Who's still handling snakes?
http://www.middlesborodailynews.com/view/full_story/23284550/article-Who---s-still-snake-handling--why--?Snake handlers? For real? Where? Why? Isn’t the practice against the law? What happens to those who are bitten?
As a child growing up in Cumberland, I never saw folks handling snakes, but my sister Frances did.
When she was in first-grade, she and her classmates ate lunch each day in the basement of a snake-handling church across the Cumberland River. The church is long gone as is the building that housed the first-graders at the time at the intersection of 119 and Main Street in Cumberland.
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When I was president of the college in Cumberland, one of our students died. I wanted to pay my respects, so I drove to the white-board church up on Pine Mountain and parked my car in a precarious position on the side of a steep drop-off. I had been told that the congregation was committed to “taking up serpents” per Luke 10:19 and Mark 16: 17-18, and the lore was that snakes might be used in the funeral service, perhaps even placed in the coffin.
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"Sin amen I co tie". I had no idea what they were saying?? }
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My Grandpa would hold church in his house....Just move all the furniture out and put some benches along the walls.
I recall that he had a "falling out" with the local Baptist Church and decided to start his own. I recall a couple of people coming in with a couple of boxes, that looked like small rabbit traps that we would catch rabbits in. And someone was doing a foot-washing on the front steps. The person getting his feet washed was called Mathie...short for Matthew, I guess?
And when the service began...
They started singing and shouting...and the assigned preacher would say a few words. After another song or two, people began to shout louder, and speak in tongues. When they started jumping up and down, the floor would shake.
Then they would bring on the snakes...
The Preacher would pass it on to someone on the floor. Some would hold the snake high above their heads and pass it on to someone else. They said they "were in the spirit".
I never went to that church anymore and I don't recall my Grandpa inviting them back?
