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Anonymous
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I've just seen some footage of one of the churches that practices just this, where devotees sing, dance, speak in tongues, have holy seizures and handle live rattlesnakes, or even drink poison, in the belief that their faith will keep them safe from harm.
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In the arena of spiritual oneupmanship, nobody can compete with the backwoods Bible believers who take Mark 16: 17-18 to its literal extreme:
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.
They're out there. Scattered throughout Appalachia and the Southeastern United States are dozens, maybe hundreds of little Holiness churches where God's people get up with a Bible in one hand, a rattlesnake in the other. and gyrate for Jesus to the twangin' accompaniment of someone's granny on electric guitar. Pass me a serpent, let's have church!
You won't find this stuff on TV. The best TBN can come up with is the Power Team on Saturday night busting two-by-fours over their heads for Jesus. No, if you want to find a church where they believe ALL of the Bible, you're going to have to do a little driving. Here are a few tips for the adventurous Recreational Christian who would like to visit one of these churches.
There is no set denomination for a snake handlin' church, although if you took away the snakes and poison, you'd have an Assembly of God type affair. Many of the "snake" churches are loosely affiliated with one another, but given the intensity of these people's belief, they tend to be very volatile, splintering off and feuding with one another. And yes, they do have a higher than average mortality rate. Which raises a question...
Why, you may ask, would God let a believer get bitten? First, God could use this means to discipline a transgressor. After all, we're all human and even the most faithful servant cannot remain sinless. Secondly, you don't pick up a cobra or guzzle Drano as a mere test of faith. You better be sure God's speaking directly to you, that you're anointed by the Holy Ghost right then. Thirdly, and most importantly, God can use a snakebite as a sign to any unbelievers present that the snakes are indeed deadly, that they haven't been de-fanged, milked of their poison, or kept in a refrigerator so as to be rendered sluggish. So even if God's telling you to do it, He may still let the serpent strike.
If God's telling YOU to visit one of these churches -- at least to watch, the best time to go is spring, summer, or early fall. The Bible says somewhere that everything has it's season, and many snake handlers believe that the serpents should get the winter off and so are let go and captured again in the spring. The Southern churches are bigger on snakes, while poison is more popular in West Virginia and Ohio. Due to the difficulty in obtaining strychnine, handfuls of Drano or battery acid can be substituted. Don't be surprised if one of the brothers pulls a "torch" out from the lectern. Usually a Pepsi bottle full of kerosene with a wad of cotton stuffed in the neck, these are used by the devout for "flame to face." The eleventh chapter of Hebrews says, "by faith the violence of fire is quenched." Glo-ree!
I have found three books on the subject. The first, published in 1969 by Schocken Books, is They Shall Take Up Serpents by Weston La Barre. La Barre, strictly an armchair snake handler, was a professor at Duke, and his account is dry and scholarly. The other two are by the writing team of Robert Pelton and Karen Carden who get down and dirty and report from the front line: The Persecuted Prophets -- The Story of the Frenzied Serpent Handlers published in 1976 by A.S. Barnes and Co. and Snake Handlers: God Fearers or Fanatics? published in 1974 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. The second book is more of a documentary in photographs, while the first contains more textual analysis. The writers are objective, yet completely respectful of their subject matter. The Persecuted Prophets is probably the one book I would grab if my house were on fire. The book revolves around the Carson Springs, TN strychnine deaths in 1973 when Brother Buford Pack and Reverend Jimmy Williams (pictured on this issue's cover) got hold of the real thing at a Saturday night service. The accompanying list should be used as a starting point. It is by no means comprehensive, and some of the churches may no longer be in existence. The aforementioned books as well as newspaper accounts were used to compile it.
From
here.
So what other examples are there of extreme tests of faith?
