Greet Each Other with a Holy Hug

Our need for physical affection

Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

Five times in the New Testament, apostles command churches to greet each other with a “holy kiss” (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26) or “kiss of love” (1 Peter 5:14). These verses always make me uncomfortable. I know they are part of Holy Scripture so I should embrace them, but outside of my family, I have a hard time imagining kissing anyone, even a holy kiss. Maybe I’m speaking out of my depth here, but I don’t think the point of these passages is that we need to be kissing each other specifically, but that we need to be physically and affectionately greeting each other. That our love ought to be incarnational. That it ought to be practiced with our bodies in a pure and holy way, rather than being something purely intellectual or spiritual. So I don’t think it’s a misuse of the texts to say that in the American context, where kissing on the cheek of non-family members is not the cultural norm, we should practice greeting each other with a “holy hug.” This still makes me uncomfortable, but in thinking about the Scriptural calls to physical expressions of brotherly or sisterly love in Christ, the loneliness epidemic and the lack of male friendship, and our basic human need for affection, it seems to me that the Church (I.E. me) would do well to recover a practice of physical affection.

Of course, there are natural reasons for many of us to be uncomfortable with physical affection. Some people have experienced physical or sexual trauma, and that certainly colors the way you experience physical touch. Other people, especially men and those in positions of authority, are afraid of being accused of impropriety, and so they avoid touch to stay safe. There are so many stories of Christian leaders who used physical touch inappropriately, that it’s easy to get in your head about it, to feel like the only way to avoid the possibility of being accused of something improper is to just not touch anyone else at all. But this logic is based on fear rather than love, truth, or justice. It’s the kind of logic that says, I might desire this woman, so I’d better not talk to her at all. In saying “Good morning” to her, my desire might grow! That’s not loving. That doesn’t treat her as a full human being. Of course you shouldn’t do anything inappropriate, but that’s no excuse for not doing anything at all! That’s cowardance and petty self-preservation at the expense of your neighbor. To love your neighbor well is to say “Good morning” to someone you might be attracted to because it’s human and kind to say “Good morning!” To love your neighbor well means to greet them with a touch, a handshake, a hug, a pat on the back—some kind of holy physical affection to communicate your love.

I worry about the lack of affection particularly between men. A recent survey I read noted that single men are the one group that lacks physical affection the most: “Fewer than half (45 percent) of single men report that they received a hug or some other form of physical affection within the past week.” This troubles me. As I’ve written about in these pages over and over again, the loneliness epidemic is threatening the spiritual, mental, physical, and social wellness of our nation, and we’re feeling this particularly acutely among men. We’re alienated from each other and relying increasingly on technologies like A.I. for intimacy and connection. We struggle to make friends. And so it’s not all that surprising to me that young men are at such a high risk for suicide right now. The survey goes on to note that this lack of affection among single men is not just quantitative but a qualitative reality for their lives:

Frequency of receiving affection may matter more for men’s sense of well-being than for women’s too. More than half (52 percent) of men who received physical affection in the past week report being very or completely satisfied with how things are going in their life. Among men who say it has been more than a month since they had this experience, only 28 percent report feeling very or completely satisfied.

This should come as no surprise. When you are touched by someone who loves you, even if it’s just a cat or dog, you feel your existence warmed, affirmed. You know that you matter to some other being. For people who are going touchless for weeks, that’s a lonely existence. It’s hard to remind yourself that you are loved by God, that you existence is a good gift. I can imagine that for such men, parasocial relationships like those between “content creators” on OnlyFans must be a temptation. As I’ve written about before, we all need to be attended to. And if we can’t get it from healthy, God-designed places, we’ll look elsewhere, to our own destruction.

It seems to me that some places and communities are much better at physical touch than others. Minority communities, charismatic and pentecostal communities, athletes, and rehab communities come to mind as examples of healthy physical spaces. No space is perfect, no community is perfect. But those of us in more “excarnational” church spaces (to use Charles Taylor’s term for highly intellectualized church experiences) would do well to lean into our discomfort and greet each other physically. To stretch ourselves, especially among men.

I think this begins with our children. Are we hugging our sons and telling them we love them? Do they receive affection? They need it as much as our daughters. They need positive examples of holy affection, affirming, loving, non-sexual touch. This will help them learn not to be afraid to give such affection to others. We want to raise young men and women with healthy understandings of their bodies and the natural need for affection that all of us have.

Where the world may be a place where physical touch is exclusively possessive, coercive, predatory, self-centered, and sexual, the Church should be a place where physical touch still can be holy. The Church should be a place to remember that our bodies are sexual but not exclusively sexual, that through them we can affirm each other in love. Because the world has sexualized everything, your mind may wander or be plagued by intrusive sexual thoughts, but through practice, prayer, and discipline, the Holy Spirit you can teach you to make holy what was meant to be holy. I don’t think we reckon with the reality that some Christians struggle with attraction to the same-sex and some wrestle with unwanted intrusive sexual thoughts, so that even hugging a fellow believer of the same sex could be a challenge. But just because something is a challenge doesn’t mean we should avoid it, especially when the apostles have called us to it. We grow by learning to accept our discomfort with our bodies and with touch and with being affirmed through touch. And we do all this in order to affirm the goodness of others. Because when we hug another believer, we communicate to them God’s love. And then desperately need to feel that.