Raise the subject of head covering with almost any Christian, and before the conversation has gone very far, you are likely to hear the same response: “It’s not a salvation issue.” The statement is true, of course. A Christian’s salvation does not depend upon whether he or she holds the correct interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16. But too often, the phrase does more than establish the relative importance of the doctrine. It ends the discussion altogether. “It’s not a salvation issue” becomes a reason not to seriously consider whether Scripture actually teaches the practice. The question, then, is not whether head covering is essential to salvation. It plainly is not. The question is whether a doctrine can be non-essential and still deserve our attention and obedience.
In the study of theology, there is an oft-used paradigm for ranking the importance of doctrines called “Theological Triage.” A hospital triages patients as they enter the emergency room to ascribe higher importance to those with more pressing, time-sensitive ailments. An individual who sprained his ankle playing basketball will wait to be seen longer than one with a compound fracture. The two patients are triaged, and the more severe case is prioritized. In theological triage, the same principle is applied to doctrine.
The term was coined by Albert Mohler in 2005, and it has since become the common currency of these discussions.[1] Nor is the instinct behind it merely modern. The Apostle Paul himself ranks doctrine, delivering to the Corinthians “as of first importance” the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:3). Some truths are primary. The doctrine of the Trinity is more important than one’s view of the millennium. A gathering that denies the Trinity is not a Christian church at all, regardless of where it lands on other disputed doctrines.
Dr. Gavin Ortlund is an apologist and theologian-in-residence at Immanuel Church in Nashville, TN, and has been a strong advocate for theological triage, especially in our modern, disunifying age. His argument in Finding the Right Hills to Die On: The Case for Theological Triage is that doctrine must be prioritized, as a battlefield medic prioritizes the wounded: some hills are worth dying on, and some are not, and wisdom lies in knowing which is which.
The Four-Tiered System
Though it’s clear that theological issues can be triaged, how does one go about triaging them? This process is complicated, and some issues may rank higher or lower based on the surrounding culture. Ortlund advances a four-tiered framework of triage:[2]
- First-rank doctrines are essential to the gospel itself.
- Second-rank doctrines are urgent for the health and practice of the church, such that they frequently cause Christians to separate at the level of local church, denomination, and/or ministry.
- Third-rank doctrines are important to Christian theology, but not enough to justify separation or division among Christians.
- Fourth-rank doctrines are unimportant to our gospel witness and ministry collaboration.
Is there an objective placement for all doctrines? It is no simple matter to rank issues, but when considering which doctrines may be applied to each rank, Ortlund posits four questions:[3]
- How clear is the Bible on this doctrine?
- What is this doctrine’s importance to the gospel?
- What is the testimony of the historical church concerning this doctrine?
- What is this doctrine’s effect on the church today?
This brings us to the relevant topic: head covering. Consider the testimony of the Scriptures and of the saints who lived before us before you come to your own conclusion. After significant study, I have concluded that the doctrine of head covering, as it is articulated by the Head Covering Movement, rests in the third tier.
Why Third Tier?
Why not rank head covering higher? After all, I believe the Bible is quite clear on this issue, and church history confirms my proposed interpretation. The answer is that rejecting the doctrine neither denies the gospel nor touches the marks of a true church.
Consider the ranks in order. If a group identified as Christians yet denied the triune nature of the Godhead, as the Mormons do, this would be classified as a first-tier issue, and they would not be considered Christians at all.
When Paedobaptists and Credobaptists affirm different subjects and modes of baptism, as Presbyterians and Baptists do, this affects the administration of the sacraments, making it unlikely for them to covenant together in church membership without significant charity given to one another.[4] This would classify as a second-tier issue: it does not deny the core gospel message, but it does bear on the marks of a true church, particularly the proper administration of the Word and sacraments.[5]
Head covering touches neither.[6] It is not the preaching of the Word, and it is not the administration of the sacraments. A woman’s covered or uncovered head settles no question about who may be received into membership, who may hold office, who may come to the table, or whether a congregation is a true church at all. Two believers may disagree about it and labor side by side for thirty years without the disagreement touching anything that holds the church together. That is precisely what it means for a doctrine not to warrant separation.
Why Not Fourth?
If head covering does not rise to the first or second tier, another question naturally follows: why not place it in the fourth? The line between the third and fourth tier can sometimes be blurry and may depend partly on the circumstances facing a particular church or culture. But there is still an important distinction. Third-rank doctrines matter without requiring division. Fourth-rank doctrines neither divide Christians nor carry much significance for the church’s theology, witness, or practice. To place a doctrine in the fourth rank is essentially to say that the church would lose little by quietly forgetting it. That, I cannot say about head covering.
Head covering matters, first, because it is plainly commanded in Scripture and affirmed with remarkable consistency across church history. It is not a doctrine arrived at merely by inference or by stringing together implications. It arises from a passage in which the Apostle argues his case for fifteen consecutive verses (1 Cor. 11:2–16) and closes by telling the contentious that the churches of God have no other practice (1 Cor. 11:16).
It matters, second, because of what it signifies. The covering is a visible symbol of the created order, of headship, of the distinction between men and women, and of a woman’s glad submission to her husband and Lord. Those are not quiet questions in our moment. They are among the most contested doctrines in the modern Western church, and a practice that publicly signifies them is not a matter of decoration.
The church did not misplace this practice by accident. It was surrendered, within living memory, by people who understood what it symbolized and objected to the symbol.[7] A doctrine that could be deliberately targeted in that way is a doctrine that means something.
Not a Salvation Issue, but a Submission Issue
If you agree with me and conclude that head coverings are biblically mandated in 1 Corinthians 11, you might still be tempted to view this as a superfluous doctrine and dismiss it because it is not a “salvation issue.”
One’s understanding of head coverings is indeed not a salvation issue, meaning that one’s salvation does not depend on adherence or non-adherence to this doctrine. However, if this interpretation is the most faithful to the text and you are convinced it is true, practicing it becomes a matter of conviction and obedience. If any biblical truth is properly conveyed and then dismissed, it raises a “submission to Scripture” issue. We should not dismiss a practice simply because it is inconvenient, contentious, or uncommonly practiced in modernity. We must submit to Scripture even in such situations.
There are two equally detrimental pitfalls while triaging doctrines: we can minimize major doctrines or overemphasize minor ones. Those of us persuaded on head covering are prone to the second. I have seen this practice pressed with a heat that belongs to the doctrine of justification and treated as a test of orthodoxy it was never meant to bear, a charge the Head Covering Movement has itself answered at length.
That is a real error, and it has driven people away from a real command. But the first pitfall is deeper and better disguised because falling into it sounds like humility. “It’s not a salvation issue” has the cadence of a man refusing to major in minors, of one refusing legalism. Unfortunately, it can also become the language of someone declining to obey and reaching for an excuse that will absolve him.
The ranking, then, was never the answer to the question you were actually asking. It tells you how far you ought to be willing to move away from a brother who disagrees with you, and on this doctrine, the answer is not at all. It never told you whether the command was optional.
Regardless of how a doctrine ranks on a tier list, every doctrine deserves sincere consideration, because if the Lord commanded it, we should strive to be obedient out of our love for Him: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Dismissing the discussion merely because it isn’t salvation-dependent implies that our obedience is not required in non-essential matters, which is irreverent at best.
