Headline of the Day

From CNN.com:

100 snakes seized; pastor arrested

More than 100 snakes, many of them deadly, were confiscated in the undercover sting after Thursday's arrests, said Col. Bob Milligan, director of law enforcement for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife.

Handling snakes is practiced in a handful of fundamentalist churches across Appalachia, based on the interpretation of Bible verses saying true believers can take up serpents without being harmed.

As this post's title suggests, I was drawn to this story by the sheer hilarity of the headline. The rest of the article is pretty interesting, too. However, it leaves us hanging as to what sort of odd interpretation of Bible verses could possibly lead good religious folk to play with poisonous reptiles.

Due to my fundamentalist Baptist upbringing, I know exactly what verses are at issue. Although the church I grew up in doesn't do anything as facially crazy as handling snakes, I did learn the Bible well enough to know the basis of most Christian doctrine. And the truth is that there's a lot of trippy shit in the Bible.

In fact, the New Testament actually quotes Jesus as saying that his followers will be immune from all sorts of harmful things, including those sinister snakes Biblical authors love to slander.

Mark 16:14-20 reads as follows:

Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

Later on in the New Testament, there's even an example of this happening.

Acts 28:3-6 reads as follows:

Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, "This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live." But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.

Thus, the fundamentalist contention that true believers should be able to safely handle snakes is quite well-supported by the text. Frankly, I don't see any reason to try to stop these people from putting their beliefs into practice. Someone has to provide material for the Darwin Awards.