Religious snake handlers—fools,
every one of them
Snake handling or serpent handling is a
religious ritual
in a small number of Pentecostal churches in the U.S.,
usually characterized as rural and part of the Holiness
movement. The practice began in the early 20th century in Appalachia,
and plays only a small part in the church service. Practitioners believe
serpent handling dates to antiquity
and quote the Gospel of
Mark and the Gospel of Luke
to support the practice of handing
snakes during the church service.
In the New Testament and specifically in Mark 16:17-18 it says;
“And these signs shall
follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall
speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any
deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and
they shall recover.” unquote
Many years ago, a man accidentally swallowed
a mouthful of liquid drain cleaner and it ate through his stomach and
intestines and destroying much of those two organs.
And in Luke 10:19 it says;
“Behold, I give unto you
power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy:
and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” unquote
Each year, tens of thousands of people around the world
accidentally tread on venomous snakes and die from those snake bites.
The snake handlers in the churches I previously described often use native
rattlesnakes and copperheads.
The venom of a rattlesnake travels through the victim’s
bloodstream, destroying tissue and causing swelling, internal bleeding, and intense
pain. Rattlesnake bites are the leading cause of snakebite
injuries in North America.
If treated promptly, the
bites are rarely fatal.
Bite symptoms of a copperhead snake include extreme pain,
tingling, throbbing, swelling, and severe nausea. Damage can occur to muscle
and bone tissue, especially when the bite occurs in the outer extremities such
as the hands and feet, areas in which there is not a large muscle mass to
absorb the venom.
A bite from any venomous snake should be taken very
seriously and immediate medical attention sought, as allergic reaction and
secondary infection are always possible.
The belief of religious snake handlers is based on
spurious biblical manuscripts at the tail end of Mark's Gospel. What is really
interesting is that the earliest copies of the
Gospel of Mark do not include those verses. They were added centuries later.
Snake-handling churches are part of a larger
movement concentrated in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains.
Congregations can be found, however, from central Florida to Ohio, Indiana, and
Michigan. Because there is no national organization, the exact number of
members is unknown. Observers estimate that there are 50 to 100 snake handling churches
nationally with a total of approximately 3,000 members.
Members of these churches who were bitten
during services are approximately eighty people that are known to have died in
the Twentieth Century after being bitten while handling snakes. Surely by now, these people who attend those churches have to know that
Luke was wrong when he made that particular
proclamation.
The history of snake-handling churches extends
back to the early 1900s in East Tennessee. Tradition attributes the practice to
George Went Hensley, a rural preacher working near Cleveland, Tennessee, around
1909. He claimed that he could handle venomous snakes without being harmed. He
was dead wrong. He was bitten by one of them and died. From about 1910 to 1920
snake handling was widespread in the ‘Church of God’ based in Cleveland, but by
the end of the 1920s the denomination had renounced the practice. From then on,
it existed primarily in independent churches in Appalachia with a few in
northern United States. However,
in 2001, about 40 small churches practiced snake handling, most of them
considered to be holiness-Pentecostals or charismatics. In 2004, there were four
snake handling congregations in the provinces of Alberta
and British Columbia, Canada.
Beginning in the 1940s, several southern
states, including Georgia, passed laws prohibiting snake handling in religious
services. The law in Georgia developed after a six-year-old girl was bitten
during a service near Adel, in Cook County. Police arrested both her
father and her pastor, Warren Lipham, who later stood trial but was not
convicted for the earlier death of a worshipper in 1938. In 1941 Georgia passed
a law that made snake handling a felony punishable by twenty years in prison in
the case of injury to another, or by the death penalty in the case of a fatality.
The law was repealed in the 1960s. Today, the handling of poisonous snakes in
Georgia is legal only by permit. But
in my respectful opinion, even that is going too far in the name of religious
freedom.
Would the State of Georgia permit parishioners of these churches to
swallow poisonous drinks in the name of their religion? Look what happened to
the 907 followers of Jim Jones in Guyana who drank the Flavor Aid laced with poisons that included Valium,
chloral
hydrate, cyanide and Phenergan. The poison
caused their deaths within five minutes. All 907 of them died.
Some of the leaders in these churches have been bitten
numerous times, as indicated by their distorted extremities. Hensley himself,
the founder of modern snake handling in the Appalachian Mountains, died of snakebite
in 1955. In 1998, snake-handling evangelist, John Wayne Brown died after being
bitten by a timber rattlesnake at the Rock House Holiness
Church in rural northeastern Alabama although members of his family contend that his death
was probably due to a heart attack. A snake bite can bring on
heart failure. Brown's wife had died three years earlier after being bitten in Kentucky.
Another snake handler died in 2006 at a church in Kentucky. In 2012,
Pentecostal Pastor Mack Wolford died of a rattlesnake bite sustained while
officiating at an outdoor service in West Virginia,
as did his father in 1983. Reverend
Jaimie Coots of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro,
Kentucky while conducting his service was bitten on February 15, 2014 by the
snake he was handling. He went home rather than go to a hospital where he could
have been given life-saving anti-venom. He died naturally. This stupid man’s
belief that he wouldn’t die from the bite of a venomous snake begs the question—was
he and all those others who handled venomous snakes during church services and
died, crazy?
Now consider another stupid man’s statement. Andrew Hamblin, the pastor
of the Tabernacle Church of God in nearby LaFollette, Tennessee said after
watching Coots dying;
“Reverent Coots died no matter what, if not by a snake, then a stroke or
some accident. God’s appointed time of death trumps everything.” unquote
Does anyone with a sound mind really believe that drivel? If Coots had gone to the hospital and received
the life-saving anti-venom, would he really have died in a car accident on the
way home or died from a stroke on the way home?
What motivates these religious fools to handle venomous snakes at any
time but especially during their church services? I believe that Professor Paul Williamson who
is a professor of psychology at Henderson State University explained their
motives quite well when he said that survivors of venomous snake bites during
church services get the feeling as to what is like to have a high which is
higher than any drug or alcohol. They claim it creates a feeling of joy, peace and
extreme happiness. It obviously creates a rush of religious adrenaline. Searching for that kind of ecstasy is senseless. Is seeking that kind of
high worth dying for? And let’s face it. One can get the same high when they
have reached the top of Mount Everest. It is the epitome of one’s goal that
gives them the high. However, climbers take great steps to make sure they don’t
die on that mountain even though some do. But do snake handlers in churches
take great steps to make sure that they aren’t bitten by these venomous snakes?
Apparently, a great many of them didn’t and they died. And the height of
stupidity is that those who died in their churches while handling the venomous
snakes in their hands didn’t have anti-venomous serum on hand to save them. Did
these religious fools actually believe that Luke was right when he said that
the venomous snakes wouldn’t hurt them?
These religious snake handlers are in search of ecstasy,
daring to reach the edge of death rather than take the safe and secure middle
ground of mainline Christianity. Mainline Christian beliefs do not search for
ecstasy at the expense of intellect and commonsense.
I really feel sorry for these religious fools who risk
death in order to obtain a state of ecstasy at the expense of their lives. If there is a God, I doubt that that such a
god would want these people to die while handing venomous snakes during the
times when they are praying to their god. Doing so is just as stupid if they
were to walk into a roaring furnace in the belief that their god would protect
them from harm just as God protected three
men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, who were thrust into the midst of a
blazing fire still tied up and walked out unharmed many, many centuries ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment