Snake-Handling Pentecostals (Church of God with Signs Following)
Appalachian Pentecostal congregations practising serpent-handling and strychnine drinking based on Mark 16:17–18. Multiple documented deaths including pastor Jamie Coots (2014) and Mack Wolford (2012).
CLCI radar
BITE breakdown
+1 for documented preventable deaths from snake bites refusing medical care.
Profile facts
In context
The practice has no central denomination or hierarchy; it survives in perhaps 100–125 small, independent congregations loosely affiliated as "Church of God with Signs Following," concentrated in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, each governed by its own pastor with no outside oversight. George Went Hensley began publicly handling snakes in services around 1910 in Grasshopper Valley, Tennessee, though historians (Kimbrough; Hood and Williamson) note the practice may have had multiple independent originators, including James Miller at Sand Mountain, Alabama, around the same period. Hensley himself died from a snakebite received during a service in Florida in July 1955, having reportedly survived hundreds of bites before the fatal one — an irony repeated within the tradition's own families: Mack Ray Wolford Sr. died from a timber-rattlesnake bite during a service in Iaeger, West Virginia, in 1983, and his son, pastor Mark "Mack" Wolford, died the same way at a nearby outdoor service in 2012. Pastor Jamie Coots of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Middlesboro, Kentucky — featured with fellow pastor Andrew Hamblin in the National Geographic series Snake Salvation — was arrested in a 2008 sting, “Twice Shy,” that confiscated 125 venomous snakes overall from ten people; 74 of them were seized from his own home; he later wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed defending the practice as constitutionally protected religious exercise, then died from a snakebite during a February 2014 service.
Most Appalachian states restrict or ban handling venomous snakes in religious services: Kentucky treats it as a misdemeanor punishable by a $50–100 fine, and West Virginia and Tennessee have their own restrictions, though enforcement is inconsistent and prosecutions are rare because congregants are consenting adults engaging in what courts have treated as protected religious exercise. Georgia briefly made the practice a felony punishable by death in 1941, after a child's snakebite death, but juries refused to convict and the law was repealed in 1968. The tradition persists on a small, stable scale into the 2020s, sustained mainly by inherited congregational membership rather than active proselytising.
Key control doctrines
- Mark 16:17–18 literal mandate
- Faith demonstrated through serpent handling
- Refusal of medical care
Recovery resources
See the full curated list at /resources.
Legal cases & controversies
- Multiple US state anti-serpent-handling laws
- Multiple pastor deaths
Evidence by BITE axis
- Serpent handling at services
- Strychnine drinking
- Refusal of medical care after bites
- Children present at services
- Mark 16 reading authoritative
- Outside Christian rejection framed as faithless
- Faith demonstrated through dangerous signs
- Pastor's interpretation final
- Public bite-and-recovery testimonies emotionally intense
- Family pressure to participate
Timeline
- 1910George Hensley initiates serpent-handling
- 2012Pastor Mack Wolford dies of snake bite
- 2014Pastor Jamie Coots dies of snake bite
Evidence matrix
Structured sources cross-linked to the claims they document. Tiered per the source hierarchy. For free-text citations see the Sources section below.
Sources
- Dennis Covington, 'Salvation on Sand Mountain' (1995) search ↗
- National Geographic 'Snake Salvation' (2013) search ↗
- Wikipedia, "Snake handling in Christianity" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_handling_in_Christianity ↗ Wikipedia
- Snake-Handling Preachers Open Up About 'Takin' Up Serpents — https://www.npr.org/2013/10/04/226838383/snake-handling-preachers-open-up-about-takin-up-serpents open ↗
- In WVA, Snake Handling is still considered a sign of faith — https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/in-wva-snake-handling-is-still-considered-a-sign-of-faith/2011/10/18/gIQAmiqL9M_story.html open ↗
- Snakes and church vs. state — https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/26/opinion/cevallos-snake-handling-law/index.html open ↗
- Alabama Trial Involves Snakes And Bit of Faith — https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/15/us/alabama-trial-involves-snakes-and-bit-of-faith.html open ↗
- Pastor among suspects in illegal snake bust — http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fn%2Fa%2F2008%2F07%2F11%2Fnational%2Fa183128D08.DTL open ↗
- The Constitution Protects My Snake-Handling — https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303796404579101831593270054 open ↗
- Serpent Experts Try To Demystify Pentecostal Snake Handling — https://www.npr.org/2013/10/18/236997513/serpent-experts-try-to-demystify-pentecostal-snake-handling open ↗
- Why do we believe in God? — https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/13/religion.scienceandnature open ↗
- Snake Salvation': Inside the World of Christian Serpent Handlers — https://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/09/10/snake-salvation-inside-the-world-of-christian-serpent-handlers/ open ↗
- In the House of the Serpent Handler: A Story of Faith and Fleeting Fame in the Age of Social Media — https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.26248924 open ↗
- In the House of the Serpent Handler (2024) — https://doi.org/10.2307%2Fjj.26248924 open ↗
- Despite pastor's death, followers are still handling snakes — https://www.cbsnews.com/news/despite-pastors-death-followers-are-still-handling-snakes/ open ↗
