So, How Do We Feel about PDA in Church?

On holy kisses, touchy couples, and our collective touch deficit.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells the disciples to “greet each other with a holy kiss” (13:12). Similar commands appear in Thessalonians, Romans, and 1 Peter. This ritual kiss was a sign of peace, like a more intimate handshake or hello that worshipers offer each other today. Given their Ancient Near-East context, men in the early church kissed each other on the mouth; men and women sat separately to ward off impropriety.

If my church is any indication of where American Christians are on the matter of ritual kissing, men and women are making up for centuries of being forced to sit apart, their hormones as revved up as youth group kids at an ill-advised lock-in.

This past Sunday, I arrived at my customary time (12 minutes late) and slid into one of the remaining empty pews in time for the New Testament reading. On the high-church low-church spectrum, ours is somewhere in the middle; we follow the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer, worship is led by professional (and …