How do Christians take the un-PC parts of Paul/NT?

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I have always been confused at what the solid christian "line" is on these things,

St Paul says, women should cover their heads in "church" (whatever he meant by that),
men having long hair is a disgrace, and women should never speak in church,

in my first church (which was quite conservative evangelical) , this was interpreted thus - women were not allowed to preach, although they did do bible readings and of course spoke in the building while chatting etc. Most of the female members wore hats or head covering, and of course long hair was not the done thing with the straight laced males there.

I went to 2 Pentecostal churches after that, I thought they were quite uncomprimising and "fundamentalist" themselves, but they completely ignored these, female preachers, no women in hats, loads of long haired men. However they still had norms which were stricter than secular society like no premarital sex etc. If i asked any of my friends why it was ok they would just shrug or be vague, most of them didnt read the bible or know.

So how do modern christians decide which parts of the epistles and Paul to take and which to ignore? Is it just decided by the heads of the denominations (like AOG) or the famous writers, who presumably have a stronger line to God? thanks.

There is no universal method, however, it seems to me that there are a few issues:
*What has the Christian or Christian organization traditionally heard. Usually Christian organizations stay somewhat constant on what they affirm.
*What does their theology tell them. The Bible was not originally written in America and in English, but rather includes a bunch of writings from a different culture writing about a different cultural context. Theologian Greg Boyd actually argues that there is no real tension, only a misunderstanding of Paul. http://www.gregboyd.org/essays/essays-c ... -ministry/ Others will likely disagree.

Really though, unless the reasoning is tradition(and often even those are somewhat thought out even if not by the users of those beliefs) then usually there is some form of reasoning in what people accept.

They choose what to take and what to reject based on the morality imparted to them by the FSM.

About this 'women should never speak in ekklesia' (= community of spiritual people) thing:
Gnostic christians (all of them?) had this interpretation: 'women' does not stand for the gender but for non-pneumatici, that is people with no mystical experience.
So only pneumatici were allowed to speak in the ekklesia about 'spiritual things'.

Well, that's nice for pc's, isn't it

Thank you JRRT and AG for your intresting replies. I will look up Boyd.

I think the link I gave will give you Boyd's views on women in ministry, which is the topic you seem to put forward, and I think Boyd's reasoning could help apply to other matters of Paul's thought. This does not mean that anybody is accurately applying Paul's ideas, or even that Paul makes sense regardless of what Boyd says, but I do encourage you to study the matter. Christian theology unequivocally has some importance in the history of ideas, and history of the west in general.

I especially like the way that King James phrases those particular passages, which are among my favourites in the Bible.

This Boyd seems a typical modern theologian: as much as experience with allegorical interpretation as Tiger Woods with monogamy.

The problem is a matter of understanding of the Bible, both in what it says (as a whole) and in understanding the time and circumstances it was written in.

Your example about women covering their heads and men having long hair goes (in part) to non-confusion of the genders. The style of hair on men and on women are distinct and different. Even what they wore back then, though very different from what we wear today, the garments for men and the garments for women left no confusion about what gender a person was.

The passage about women not speaking in church was because the women would question their husbands about what was being taught...disrupting the service. The admonition was that they should be silent and ask their questions afterward rather than being a disruption.

Many things in the Bible can be followed literally with significant accuracy, but being totally ignorant of the circumstances and history of Jewish culture and the early Church age leads to misinterpretation.

Biblical rules on master/servant relationships is the foundation for most employment law we have today. It also applies to bankruptcy law. However, that people were used as servants in Biblical times doesn't mean being someone's servant (slave) is a good thing, but when it's done according to God's rules, it isn't a bad thing either...God mandated that a master must be good to his servants...they were people, not just property.

..easy, the New Testament predates PC...

Their take is one that is very succesful. "Ignore it and pretend it did not happen".

Keep in mind also that most of the NT (including the parts you're talking about) were originally letters sent from Paul to the church in some city. He knew the people there and had heard about their particular circumstances and what they were having problems with. The part about whether or not to eat meat sacrificed to idols is not in any way relevant today, due to different circumstances, but it can still be useful to use the same general approach to some other problem that was used there. The same is probably true in this case.

Sometimes people try to approach Christianity as simply a collection of rules, when it really isn't. It does have some rules, true, but it specifically and repeatedly rejects a legalistic approach to those rules. It's generally a bad idea to do 'proof texting', which is holding up one single isolated verse and saying that this is the one true rule about such-and-such. A good way to make sure you aren't misinterpreting a single verse is to compare it to others that have something to say about that subject.

I don't get this on any level, except that Tiger woods has cheated on his wife.