In the semi-official occasions, when women may pray and prophesy, are they to cover their heads? Does that also apply to their own homes?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘The Christian Philosophy of Man’ (1994).

My answer to that is that the matter of covering or non-covering is a symbol, and therefore what controls its use is a sense of appropriateness. You can take symbols to extremes where they become quite silly and inappropriate.

If you ask for clear directions, it seems to me that God has not given them. He's left the detail as to when the thing is appropriate to our good sense and spiritual understanding. For instance, it's not merely a question of when must a woman's head be covered, but when must a man's be uncovered?

Men mustn't pray or prophesy with our heads covered—not when the symbol is in force. So, when would you think it appropriate for us to pray and prophesy with our heads covered? That's a question that rises straight out of the text, and some folks have a big conscience about it.

I have known elderly gentlemen to go to funerals, and when the preacher started to pray they took their hats off. The east wind was so strong it gave them pneumonia, double pneumonia, and everything else under the sun, and the next week they were being buried themselves! That is taking symbols to a silly extreme, is it not?

What if I'm in my car at the top of the Simplon Pass and the brakes fail? I say, 'Lord, I'm going down here. Oh, half a minute, I've got my hat on!' That would be ridiculous, wouldn't it?

We must learn when it comes to symbols, to judge according to what is appropriate in the fear of the Lord, and wanting to please the Lord.