I believe God gave us doctors, nurses and medicines. It is God working through these avenues that heals us.
nevertheless, it is this man’s right to practice his religion, unless it hurts others.
Eisegesis kills.
These snake handlers are used in college sociology classes to convince students to rethink their relationship to God.
Killed by bad hermeneutics. Full Gospel? As if there is a 1/2 Gospel.
Jackass, sorry but he’s a jackass
Look at it this way: the average IQ in the USA just went up a bit.
that SSSSSSucks
Hope that at least the poor snake is doing well.
One should get walking on water down before they do the snake thing.
Lots of lib responses on this thread.
It’s totally kooky, but he lived free and committed to the constitution and his beliefs. Died that way too.
Funny how the folk making Darwin comments don’t even understand what they are saying.
What a dumb ass!
God gave us a brain to have the good sense to avoid Rattlesnakes. Then he went double strong by giving the snake a tail that rattled so you could get away from it.
What more you need?
I fear God too much to fool with snakes. Herpetology’s one thing, but I suspect this Coots fella’s gonna have some explaining to do.
RIP
I have all the faith in the world that a rattlesnake won’t bite me if I don’t pick it up and dance around with it.
George Went Hensley may have been the first snake handler. I was watching a documentary, “Hillbillies,” narrated by Billy Ray Cyrus, and after talking about bootleggers, coal mining, and feuds, he had a segment on Religious Practices. In it he focused on George Went Hensley.
A former bootlegger, he was saved, and one day while walking in the woods, he pondered on Mark 16:18, “They shall take up serpents… and it shall not hurt them.” Finding a rattlesnake, he picked it up and was not bitten. He then brought a rattlesnake to the next service and challenged the congregation to handle them like he did.
They mentioned he died while handling a snake in 1955, and they showed a brief newspaper article about it. Imagine my surprise when the town mentioned was Altha, FL. My relatives live in Altha and have since the early 19th Century, so I was surprised I hadn’t heard my relatives talk about it.
I emailed my cousin and asked her if she knew anything about it. She said my grandfather married his widow, and they were there.
My grandfather and a friend had caught the snake several days before and didn’t feed it or give it water. I guess my grandfather felt guilty.
I was only four at the time, so I don’t remember her at all. The marriage didn’t last long. I asked my mother about her, and she gave the highest praise a country woman could give to another, “She kept a clean house.”
Well at least he died doing what he loved./sarc
Really bad it gives the left a way to ridicule christians
Guess he just wasn’t feeling anointed that day.
I suspect there may have been a Church of Great Heights, where the membership believed they would be saved upon the wings of angels. Sadly, they may have been inspired by the free fall, but that sudden deceleration as they slammed into God’s earth ended the inspiration.
Evolution in action!