Snake handlers
by digby
First they reversed the ban on guns in houses of worship. Now this. I’d say it’s getting downright life threatening to go to church:
Andrew Hamblin’s Facebook page is filled with snippets of his life.
Making a late-night run to Taco Bell.
Watching SpongeBob on the couch with his kids.
Handling rattlesnakes in church.
Hamblin, 21, pastor of Tabernacle Church of God in LaFollette, Tenn., is part of a new generation of serpent-handling Christians who are revitalizing a century-old faith tradition in Tennessee.
While older serpent handlers were wary of outsiders, these younger believers welcome visitors and use Facebook to promote their often misunderstood — and illegal — version of Christianity. They want to show the beauty and power of their extreme form of spirituality. And they hope eventually to reverse a state ban on handling snakes in church.
Since the early 1900s, a handful of true believers in East Tennessee and other parts of Appalachia have practiced the so-called signs of the gospel, found in a little-known passage in the King James Version of the Gospel of Mark:
“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.”
While other churches ignore this passage or treat it metaphorically, serpent handlers follow it literally. Their intense faith demands sinless living and rewards them with spiritual ecstasy — the chance to hold life and death in their hands.
Brother Micah Golden felt it first while standing in the parking lot with other worshippers, waiting for church to start during a three-day revival in early May. It began with a tingling in his hands that spread over his body. Then he began to moan and pray.
“There’s still an anointing from heaven. … Glory to God,” shouted the 22-year-old convert, holding the first syllable of “Glory” out for 10 or 12 seconds and stomping his feet. “He’ll still let you do the signs of God.”
Then he flipped the lid of a small wooden box by his feet and pulled out three Southern copperheads, all entwined together.
Golden lifted them about his head, then swung them back and forth in front of him before handing them to Hamblin, who took the snakes in one hand and lifted the other in prayer.
Other men took out timber rattlers, putting one hand by the midsection, the other by the head and neck. They held the serpents up in front of their faces, almost staring them in the eyes for a moment, then lowered them down and up in a gently swinging motion. The snakes began winding and unwinding in their hands, forked tongues tasting the air, trying to get their bearings.
Women standing nearby raised their hands in prayer and wept.
Hamblin began to preach about Jesus: “The same man that walked upon the water, he said, ‘They shall take up serpents.’… There’s a realness in the signs of God.”
That led to a cascade of prayers as the whole crowd began to speak in tongues. Then the shouts died down and Hamblin and other worshippers started a procession toward the door.
“Come on, people, let’s go have church,” he said.
Hamblin and other handlers say the Bible tells people to obey the law. So he wears a seat belt while driving, obeys the speed limit and files his taxes on time.
But he won’t give up serpent handling, which he says is a command from God — even though Tennessee outlawed it in 1947 after five people died of serpent bites at churches in two years.
Breaking the law can lead to a fine of $50 to $150 or up to six months in jail. The ban is rarely enforced, unless someone dies in a church.
Read the whole article. It delves into the history of this religious rite and it’s quite interesting. I’m inclined to think these people have a right to kill themselves with snake bites if they want to, although it would seem wrong to put kids in harms way since they don’t have any choice in the matter. But I wonder if the Religious Liberty lobby will take up for them. It seems to me that this is much more of a reasonable case than demanding that hospitals owned by religious institutions not be required to allow insurance companies to offer contraception. This goes right to the heart of their worship rituals. Somehow I don’t think the Catholic Bishops are quite as interested in this sort of religious liberty, however. They seem to be specifically concerned with vaginal-Americans and the alleged misuse of their wombs. Odd religious practices such as this one don’t really interest them.
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