Pastor dies after snake bite

[Canadian4]

http://www.newser.com/story/147017/s...nake-bite.html

I know this isn't a funny story, in fact it's sad in many ways but I had to laugh at

Wolford was bitten on the thigh when he sat next to the rattlesnake during the service

.

And I hope he doesn't have a son.

[oh_gal]

He would probably simply say it was God's will.

[wfgodot]

(smh)

[MayraMM]

Since he died of a snake bite, doesn't that mean he's a sinner or something? His shame is there for the world to see . . . or maybe it was venom, plain and simple.

[crystalgenie]

Well, at least it was him... Not like the snake in Scottsboro, Alabama... He tried to kill his wife by sticking her hand in a box full of rattle snakes...


http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=IS54vJbtFzYC

[jjenny]

And after the bite they first took him to relatives home to recover. Well I guess that didn't work. If bites are treated quickly a person has a good chance of recovery. But I guess they were expecting him to heal on his own.

[wfgodot]

Sunday Mail's tabloid account (with pictures and video) of the snake-handling, strychnine-drinking, congregations in America:

Inside the secret deadly church services of Appalachia's serpent handlers
who lift rattlesnakes above their heads and drink poison all in the name of God

[Thundar]

Snakes just creep me out. I cannot imagine handling snakes as part of a religion, but yet this practice fasinates me. I would need to run screaming out of those churches as fast as my legs could carry me. But the idea that someone believes in the practice and does it as part of their faith is fasinating and not at all surprising when one of those practicing this religion dies of snake bite or as that one sign says being snake bit. (how is this for a run on sentence?)

[Seek&Find]

As we touched on in another thread, this sort of practice comes from selective reading of the Bible rather than understanding the larger context/meaning. The few Appalachian churches who practice this need to look to what Jesus said in Matthew 4:5-7.


5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

Moo