Taking Up Serpents
Written: August 11, 1999
Recently I had the opportunity to learn more about America's "Snake Handlers" - a little known, worse understood and even more controversial group of fundamentalist, evangelical churches concentrated mostly in the eastern Appalachian regions. If people know anything, they tend to get their information from sensationalized media accounts written by people with little understanding or sympathy. So why would an atheist be writing about them for an atheist website? Detractors - and there are certainly many with deeply ingrained prejudices against atheists and what they have to say about religion - might quickly guess "ridicule." Nothing could be further from the truth.
The first reason is education - I think that skeptics of religion are well served to be familiar with a variety of religious practices. Ignorance is rarely bliss and seldom makes us better people. Non-American readers might find the material here especially interesting, since I do not think that snake-handling practices have gained much popularity outside the United States. If I am mistaken, I encourage readers to write about their experiences in the Message Forum.
The second reason is related to the first: sometimes, more is revealed about religion by examining its fringes than its center. I have found that many trends in mainstream fundamentalist and evangelical churches are more pronunced in the snake handling congregations. The final reason is in turn related to the second: I believe certain aspects of Christian history have been repeated in the recent (and easier to study) history of snake handlers. In particular, I'm thinking about their conflicts with authorities and nature of their oral traditions.
In all the following discussions, it should be remembered that snake handlers are not crazy, neurotic or psychotic - at least, not more so than any other fundamentalist, evangelical Protestant group. The behaviors they exhibit in their services are indeed unusual and even bizarre, but not inherently more so than the behaviors exhibited in other church services. It should also be remembered that outside of these services, they do very little which might distinguish them from other Protestants. By the standards of their local communities, they are quite normal and well-adjusted citizens.
Origins
But first things first: just who are these snake handlers and where did they come from? The roots can be traced back to America's frontier heritage of the 18th Century. The basis of their style of worship descends directly from the pioneer preachers, frontier revivals and backwoods camp meetings popular in rural America. Snake handling must thus be recognized not as an aberration in American religion, but in fact an intensification of what has long existed.
Although educated Presbyterian preachers visited the region, their more intellectually oriented sermons were not well received. The people in these areas were in need of a religiosity more in tune with their unique needs and lifestyle. Traditional presbyterianism thus tended to be discarded in favor of Baptist lay preachers who very early on began making headway among the rural populace. The lay preachers had only a fragmentary knowledge of the bible and an ever worse understanding of traditional theology, but they did know their audience well - often living among them and earning their bread as a subsistence farmer, just as everyone else in their congregation. Sermons were highly emotional affairs, delivered as a reaction to local needs and according to local standards. And local meant very local - just the people who were able to walk or ride a short distance to a makeshift church.
With the advent of the 20th century came industrial capitalism - and the death of the traditional way of life for most people in the Appalachian region. In a series of rapid social transformations, subsistence farmers were pressured into selling ancestral lands or had those lands taken from them outright, eliminating any chance of an autonomous existence. In place of subsistence farming grew a profit-oriented, cash-based coal mining economy which helped destroy intricate kinship networks which had always served as a social safety-net in hard times. As profits became more important than people and families, individuals became little more than commodities in the industrial machines of eastern capitalists. Miners were paid little, and what they did make went right back to the companies in the form of rent for company housing and high-interest loans for substandard products at company stores. People brave - or foolhardy - enough to try and buck the system were quickly made examples of. I can't begin to do justice to the horrendous conditions which became the daily lives of the people of Appalachia.
| Quote of the week: Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects -James Madison (1751-1836) |
Taking up Serpents
The Holiness "snake handlers" grew out of the Church of God Holiness congregations in the first decades of this century. The basic doctrine which separates them from other fundamentalist groups is the idea that the presence of the Holy Ghost in their services gives them the power to heal the sick, perform exorcisms, speak in new tongues, drink poisonous or toxic substances like strychnine and battery acid, and of course handle deadly serpents. These beliefs are derived directly from Mark 16:17-18
And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.
Adherents are also able to cite several other biblical passages supporting their unusual beliefs and practices:
See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." (Luke 10:19-20)
Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire, when a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, "This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live." He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god. (Acts 28:3-6)
Some believers are also convinced that Jesus himself was a snake handler like them, quoting John 20:30 "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book." The point out that Jesus is recorded as performing the other signs listed in Mark such as healing, exorcism and raising the dead - and then add that Jesus would not ask his followers to do anything which he himself would not also do.
