They milk the snakes of poison and then place the cages sitting on dry ice to make them stuporous. The people running these churches are scammers.
Stranger
Prior thread on snake handling, occasioned by then-current news reports of some snake-handling pastor who had just died from a bite. (But sorry, I don’t see any link to any actual news article in that thread, except one dead one a ways down. A dead link, I mean.)
I am not a poetry person, but I enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing.
snapping fingers madly for DLuxN8R-13
I’ve been to a speaking-in-tongues church service (no snakes or poison), and it definitely felt that there was a significant psychological trance thing going on. This was in the South, but not Appalachia.
I am also not a poetry person and liked this a lot. Also it sounded a hell of a lot like the same church–the parking lot, the people, the folding chairs, and even though it was not August it was quite warm inside (that was one of the things I liked, actually). But the one I went to had a piano AND a guitar for accompaniment (another one of the things I liked).
I once attended a wedding at such a church. I was given a warning in advance that this would not be the type of wedding I’d attended in the past. As the poem above says, the church building was more of a shack, out in the middle of nowhere, with a tiny gravel parking lot. The churchgoers were poor people, white mostly, dressed in their dour best. Inside, the church was just a box with rows of benches, everything whitewashed. The preacher held forth from behind a folding music stand. There were no flowers or decorations or the type of accoutrements once expects at a wedding. It was all very stark and plain.
The bride and groom didn’t walk down the aisle. They each stood up from a bench on opposite sides of the aisle where they had been sitting with their parents. The walked forward and stood before the preacher. The ceremony of marriage wasn’t odd at all. The usual words were said and bible verses read. The bride and groom stated vows and a ring was placed on the bride’s fingers. No kiss. But the young couple turned around and faced the churchgoers, were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. and then sat back down on one of the benches. Together this time.
I thought the service would be over then, but no. It was time for the sermon. The preacher went on for about 20 minutes, talking about the evils of marriage, the terrible things it can lead people to do, and the even more terrible punishments God would rain down on those who violated the sanctity of marriage. I sat there, wide-eyed and tearing up a bit, grasping my husband’s hand and wishing I could bolt out the door.
About this time, individual congregants begin to stand up and shout in a call-and-response with the preacher, some raising their hands to the skies, others mumbling, I guess as the spirit moved them? Before long some were falling to the floor on their knees, crying out incomprehensible words in what I imagine was ‘speaking in tongues’. Others had started to mill about in front of the preacher, nodding and shouting Amen!
I was becoming legitimately freaked out by now. This entire scene was so alien to my Catholic upbringing. The person at the end of our bench near the wall of the church had gotten up to join the others milling about near the preacher, and my husband and I quietly took our leave.
We had about an hour’s drive home. Neither of us spoke. It had been an experience with such a profound sense of ‘difference’, as though we’d walked through a portal or had found ourselves in a Twilight Zone episode. All of that heat, lack of fresh air, raw emotion, and zeal, pent up in that tiny, shabby building. The walls of the building seemed to pulse with it. I’ve never forgotten it.
What’s a gaboon viper? (I can’t stand even looking at pictures of snakes, or else I’d look it up myself)
With all due respect, no, they don’t. They take the whole thing quite seriously, and to run a gaff like you’re describing would be an unforgivable sin.
[QUOTE=Jennshark;]
According to my reading this week: yes, venomous copperheads, water moccasins, eastern, western, and canebrake rattles are all used. The authors claimed that the snakes aren’t “milked” or de-fanged prior to services (but many of the survivable bites are dry strikes – the snake bites but doesn’t pump venom).
[/QUOTE]
True this; snakes can dry-bite to defend themselves without loss of their poison (conserving it for its principal purpose of taking prey).
Interestingly enough, the most commonly used snakes in Appalachian signs follower churches are diamondback rattlers, Eastern Timber rattlers, and copperheads-all of them said to be fairly placid and unaggressive, for poisonous snakes anyway.
A bizarre-looking and very venomous serpent, native to tropical Africa.
Ditto. That was a good read. I especially liked the opening lines
“skinny rich got religion 2 or 3 times a year
between salvations he dealt pills”
Sounds like something Don Marquis would have written if he were still alive.
I’ve never seen or heard of snake handling or poison drinking church services.
The oddest church service I ever attended was with a group of charismatic/Pentecostal Catholics. A very nice but very odd bunch. When some started speaking in tongues, I was both amused and terrified.
I don’t know, but if I were a snake and a bunch of idiots started bouncing me around while singing gibberish, you better believe I’d start biting.
Some news reports:
- YouTubeAre 21-year-old pastors common in those parts? Everyone who spoke on camera seemed like a caricature of a yokel.
Do any of them drink poisons as part of the ceremony, given that the same verse mentions that too? Or would that be one kook too far for them?
ETA: Your username is appropriate.
Video of a guy allegedly drinking poison (strychnine). Of course we have no idea what is really in the jar. If there is any poisonous substance in there it’s probably really diluted. Maybe it’s homeopathic poison. 
Just chiming in to say I really liked this too.
I don’t think this is right. Scammers usually do things to make a profit–these people are not making a profit. Oh, there’s the collection plate, sure, but it’s there whether there are snakes or not.
I mean, they could have had the box of snakes in a much cooler room before they were brought out, or for that matter a warmer room, although it’s hard to imagine a warmer room–but I don’t really see a scam here other than religion itself.
Well, if it’s diluted by half, I can see how he could survive but if it’s diluted by 3 or 4 orders of magnitude, there’s no way anyone could survive something a poison that potent.
Now that I think about it, shouldn’t people who believe in homeopathy be against water treatment given that it will make the contaminants within more powerful?
A bit late, but in case you come back could you elaborate on what you meant by this bit? Were you cordoned off, or just sort of tangentially ignored when things started getting extra Pentecostal, or something different?
My daughter goes to a Lutheran day school. My wife is the cook at the school. Today I had picked up part of tomorrows lunch and dropped it off o my way from work. As I was passing a teacher talking to a student she was saying something about “needing a man to do it.” She then saw me and wrangled me into removing a snake that had crawled into the gymnasium. Told my son later and he told of capturing a few snakes when he was there and turning them into class pets.