Even unto death

One of two fascinating articles concerning the "taking up" serpents. In other words snake handling. What is sad though, this article was posted on Feb 2, just two weeks prior to Jamie Coots' death by snake. Such an interesting sub-culture within the Pentecostal movement,,,

Places like this used to be private, secrets tucked away in the hills. Now many people travel from across the country, even the world, to sit in a pew and bear witness to the sights and sounds of this church, to see these people flirt with death. But to the congregants — the families who have worshipped this way for generations, the former alcoholics and drug users who are looking for a sign — this is salvation.

The outsiders want to see the rattlesnakes, but snakes don’t always appear during worship. Sometimes they remain curling in a box on the edge of the altar, untouched. They only come out when there is a call, when God tells a believer to take up the danger and trust Him.

For nearly an hour the music plays, a blues sound with a contagious rhythm.

Then, a frenzy begins to build. The music intensifies. The cries grow louder. Some stumble in trances, each person immersed in his or her own experience.

Outsiders peer through the chaos to see what happens next.

The pastor, Hamblin, sets down his guitar and walks away from the pulpit toward the box on the floor. He says his soul is churning. He must obey.

There is death in that box, he likes to tell people. He’s been bitten before. He’s seen men die in moments like these, good men, righteous men.

But when he grips his hand around the middle of the rattler, almost no one seems afraid.

He juggles the coils of patterned scales until the head is erect, stretching toward him, and he believes that this time, like so many others, God will hold the serpent’s mouth shut.

[,,,]
To understand modern-day serpent handing you have to go back to White Oak Mountain, a ridge that straddles the Hamilton and Bradley county lines. You have to go back to the early 1900s and George Hensley, a man whom some have called a moonshiner, an illiterate.

While serpent handling may have surfaced in churches before Hensley, the Tennessee native is credited for evangelizing the practice across Appalachia and drawing the world’s attention to his audacious brand of Pentecostalism.

A drunk who often struggled to keep steady work, Hensley sought redemption, and believed it could be found in a portion of the Book of Mark where Jesus says to handle snakes in his name.

On White Oak Mountain, he picked up his first snake as an act of obedience and quickly began recruiting followers, traveling across Appalachia and the Ozarks to plant churches that all functioned independently.

But the main vehicle for spreading his beliefs was as a pastor in the Cleveland-based Church of God, now the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world. The church once embraced snake handling, but has disavowed the practice for more than half a century.

[,,,]
Hamblin, especially, envisions serpent handling going mainstream. He hopes a spotlight, even a court fight, will help him win more followers, or at least secure acceptance.

Experts say his push is important to watch because it will test the limits of America’s commitment to religious liberty. Snakes can maim and kill, but they are essential to these people’s faith. It opens the door to an important question: Should the government protect people from themselves? Or leave them to do what they think is right, regardless of the risk?

“Taking away our snakes is like taking away the Baptists’ Bibles. Or the Catholics’ communion,” Hamblin said.

[,,,]
He remembers watching a television show explaining the practice, and he was intrigued. He read books, watched Internet clips and studied his King James Bible, especially the passage in Mark on which serpent handlers base their practice. Biblical scholars, as noted in many study Bibles, say that these few verses were not originally included in Mark’s Gospel, but were added later. Many experts say early Christians didn’t even know about these verses.

Even unto death