Another practice which has at times lost in popularity but which has nevertheless been historically popular is the handling of fire. Although this is not listed among the signs of Mark, believers are able to cite biblical passages in support of fire handling:
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. (Isaiah. 43:2)
In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith –being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire –may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Ritual vs. Belief
Eminent sociologist Emile Durkheim offered an idea of a "nonobvious theory of religion," in which the key to religion is not so much beliefs and doctrines, but instead the social rituals which in turn form the substance of social solidarity. I think that this is vitally important here, because we are looking at a society which fragmented terribly from a foreign influence. In these conditions, as the social fabric begins to tear and become unrecognizable, people will begin to look for any possible means to repair the damage and save their communities. As J.Wayne Flynt pointed out in his studies, snake handling occurrs mostly in peripheral areas of Appalachia which have experienced the most dramatic transformations from farming to capitalism and not in the more isolated areas where traditions have survived largely intact. I think it is clear that dangerous religious rituals like snake handling and poison drinking arise to help members deal with what must have be the humiliation accompanying the degradation and destruction of traditional values.
One way of coping with new and foreign ideas is to not only reject them, but to adopt practices abhorrent to the intruders. Social unity is more easily created when the marks of the "in group" are clear and unambiguous. It is no coincidence that most people don't engage in snake handling in their everyday lives. Social unity is also served by the creation of a worldview with only two basic classes: good vs. evil. All aspects of church services work to reinforce the idea that church members are the only ones who are really serving God, but that they must ever vigilant that the outside forces serving Satan don't overcome them.
Satan & Symbols
Satan plays almost as big a role in the world of snake handlers as does God. Poor health was attributed to Satan's influence. Problems associated with childbirth were attributed to Satan. Perhaps worst of all, deaths resulting from snake bites were attributed to a lack of faith in God and the power of Satan. People choose to take up poisonous snakes, although some believers seem to attribute such actions to the power of the Holy Spirit, and not their own free will. When they do so successfully and without injury, the results are attributed to God. If they are bitten but suffer no ill effects or at least heal, the results are attributed to God. But if they suffer and eventually die, the blame is placed first with the victim's lack of faith and then second on the ever-present influence of Satan which members must learn to be wary of.
By "following the signs" and engaging in practices like handling snakes or faith healing, they perform rituals which reinforce their separation and demonstrate the God walks among them, but not with others. Rituals are thus goal-oriented activities and serve larger social purposes not directly linked to the ostensible beliefs underlying them.
As a further development, the snake became not simply a symbol of Satan, but also the evil capitalists invading their communities and destroying their traditional ways of living. But more than that, the serpent was an intermediary in the battle between good and evil. By handling a snake and surviving, a person proved that the power of God was triumphant over the power of both Satan and exploitative outsiders. In a symbolic fashion, a congregation member not only proved their worth to triumph over death and enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but also personally and spiritually triumphed over the capitalist mine owners bent on controlling him or her.
Power and Congregations
Congregation members will generally offer three different bases for their ability to handle fire, handle serpents and consume deadly substances. The first is "anointing" - this is the most common, and is supposed to be when God gives individual believers the power to perform miracles in His Name. The second means by which they perform miracles is their "faith." This means that when a believer has sufficient confidence in the power and grace of God, then no harm can possibly come to them. As mentioned above, a strong faith means that you will survive, but death usually means that you didn't really have the strong faith which you should have.
A final source of power is supposed to be "innocence" - in the doctrines of snake handlers, young children have the ability to take up deadly serpents without fear of harm because they are too young to yet sin willfully. In many congregations, children do indeed handle snakes and do in fact manage to survive unscathed. Sometimes even infants are kept near snakes as their parents handle the serpents in religious ecstasy. But in at least as many other churches, children are not permitted near free snakes as they are being handled. Perhaps in those congregations, the theology of innocence does not hold sway. Or perhaps, the members realize the dangers involved and don't want to risk their children, no matter what the doctrines advise. This would be expected if the rituals are there more for social cohesion than because of real beliefs.
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