, yet Garwood fails to see it:

Pro-head coverers who are partial to patriarchalism[18] assume that the issue in the text is primarily about authority and submission, whereas I have pointed out, the only mention of authority is in verse 10.[19] Scholars have long debated what kephalē(“head”) means. I cannot exhaust that discussion here. Sometimes the word means the literal part of the body[20] that contains the brain, sometimes it can mean “ruler,” other times it can refer to higher rank. Sometimes it can refer to “source of life.”

He does what these men always do: he points out the debate around the meaning of “head” which is nothing but a red herring. It is kind of obvious given the structure of the sentence. But more on that below.

Then he quotes egalitarian Gordon Fee:

“Paul’s understanding of the metaphor, therefore, and almost certainly the only one the Corinthians would have grasped, is “head” as “source,” especially “source of life,” or origin. This seems to be corroborated by the two explanatory sentences in the next paragraph (vv. 8–9), the only place where one of these relationships is picked up further in Paul’s argument.”

The problem with this explanation is that if “head” means source of life, as they claim verses 8-9 indicate, then how does that apply to Christ and God? Is God the source of life for the Second Person of the Trinity? Because if that is true, then Jesus was given His source of life from God, showing that He is a created being.

Garwood can’t just muddy the waters on this and keep going. This is irresponsible on his part. Yes, God is the head of Christ, in the economy of the God-man. But the two are still of the same essence and authority.

Christ is the head of man. He is also the source of man, and the source of the new man. This means the man in Christ is a new creation, with Christ as the sovereign King over him. The King actually has authority over man as the head of man.

Man also has authority over the woman. While he was the source of woman, in the Garden, he is now her authority, just as Christ is his authority. Matthew Henry puts it this way:

“…as God is the head of Christ, and Christ the head of the whole human kind, so the man is the head of the two sexes: not indeed with such dominion as Christ has over the kind or God has over the man Christ Jesus; but a superiority and headship he has, and the woman should be in subjection and not assume or usurp the man’s place.”

It seems to me that the egalitarian Garwood is turning this principle on its head by claiming that the authority on the woman is that of her own. This plays right into the feminist mindset of the day and is one reason such papers like Garwood’s are so popular.

They are also easy. Men are basically cowards, playing Adam in the garden by remaining quiet on what the text in 1 Corinthians 11 says. They don’t want to know what it says. Life is so much easier by not saying what it says. Yet, this is not being  a man. We are called to wield the sword, and the sword we must wield even when it is unpopular.

The issue of head coverings is important. Many want to discount it as a little thing, but Jesus made it clear, he who is faithful in the small things will be blessed in the large things as well. Yet, I don’t think this is a little thing because it muddies the waters of the distinction between men and women. It opens the door for women to take on the appearance of men and is part of the reason there is so much gender confusion in the culture. The church is to be the pillar of truth in society, and when men like Garwood come along with his errant “line of thinking,” it weakens the church.

Women should rejoice at wearing head coverings because in doing so, they are honoring their head, and Christ. Yet, men like Garwood and Brito want to make them ashamed of their humility before the LORD. The shame should be on men like these, and not women for seeking to please Christ.

(For an analysis of Garwood’s tactics in his article by Grok, go here.