Out of the Darkness

The Serpent Handlers

Out of the Darkness, Into the Light
Believing in the Gospel of Mark 16: 17-19, they came out of the darkness to worship their Lord and God.

In 1973, in Newport, TN worship was a lifestyle for the members of the Holiness Church of God in Jesus' Name. Formal services were held three times a week. If the weather was good on Sunday, they would share lunch and services after lunch. The women dressed conservatively, in long dresses with little or no makeup. They men dressed plainly, in everyday clothes. They accepted visitors, even those wildly different from them, with the same kindness and respect that they accorded to members of their church. Unlike many people of faith, they practiced what they preached.
Services were loud celebrations -- a mixture of the traditional and modern, full of singing and preaching. They believed in faith healing, speaking in tongues, and in the Word of God, following the Gospel’s directive to take up and handle serpents, drink strychnine, and handle lighted bottles of fuel oil. The serpents were deadly rattlesnakes and copperheads that would bite if provoked.
They believed that, if they were right with the Spirit of the Lord in their heart and soul, that they could do these things and not be harmed. They placed their trust, and their fate, in the hands of God.
Children and non-members were allowed to participate fully in all aspects of the services except those which entailed risk. Even so, when the snakes were out, there were no barriers between them and those at the services.
In the summer of 1973, the services garnered national attention because of the poisoning deaths of two members of the church. They drank poisonous strychnine, in the belief that, if it were not their time to die, that the Lord would protect them. The press and many of the curious descended on the tiny church tucked away in the mountains of East Tennessee. Only when it became a circus did they close ranks and rebuff the attention of the world, wanting only to be left alone, to worship in their own way.