TIME has a preview of a show I'll be sure to miss.
But I do have a question. Why do these people limit it to snakes, which are kinda hit or miss.
If you really, really believe, then go jump off a 50-story building instead. Or walk in front of a speeding 18 wheeler and make sure it hits you.
Limiting it to snakes, I think has 2 reasons. There is the passage in Mark about believers taking up serpents without being harmed (that text is now thought to have been added later). Morover, the snake has been such a powerful religous symbol for millenia. Not saying the snakehandlers have a particularly healthy take on the faith, but it makes sense on some wierd level.
ReplyDeleteRight you are, Charles...but the same passage says drink poisons...why not just swallow cyanide? (-: I'm just picking a bit. Do they stone wives who
ReplyDeleteare adulterers?
Yes, Tim, the same folks sometimes swig cyanide.
ReplyDeleteI watched about ten minutes of the show last week, and that was all I could stand. Those folks are NOT proper Episcopalians like me!
I can assure you, Tim, that the church in the photo does not handle snakes.
ReplyDeleteGoogle up "Jolo, West Virginia" for a look at a more typical snake-handling church.
Not my best choice of a graphic to go with the story...(-:
ReplyDelete