Is there some reference to snake or serpent handling in the Bible that would drive people to the religious conviction that if they are true believers snakes will not harm them? I live in Alabama and know of such groups but don’t know anyone who has participated in one. I am interested in finding out why and how these groups got started and how they worship.
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A hallmark of Christian fundamentalism is taking the Bible literally. Snake handlers take it really literally. They point to Mark 16:17-18, in which the risen Jesus tells his disciples, “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.” For 19 centuries most Christians understood these signs as mere possibilities. Then in 1909 Tennessee preacher George Hensley pointed out that it didn’t say may, brothers and sisters, it said shall. He challenged his congregation to handle poisonous snakes or be condemned to hell.
Do snake handlers get bitten? All the time. At one point this was considered a mark of sin, but the current take on it is that God moves in mysterious ways. Bitten believers refuse treatment on the theory that the saved will survive. If so, things don’t look good for George Hensley: in 1955 he was bitten by a snake, refused treatment, and died.
The issue with identical twins is the number of chorions and amnions, the two layers of the sac surrounding the fetus. (Think of it like double bagging at the supermarket.) The luckiest type of twin is DiDi–each twin has its own amnion (inner sac) and chorion (outer sac). The least lucky kind is MoMo–the twins share a single amnion and chorion and, like kids in the same bed, cause each other no end of fetal distress, including one strangling on the other’s umbilical cord, one stealing nourishment from the other, etc. Monochorionic twins have ten times the risk of abnormality that dichorionic twins do. The risk for DiMo twins–each kid in its own amniotic sac but sharing the chorionic sac–is in between the two extremes. For illustrations, see telpath2.med.utah.edu/WebPath/PLACHTML/PLAC101.html and follow the links. Warning: pretty it ain’t.
