At the AOL-sponsored site Politics Daily, religion columnist David Gibson has a feature on the precautions taken by “religious leaders and congregants alike over the possibility of a swine flu epidemic.”
Church services may pose the greatest risks, however. Christians not only gather together for worship at least weekly, but they also dip their fingers in common fonts of holy water, pass baskets up and down the pews to collect donations, exchange handshakes and hugs at the sign of peace, and — in varying formats — share bread and wine at communion, sometimes drinking from a single chalice or picking from a loaf of bread. Those churches in which a priest or minister gives out individual wafers of consecrated bread aren’t much better off, studies show, especially if the minister is dipping the Host in a chalice or placing it on each communicant’s tongue.
Last Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services joined with the White House Office for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships to issue a guide for worshipers and clergy to limit the spread of the virus. The guide says congregants should wash their hands often, avoid large gatherings, and stay home if they feel sick — measures known by the rather chilly term of “social distancing.” The guide also says that “faith and community leaders may consider adjusting such practices” as a common cup “in order to reduce the spread of flu.”
In some places that’s already happening. The Roman Catholic bishop of Brooklyn, where the first cases of swine flu were reported last spring, this month told priests in all 198 parishes to stop offering wine during communion and said they should distribute communion in the hand rather than on the tongue, which is an older practice that some parishioners, especially the elderly, still prefer. The bishop in St. Cloud, Minn., has done the same, and in the Archdiocese of Washington, pastors are reminding parishioners that they can give each other a friendly nod instead of shaking hands at the Sign of Peace, which is exchanged just before communion.
In its detailed series of guidelines, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) held out the possibility that church services could be suspended entirely — as happened in Mexico City in April — if the situation deteriorates, and said congregants may want to consider decreasing the frequency with which they receive communion. The PCUSA guidelines also counsel ministers to think about preparing communion while wearing surgical gloves or masks, pre-cutting communion bread with a “sanitized electric knife,” and having worshipers spread themselves out among the pews to create an “envelope” of personal space — all of which, the guide concedes, is not exactly the message the church wants to convey.
I suspect if Jesus had only known about the germ theory of disease he probably would implemented a more sanitary form of sacrament, wouldn’t he?
Good grief. Have Christians really lost all sense of perspective? In a world of 6.7 billion people, 4,735 have died of swine flu infections. In contrast, 90,000 people around the world die each year of snakebites. I’m not a statistician or gambling man but I’d bet the chances are higher that a Christian somewhere on the planet will receive a fatal snakebite on the way to church than will die from partaking of swine flu infected Communion wine.
Obviously, commonsense precautions should be taken: If you’re infectious, stay home; cover you’re mouth when you cough; wash your grubby paws before reaching for the Communion wafer, etc. And if swine flu becomes as serious a threat as, say, the Spanish influenza pandemic of1918, then more cautious measures need to be taken. But if you’re decreasing the frequency with which you receive Communion out of fear of dying from a unlikely cause, then you may want to question whether you’re making an idol of anxiety.
October 28th, 2009 | 9:58 am
I ran into this “concern” on ScienceBlogs a few years ago. Even had it suggested to me that we (Christians) should follow Matt. 6:6 as a means to avoid spreading disease.
October 28th, 2009 | 10:09 am
Yes, and how many bath houses in San Francisco are shutting down?
October 28th, 2009 | 11:00 am
Is anyone else remotely concerned that two federal government offices are getting together to tell religious communities how to avoid getting sick?
I am less concerned about interference of government and religion and more concerned here about the apparent need at a federal level to keep everyone safe to the extent that they now issue recommendations like this….
October 28th, 2009 | 11:08 am
Jonathan I am less concerned about interference of government and religion and more concerned here about the apparent need at a federal level to keep everyone safe to the extent that they now issue recommendations like this….
While I would have preferred the info came from the NIH rather than from the faith-based office, I think the federal government has a legitimate role in promoting and protecting public health. In fact, I would say that is one of the few legitimate items on the short list of functions that it should play in our lives.
