Anglican priest wears a hijab

Rev. Cheryl Toth from the Anglican Diocese of Qu’Appelle wore a hijab for a day to “see what it’s like” and because she is unhappy that hostility towards women who wear a hijab, niqab or burka is increasing. And, of course, “to contribute to the conversation” – it wouldn’t be Anglican without that.

She didn’t go for the full cover-up of a burka, presumably because in a burka, no one would have any idea that she was a lady Anglican priest declaring “look at me, aren’t I progressive”, rather than an actual Muslim. That wouldn’t have been much of a publicity stunt.

Here she is:

And here are thousands of women protesting against being forced to wear a hijab in Iran in March 1979. I know which spectacle find more convincing:

Iran protest

From here:

Anglican priest Cheryl Toth decided to wear a hijab for a day to see what the experience is like. (Submitted by Cheryl Toth)

Concerned with what she calls the “increasing rhetoric about the wearing of the niqab by Muslim women,” an Anglican priest in Regina decided to take matters into her own hands. She wore a hijab for a day to see what’s [sic] like.

In a post on Facebook, Cheryl Toth said she’s “uncomfortable with the way the debate focuses on what women wear (or decide not to wear). I am afraid that [the rhetoric] will increase hostility towards women who choose to wear a hijab, a niqab or a burka.”

She said she sees her trial run with the hijab as a way “to contribute to the conversation.”

21 thoughts on “Anglican priest wears a hijab

  1. Mind you, the hijab is in fact the important topic, because it is exactly the same piece of cloth that my Catholic grandmother wore when it might rain. No one could have known, looking at her, that she was not in fact Muslim.

    The burqa and the niqab make almost everyone uncomfortable, so of course there’s not much debate that can happen there. The hijab is a much more subtle issue.

    • It is my understanding that there are two schools of thought within Islam regards wearing or not wearing. I heard two Imam’s address the issue. The one that resonated with me was quite simply that it is cultural not religious. The other said that in fact it is religious.
      So there…………..how’s that for ‘building bridges’!

    • Wasn’t too subtle for the thousands who demonstrated, or for all those in Iran in the years following who were arrested on the street by the revolutionary guard for having some hair showing, whipped, and spent years in prison. Or worse.

      I would like to see the Cheryl Toth contribute to THAT conversation. However, I suppose the “rhetoric” would be too much for her level of awareness. Many Muslim people, including women, have died for refusing to conform to these sorts of things. Does she even know that?

      • The point is, what will you say to a woman who looks you in the eye and says: “I wear the hijab because I want to wear it.” Will you tell her that she’s lying? Maybe she is, but a) how could you tell, b) would you tell her, and c) would you prevent her from wearing it? Do you want to see an enforced ban on the thing? And if so, how would you deal with my grandmother on rainy days?
        I understand where you’re coming from. I agree with you, actually. These particular kinds of public religious and cultural markers easily go hand in hand with repressive gender politics.
        But what would you _do_?

      • To all you good people, it is sooooo typical of the ACoC to allow clergy to express their personal feelings. We have all watched over the last number of years as the faith is less taught and the faithful have dwindled. The two go ‘hand in hand’. The ‘via media’ b/s that we have all witnessed is one of the main flaws. It is for me a failed experiment. No use going back to the ‘drawing board’………….that has been done to death!

        • That’s fair enough and a position I can respect and to a degree understand.
          Still doesn’t tell us what to do about the hijab, of course.

        • From my perspective, the focus upon subjective rather than objective truth of the Christian Faith is the issue (I suppose this is what is meant in part by ‘personal feelings’). It is worth keeping in mind that this is a wider issue – and is not even confined to Christianity. It is hard to accept that the ‘via media’ is one of the main flaws, however. It lies at the heart of the 39 Articles, and the writing of our Anglican theologians from Cranmer onward. If the via media is a ‘failed experiment’, then it is either Geneva or Rome . . . and I (for one) am not entirely comfortable with that choice. J.H. Newman eventually came to that conclusion …

          • Sadly, the 39 Articles nor the vaunted BCP is enough to make me stay in a perpetual death spiral. I have better things to do with my time that hold on for yet again another ‘make over’ of the ACoC. It has been taking more water on than the ill fated Edmund Fitzgerald. You are more than welcome to ‘wave the flag’ as many times as you want…………..its off to Constantinople for me.

    • This act is a complete repudiation of the Clerical collar issued by Jesus Christ by His Call through His Church for the soul-purpose to preach and to live His Gospel. It also is a repudiation of His entire earthly Ministry during which He laboured both in Word and deed to lift up women of all races, religions and cultures to become the Redeemed daughters of His Father in Heaven. In the global historical setting the most captive females, from childhood to old age, have been and still are the oppressed and abused women of Islam.
      “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into Everlasting Life.
      The woman saith unto Him, Sir give me this water…….” + John 4

  2. These social experiments prove better than anything else how unhinged so much of the Anglican Communion has become from any meaningful practice of the historical Faith.

    Rather than being a community whose primary function is to publish the truth of the one true and living God in all the earth, to elevate the glory of Christ and the supremely satisfying and joyful life that can be found only in Him, and to call people to repentance from varied paths of sin, the Anglican Church – and other mainstream Protestant denominations – have come to see their “job” as contributing to a common social project.

    It is a project that has eclipsed all other considerations, probably because it is easy, and the way of Christ involving stern self-discipline and constant spiritual struggle, is hard.

    Reading the Holy Scriptures with fear and respect, and groaning earnestly in prayer is a tough spiritual exercise. It is much more straight-forward to wear a hijab and broadcast self-aggrandising images to show everybody that one is frightfully cool, Zeitgeist-friendly, and terribly, terribly concerned with the plight of the adherents of a religion whose most notable contribution to civilisation over the past 15 years has been its efforts to destroy it.

    If one wants to see the perilous spiritual condition of our age, one need only ask whether a 1st century disciple would do as this enlightened 21st century priest is doing.

    Does anyone seriously imagine St. Paul or St. John, or those they pastored, donning the white robes of the vestal virgins, or the priests of one of the mystery pagan religions – you know, just for kicks and to show how “Pagan-friendly” they really were?

    It serves only to illustrate that Paul (as always) was right (infallible scripture is in the habit of being correct). A perilous spiritual age will come in which “doctrines of devils” will lead many astray. And you can’t get more devilish than blurring the lines between what belongs to the false and what belongs to the true.

  3. If a woman doesn’t mind being laughed at and wants to wear a tablecloth or an old sheet over her head, I don’t have a problem with it, but I want to see the face, the whole face – not just the eyes. We have laws against committing crimes with the face covered and I think enough Muslims can read sufficiently well to know that. That they choose to flout those laws says all I need to know about them.

  4. David, you must have some British genes, because your ability to skewer so precisely is hilarious. I’d love to subscribe to your blog and hope I can find you on Bloglovin one day. Also could not find you on FB.

  5. Perhaps it may be more fruitful to bring back women covering their heads in church as a sign of humility… just as the Christian women of old have done for thousands of years. The Sunday hat or the mantilla are much more appropriate than a hijab.

    • For what it is worth the covering of the head with hats or scarves was something from the past. It was normative and cultural in nature and added just a touch of reverence while inside one’s church. The more extreme elements of Islam……the Wahhabi being one demand women be covered as an act of culture not a religious obligation. I think it takes away from the ‘personhood’ of the female gender myself.

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