A fascinating study of the snake handlers of Appalachia describes how members of this devout sect risk their own lives to promote their faith, drawing on interviews with three snake-handling families to reveal the traditions of their faith and their religious beliefs and doctrines...
Church members who take Mark 16: 17-18 as a central tenet of their faith call themselves Signs Followers. Previous accounts of the Signs Followers focused on the sensational aspects of the religion: picking up poisonous snakes, drinking strychnine, speaking in tongues.Within...