Snake handlers intrigue professor

HSU educator wrote book on practice by some churches

When television and newspaper reporters have questions about serpent-handling churches, they frequently turn to an Arkansan for answers.

Henderson State University psychology professor Paul Williamson is the co-author of Them That Believe: The Power and Meaning of the Christian Serpent-Handling Tradition, a 2008 book he wrote with University of Tennessee at Chattanooga professor Ralph Hood.

Often, the media inquiries follow reports of a deadly Sunday snakebite.

Serpent handling sprang up in the mountains of Appalachia early in the 20th century, and it continues to be practiced there.

Williamson estimates there are, at most, 100-200 such congregations, most of them scattered across the southeastern United States.

If serpent handling is practiced in the Natural State, Williamson is unaware of it.

“I’m convinced that there probably is a small church or two here in Arkansas, but I have not been able to locate one as [of] yet,” he said.

The foundational text for serpent handling is found in Mark 16. Before ascending into heaven, Jesus tells his followers to spread the Gospel, adding, “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

After the emergence of their movement in the early 20th century, Pentecostals emphasized the importance of “speaking in tongues,” viewing it as a sign of the Holy Spirit’s in-dwelling.

They also stressed “divine healing,” praying for and anointing the sick. Some even sought to cast out devils.

But most declined to “take up serpents,” let alone swallow poison.

A few, however, came to view the passage as a divine command.

Around 1910, a Pentecostal convert named George Went Hensley questioned whether he could truly be saved if he refused to “take up serpents.”

“He goes up into White Oak Mountain, just outside Chattanooga Tenn., … and he begins to struggle with this, worrying whether he can be saved or not, and it just so happens that a timber rattler crawls up right beside him while he is praying,” Williamson said, recounting the story. “And with trembling hands, he reaches down [and] he handles the serpent with impunity.”

Hensley, who would die after a snakebite in 1955, shared his testimony and spread his biblical interpretation across the region.

The Assemblies of God, founded in Hot Springs in 1914 and based in Springfield, Mo., quickly rejected serpent handling, Williamson said.

The Cleveland, Tenn.based Church of God, on the other hand, was more receptive, Williamson said.

For a time, the denomination even licensed Hensley to preach.

The denomination’s general overseer, A.J. Tomlinson, viewed serpent handling as a supernatural manifestation, “another evangelical or evangelistic tool in the Pentecostal tool kit,” Williamson said.

Most of the time, the serpent handlers walked away unscathed. And those who were bitten typically survived.

The practice caused alarm in some quarters, however. Lawmakers in some states eventually passed legislation outlawing the religious practice. (Arkansas has two references to snakes in its code, according to a LexisNexis search; neither refers to the church practice.)

For a time, the Church of

God Evangel — the denomination’s publication — highlighted revivals where snakes were featured.

Eventually, the Church of God began to marginalize the practice, Williamson said.

A subsequent denomination that Tomlinson founded,

The Church of God of Prophecy, also followed suit.

The decision, from a church-growth perspective, made sense, Williamson said.

“You cannot continue to grow, especially if you’re wanting to attract middle-class people, if you’re doing things that will kill people,” he said.

A remnant, however, continued to embrace the teaching.

Today, snake handling continues to be practiced, though many of the churches keep a low profile.

“They’re very concerned about being misrepresented. They’ve been abused in the media, both in the print and the video media, so they’re pretty secretive about it,” he said.

Originally from Tennessee, Williamson was a Church of God of Prophecy pastor before entering academia.

But he gave up the pulpit and studied psychology instead.

Before going to college, he had no idea that serpent handling had once been an accepted practice in the Church of God.

Williamson, who was interested in the psychology of religion, decided to visit one of the congregations and enjoyed

the experience.

Unlike modern Pentecostal churches, which are often “orderly and very well scripted,” these services were more spontaneous.

There might be one sermon. Or two or three. Members might testify or feel led by the Spirit to sing a particular song.

“It was kind of like a nostalgic experience for me, stepping back into the days of my childhood. Absent the serpents, of course,” he said.

The professor said he has attended hundreds of services at serpent-handling churches since his days as a graduate student at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

His dissertation focused on the movement, which is strongest in eastern Kentucky, he said.

He also filmed many of the services, and he returns in the summer for the congregation’s homecoming gatherings.

After earning his doctorate in 1999, he taught briefly at a Kansas college, before becoming an associate professor of psychology at Henderson State in 2003.

Since 2011, he has been a full professor.

Williamson founded Henderson State’s Religious Serpent Handling Research Archive in 2008 and is co-founder of a similar collection in Chattanooga.

Hood, who co-wrote Them That Believe, said Williamson has earned the trust of the worshippers he studies.

“He’s a man of impeccable character and honesty,” Hood said.

The two have worked together for years on the topic.

“Part of what we try to do is spend an extensive amount of time doing in-depth interviews with serpent handlers, attending their services, going to their homecomings, trying to figure out what it is that they believe,” Hood said. “Paul’s exceptionally good at being sympathetic. … He’s very good at listening and understanding something from someone else’s perspective.”

Despite his distance from Appalachia, Williamson continues to follow serpent-handling churches closely.

While respectful of their beliefs, he doesn’t take up the serpents himself.

“I have been in services where some believers have offered them to me. I could have done it, but it would be sacrilege on my part,” he said. “It wouldn’t mean the same thing for me as it does for them.”