October 28th, 2009 | 12:21 pm
Why single out communion? Birthday parties, pot luck lunches/dinners, home parties, company celebrations, and buffets could be described in exactly the same terms. And if you have preschool age children that go to any sort of daycare or nursery or kindergarten, you can be sure that they have a “germ exchange program” because kids that age chew on anything and have no qualms about where they put their suckers and bottles.
The point is, if you want to be perfectly safe, you’d better not have any friends and not get out of bed and have enough money to have pre-sterilized food delivered to you on a tray with no human contact. A life lived like that is for many people, a life not worth living. So you take responsible risks based on common sense and accept the consequences. In this case, no new guidelines are needed. After all, who lets a sick person (swine flue or not) prepare or distribute communion or prepare food for a celebration? And if you’re sick with any contagious illness, do you take shared food? And if you do, do you try to take it so that it will not spread your illness?
October 28th, 2009 | 12:56 pm
An alternative suggestion: we could increase the alcohol content in the wine to the point that it becomes an effective disinfectant.
October 28th, 2009 | 2:05 pm
36,000 people die each year from influenza (seasonal flu) in the U.S. In addition to death statistics, we should mention morbidity, especially of young children (non-lethal hospitalizations, school closings, etc.). It appears that the swine flu is not as virulent as feared this fall, but we still have a few months to go, allowing the virus to possibly mutate. It appears that the seasonal flu vaccine offers a decrease in symptom severity on those that get the swine flu, and that possibly has contributed to less mortality/morbidity overall. Industrial absences usually follow school absences for the flu (i.e., kids are the vector that pass the virus to adults), and those above 80 years old or so may end up increasing the numbers of deaths, as the virus spreads, although those exposed prior to H1N1 in 1918 & 1957 may have some resistance. I would agree with Joe Carter that commonsense precautions are in order, but disagree on the perspective of risk. In another anti-conspiratorial light, religion is singled out because the government doesn’t want church-goers to get sick.
October 29th, 2009 | 8:27 am
All of these comments bring me back to the SARS crises in Toronto a few years ago, when it got into a community of Philippino Charismatics. My way of thinking about this is: Do not put the Lord to the test.
October 29th, 2009 | 10:28 pm
As I’ve noted elsewhere, this is sheer lunacy, but it’s got otherwise very sensible people in its grip. I’ve lost count of how many RC dioceses have “banned” the chalice. Last week the bishop in whose diocese I live issued a decree banning the use of the chalice everywhere at all Masses because of the “H1N1 scare.” That’s nonsense to me, and reflects a typical lack of confidence in God’s power in the sacraments–do we really believe He’s going to allow us to get sick on the very Medicine of Immortality? Do we think His own Body and Blood are somehow agents of contagion? If people wonder at the collapse of Catholic eucharistic belief and piety, they need only consider how gestures like this reinforce it.
So no chalice, but still the enforced bonhomie of “passing the peace.” Did they make that optional, or forbid it outright based on the fact that the science here is clear and indisputable–hand-to-hand contact spreads most germs and viruses, including this one? Of course not. So we rely on dubious ideas to unnecessarily forbid one practice, and totally ignore overwhelming scientific evidence to continue with one wholly unsafe, unnecessary, and liturgically destructive practice. Thus I was surrounded by people hacking and spluttering and sneezing, and at this ‘peace’ the chap in front of me, having wiped his nose not 10 seconds before, and with Kleenex still in hand, turns around and grabs my hand “Peace, man!” I grimaced weakly and did not move.
October 30th, 2009 | 6:30 pm
Last spring the pastor at our church canceled confessions for several weeks “due to the swine flu.” I kid you not.
October 31st, 2009 | 4:55 pm
I am taking my chances and will continue to commune. The remission of sins is more important to me than my physical health. Sinners like me need all of God’s grace we can get not less!
November 2nd, 2009 | 5:47 am
[...] HT: Joe Carter [...]
November 12th, 2009 | 4:43 pm
[...] few weeks ago I wrote about the absurd precautions some churches are taking to avoid swine flue infection. Not surprisingly, a clever Italian inventor has found a [...]
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