The Pentacostal Church - Serpent Handling as Sacrament

God, Man, and the Serpent
It was with fascination and horror, and a bit of revulsion, that I watched the video in class concerning the snake handling in a Pentecostal church in West Virginia. I could not understand why these people would risk life and limb in the handling of these poisonous snakes during a church service. It was the first time I had observed such a thing in a religious gathering, I wanted to know why these simple Americans showed such, what seemed to me, outrageous behavior. What did this risk -taking have to do with the services they were attending? The first thing I wa…