Washing our hands of the past : The Post Covid World

When I was a Theological student, I once met a hospital chaplain whom I greeted in the customary way by extending my right hand. He stepped back, his arms firmly behind him and his face contorted with pure horror. 

"I never, ever shake hands", he said. "It's a disgusting habit and one of the most efficient ways of spreading infection and disease. You really shouldn't do it."

Somewhat bemused, I decided that he was either barking mad or at least living with OCD; but looking back through the lens of Coronavirus and Covid-19 I think he may have had a point. 

Like most people, in more normal times I seldom give a second thought to shaking hands, even with multiple people after a church service or funeral. I must confess, however, that as I've clambered  onto a packed rush hour London Tube, standing with sardine-tin intimacy with hundreds of strangers, I've sometimes wondered how many hands have previously held the strap or rail to which I desperately cling, and what I may potentially inherit from them. It is, I suspect, no coincidence that when I've succumbed to a cold or 'flu, it has more often than not followed a visit to the capital. Nor is it a coincidence that the number of cases of the common cold or 'flu are currently at a fraction of the norm, as we take precautions  against Coronavirus. 

I guess most of us have in the past been fairly slapdash in our approach to hand hygiene. Whilst washing our hands after visiting the loo or before preparing food (although I gather with some horror that even these practices are far from universal), few of us probably wash our hands as often as we should, and we think little of holding or handling objects that may be contaminated. The consequences of this 'laissez-faire' approach are usually fairly insignificant, but Covid has changed all that. We now know that when there's a dangerous pathogen on the loose, careless hygiene can cost lives.  

This raises the question of  to what extent we will or should return to our old ways when the current crisis is passed. The scientists tell us that Covid19 will be with us for many years - even generations -  to come. Vaccines will diminish the immediate threat, but a degree of caution and common-sense will still be needed. In any event, we're also told that other pandemics will inevitably follow, some of which could make Covid-19 pale into insignificance. Hopefully world leaders will have learnt their lesson and nations will be more prepared, but what about individuals and communities? Will we have developed a greater awareness of the need for better hand-hygeine and maybe even an element of social distancing in some contexts (e.g. no longer permitting tube or train carriages to be crammed full)? Time will tell.

There will, of course, be implications in all of this for the Church and its worship. 

Interestingly, it has always been the use of the common chalice that has prompted concerns about the spreading of infection. In reality, most of the time  the risks are very low, although it is undoubtedly prudent to suspend use of the common chalice at a time of epidemic or pandemic even if principally as a matter of re-assurance. Now that (most) congregations have been properly educated and understand that it is perfectly legitimate to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion in one kind only (i.e. the bread but no wine) it will be interesting to see how many worshippers comfortably return to receiving the chalice and how many opt to continue foregoing it. I believe it would make sense for the CofE to officially state that reception in both kinds (which must always be done using the the common chalice) is to be encouraged as much as possible, but is not essential and may (and indeed should) be temporarily discontinued in any situation or local context where there appears to be an increased risk of infection.  

Far more importantly, consideration needs to be given to the sharing of The Peace, which has customarily been expressed with a handshake. Ironically, even those who have been most exercised about the hygiene of the common cup, have seldom worried about the risks involved in shaking the hands of several or perhaps dozens of people in church. Here the risk of cross-contamination is much stronger. The application of post-peace hand-sanitizer - even by the priest who is going to go on to handle the communion wafers - somehow seems at best a bit rude and at worst positively offensive, to say nothing of how it intrudes upon the natural flow of the liturgy. 

Maybe the time has come for the sharing of the Peace to be abandoned or expressed in a different way. Some churches, for example,  have adopted the slight bow of the Eastern 'Namaste', but this doesn't sit comfortably with all. 

To ignore these questions is to deny the reality that, whether we like it or not - and most of us won't like it - the future normal will be a new normal and not merely a resumption of the old. Quite how readily and effectively we will adapt as individuals, churches and communities remains to be seen, but failure to engage with the need for a new and more rigorous approach to hygiene would be to refuse to learn properly from the Covid crisis; and for the church to fail in this regard would be to do our congregations a grave disservice.