The National Geographic Channel followed two snake-handling preachers off and on for a year for a called Snake Salvation that will air this fall on Tuesday nights. Pastor Jamie Coots is one of the series’ subjects.
“Snake handling fascinated me because it’s such an extreme gesture of faith,” says Matthew Testa, the series’ executive producer. “We set out to tell this story from the snake handlers’ point of view, to really humanize them, not to judge them, and to show how important religion is in their daily lives with their daily struggles.”
The Tabernacle Church of God in LaFollette, Tenn., is a short drive through the Cumberland Gap from Coots’ church. The pastor here is Andrew Hamblin, a lanky, charismatic 22-year-old, who is the other preacher featured in the TV series. Hamblin wants to modernize the practice of handling snakes in church. He posts photos of himself with snakes on , and he aspires to pastor the first serpent-handling megachurch.
This depends presumably on the long ending to Mark, ie Mark 16.9-20. In most Bibles it is now printed as a footnote, or even omitted, or printed with a cautionary note, for all serious biblical scholars regard it as a late addition to the original gospel. And anyway, presumably references to handling snakes and drinking poisons can and should be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically.
Like the other NT signed gifts, this ability to handle deadly snakes without harm is likely limited to the apostles, and was fulfilled in Scripture only once and only by Paul, who did not exercise it by choice. 😉
See Acts 28:1-6
We are not supposed to put God to the test. My wife’s young cousin, a boy at the time, was killed in one of these incidents. She was very sad. I do not see this as Christianity, more like negligent homicide
IHSV,
NW Bob
For some reason, snake-handling churches never seem to have set up here in Australia … :o|
A useful skill when dealing with the many serpents in our churches.
I find it a very very sad story.
I know we’re supposed to be all accepting, especially of people who most likely believe the rudiments of the Gospel.
But, as Bishop Allison points out, heresy kills. And this is heresy, no matter how folksy and redolent of Southern/Appalachian blue-collar heritage it is.
Perhaps they do have the faith which moves mountains.
But it is all rather peculiar. If they lost this aspect of their identity, would we have ever heard about them?
I fear that extremists like this are being exploited as yet another avenue to ridicule at folk like us who take the Bible seriously. And yes, we should not put God to the test.