Snake Handlers still alive in Appalachian Churches

[Lorenzo]

Theologically, the difficulty I have is that these people risk (and often suffer) pain, disability, and death from the snake-handling and self-poisoning, and all because of a literal reading of a disputed, problematic, and short passage of the Gospel of Mark.

After seeing the documentary, I really wonder now if the book of Mark may have been referring to a similar kind of thing. I've never read anything about the history of snake handling. I wonder how far it goes back...as associated with the religious experience.

[Jack]

No, just alive and well. And of course, in more ways than one.

So have you handled poisonous snakes, or just the harmless kind? The video of them was outrageous...people dancing and clapping and doing their thing to keep the snakeheads distracted. Probably some old time trickery to be learned.

These people looked like they were having a ball, and such a rush. I wonder if there is a correlation between all the adrenaline and the Holy Spirit. My grandmother came out of the Pentecostal faith down in Arkansas and Oklahoma. She had lots of stories to tell.

I've held all kinds of snakes. I don't go to churches and say, "Hello, can I hold your snakes?" Haha.

I mean, like, as kids as we'd find snakes we'd get them and show everybody. It was cool to have a snake. I'm not sure exactly which kinds of snakes I've held, so I don't know how many were poisonous or not. It's no different than holding a turtle or an iguana. You just have to be gentle with them, especially if they're wild. They're not slimy or wet or cold like people think. Snakes are dry and warm and smooth. It feels like running your hand down a person's arm.

[Flyingcursor]

I thought the whole thing came from the book of Acts where Paul is bitten by a snake and doesn't get poisoned.

I question a lot of groups concepts of faith. There's the "name it, claim it" group which basically claims that if you have enough faith you will never be sick or suffer anything against your will. If your child dies from a disease then you didn't have enough faith. The problem with this is it holds God hostage. Makes Him subject to your will instead of the other way around.
In all fairness on the opposite side of the coin there are those whos faith is buried in fatalism.

[Dale]

Theologically, the difficulty I have is that these people risk (and often suffer) pain, disability, and death from the snake-handling and self-poisoning, and all because of a literal reading of a disputed, problematic, and short passage of the Gospel of Mark.

After seeing the documentary, I really wonder now if the book of Mark may have been referring to a similar kind of thing. I've never read anything about the history of snake handling. I wonder how far it goes back...as associated with the religious experience.

I agree with that. There IS something, at least in English translation, about that passage that makes you wonder if it wasn't an unheard of thing.

[Lorenzo]

I wonder if it started at Pentecost, but that part just got edited out.

[peeplj]

I have a problem with things like snake handling in that it almost seems that one is "tempting" God when doing it. Having faith in God, at least to me, is not the same as saying "hey God - look - I have such faith in You that I just know that you will keep me safe, even though I'm doing something really unsafe".

Missy

I grew up hearing the old saying "Don't dare God and don't tempt fate! Fate has no sense of humor, but God just might."

--James

[peteinmn]

The Reverend Wintrop, an avid golfer and also a man of great learning and devotion, is reading scripture one evening when a particular passage catches his eye. Proverbs 10:25 reads, “When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever.” He immediately realizes that the Spirit has moved within him and he has had a divine revelation.

The very next Sunday the subject of his sermon is the unique insight he has been given. He tells his congregation, “It came to me like a flash of lighting. The Spirit of the Lord has shown me how we are to praise Him. The very next time that the weather forecast warns of severe thunder storms, we are to meet on the 5th fairway of the municipal golf course. We will all hold golf clubs to the sky and sing and dance in praise of Him. For surely His Scripture has told us that, if our faith is strong, we will not be harmed. You may bring our own golf clubs or, if you have none, I will give you one. There is only one prohibition. You may not bring a number 1 iron for it is well known that not even God can properly hit this club and so your faith would not be properly tested.”

Sorry, couldn’t help myself. No disrespect intended. However, if this little story actually were true, I would be fascinated to see if it were handled differently than more traditional practices.

[Walden]

My parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and so forth, going all the way back to the formative years of the movement, were Pentecostals of the non-serpent-handling sort. When my grandfather was pastoring in the 1950's they used to get serpent-handler literature in the mail, by mistake, intended for a church up the road with a similar name.

The "official" origin of snake handling was that a member of the Church of God, Cleveland Tennessee (a "mainstream" Pentecostal denomination) was praying outdoors, in a wooded area, and saw a rattlesnake, and was told by God to take it up. Church of God, Cleveland Tennessee later renounced the practice.

In truth, early snake handling was often not by choice. The early Pentecostals were viewed as very strange... delusional... by much of society. The minor terrorist groups of the day found it fun to throw venomous snakes on the noisy worshippers, during altar services. Believing even disputed passages, someone would often take up such a serpent and throw it out. Such a case is reported in the Happy Goodmans' biography "Oh Happy Day."

But, as in all things, there were those who would get carried away and make a doctrine of it. Started off as more a dogma, and developed into a near sacramental observance. "They shall" became "thou shalt."

[rebelpiper]

lorenzo.....i grew up in a very reserved church environment but on many occassions have attended more rural churches here in alabama. ive never seen any snake handling but i have seen lots of other things that kind of freaked me out. im not saying anything negative about my experience but the spirit can move people to do things that i wouldnt do.

Care to elaborate just a little?

on the other hand i guess i could have more faith...that is one of my struggles.

Mine too.

lorenzo, sorry its taken me so long to get back to this post.......but to answer your question. in college i was invited to "jam" with the band at this church my friends were attending(we all played in the college jazz band together ) as we were playing a guy came to the front of the church and told the pastor he was demon possessed. the pastor began to perform an exercision(sp)..... we kept playing, the people kept dancing and the pastor and a few others pulled the demon from this guy. there was a lot of yelling and the guys eyes were rolling back in his head and he was foaming at the mouth........im not saying he was or wasnt possessed but it was an eye-opening experience for me. to this day i still dont know what to think about it.

[Lorenzo]

Rebelpiper,

The first part of this documentary was a Protestant exorcism. John Larson, of NBC’s Dateline, was the reporter. Most programs like this I've seen tended to be sensational, superficial, and were characterized by skepticism. In contrast, Dateline’s treatment was pretty fair and had sufficient length to show a real change in the man who underwent the exorcism, which took place near Charleston, South Carolina.

The main exorcist was a Southern Baptist, with a team of four Baptists, including his pastor. They prayed for five hours and the program showed the growling, the retching and the other disagreeable manifestations that often accompany a deliverance session. The man was about 60 years old and his main complaint was severe depression, accompanied by much anger.

The Baptists went about their work in as calm a way as they could while still dealing with the man and TV crew. Dateline interviewed him afterwards, and he seemed to be transformed into a peaceful person.

A fascinating sidelight to this were interviews with two experts. One was a Catholic sociologist who was more or less skeptical and wasn’t sure if the man didn’t just have a psychological problem.

The other was a psychiatrist, a Jewish Christian, who gave a very positive evaluation of the exorcism. The interviewer could hardly believe what the psychiatrist was saying, and rephrased his questions several times to make sure he really heard what the psychiatrist had to say.

The people at the table praised God and they promised him he would be free and that the spirits would NOT bother him again. The reporter did a followup a while later and asked the man how it was going. He said there had been a problem. He said there was still a spirit in there that had apparently gotten missed.

I couldn't find much on the net about the TV program, but here's one interesting one:
http://www.biola.edu/news/articles/04-2 ... teline.cfm