- The Appalachian Preacher Who Tried to Murder His Wife via Snake Bite — https://www.thedailybeast.com/alabama-snake-the-appalachian-preacher-who-tried-to-murder-his-wife-via-snake-bite open ↗
- Jolo Journal; When the Faithful Tempt the Serpent — https://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/11/us/jolo-journal-when-the-faithful-tempt-the-serpent.html open ↗
- Woman fatally bitten by snake in church — https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-08-snakebite_x.htm?csp=34 open ↗
- Custody of 'snake-bite orphans' split between grandparents — http://www.cnn.com/US/9902/12/snake.bite.family/index.html open ↗
- Charles Prince: Martyr for His Faith? — https://muse.jhu.edu/article/436553/summary open ↗
- Charles Prince: Martyr for His Faith? — Appalachian Heritage (1994) — https://doi.org/10.1353%2Faph.1994.0026 open ↗
- COBB CREEK CHURCH: CHANGING PERSPECTIVES IN A SERPENT-HANDLING CONGREGATION IN EAST TENNESSEE — https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3865&context=utk_gradthes open ↗
- They shall take up serpents — https://www.nytimes.com/1976/06/06/archives/they-shall-take-up-serpents-serpents.html open ↗
- Reviving Faith by 'Taking Up Serpents — https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303816504577309570173259662 open ↗
- Serpent Handling at Jolo, West Virginia and the Legitimacy of the Marcan Appendix — http://www.library.appstate.edu/appcoll/manuscript/coll116/serpent.html open ↗
- Death of snake handling preacher shines light on lethal Appalachian tradition — http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/01/death-of-snake-handling-preacher-shines-light-on-lethal-appalachian-tradition/ open ↗
- Snake Handling in the Pentecostal Church: The Precedent Set by George Hensley — http://athena.english.vt.edu/~appalach/essaysS/snakes.htm open ↗
- Serpent-handling pastor profiled earlier in Washington Post dies from rattlesnake bite — https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/serpent-handling-pastor-profiled-earlier-in-washington-post-dies-from-rattlesnake-bite/2012/05/29/gJQAJef5zU_story.html open ↗
- Snake Salvation pastor dies from snake bite — https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26224452 open ↗
- Woman Dies After Snakebite in Church — https://www.cbsnews.com/news/woman-dies-after-snakebite-in-church/ open ↗
- Woman fatally bitten by snake in church — https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15616009 open ↗
- Why I watched a snake-handling pastor die for his faith — https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/why-i-watched-a-snake-handling-pastor-die-for-his-faith/2012/05/31/gJQA3fRP5U_story.html open ↗
- Differential Maintenance and Growth of Religious Organizations Based upon High-Cost Behaviors: Serpent Handling within the Church of God — Review of Religious Research (2004) — https://doi.org/10.2307%2F3512230 open ↗
- The Washington Post_ photo gallery — https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-west-virginia-pastor-pays-the-price-for-his-faith/2012/05/31/gJQAawRl5U_gallery.html open ↗
- University of Virginia article on serpent handlers — http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/Snakes.html open ↗
- Vice Magazine interview with Andrew Hamblin — https://www.vice.com/en/article/snake-handling-pentecostal/ open ↗
- MA thesis on Appalachian snake handling — https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/wcu/f/Williams2013.pdf open ↗
- Ralph W. Hood and W. Paul Williamson Holiness Churches of Appalachia Recordings and Interviews — https://digital-collections.library.utc.edu/digital/collection/p16877coll2 open ↗
- That Bites: Why do the snakes used in Pentecostal serpent handling have to be poisonous? — https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/06/pastor-mack-wolford-dies-of-a-rattlesnake-bite-do-serpent-handlers-always-use-poisonous-snakes.html open ↗
- Kentucky man dies from snake bite suffered during church service. — https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/28/kentucky-man-dies-snake-bite-church open ↗
- Snake Salvation pastor dies from snake bite — https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26224452 open ↗
We cite sources by name and outlet rather than fabricating links. Where a source includes its own URL, the open ↗ link opens it directly; otherwise search ↗ runs a Google Scholar query for the cited title — useful for verifying academic sources. For news outlets, search the outlet's own archive.
Change history
Substantive edits logged per the score-updates policy.
- 2026-08-31Body expanded from stub (thin-content programme)
- 2026-05-20Score band scheme migrated from 4 bands to 5 (Minimal 0–5 / Low 6–12 / Moderate 13–20 / High 21–30 / Extreme 31–40). No CLCI value changed; the new Minimal band was carved out of the bottom of the previous Low band.
Key terms in this profile
Relevant hubs
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Frequently asked questions
Q.Is Snake-Handling Pentecostals a cult?
CLCI Hub deliberately avoids the binary label "cult." Instead it places groups on a transparent 0–40 spectrum of documented control using Steven Hassan's BITE model (Behaviour, Information, Thought, Emotional). Snake-Handling Pentecostals scores 27 out of 40 — "High Control", at medium confidence. The score describes documented control patterns, not a judgement of members' sincerity or beliefs; many members do not personally experience the patterns listed.
Q.What is Snake-Handling Pentecostals's CLCI score?
Snake-Handling Pentecostals scores 27 out of 40 on the Cult-Like Control Index, which falls in the "High" band. That total is the sum of four BITE axes — Behaviour 7, Information 6, Thought 7, Emotional 6 — plus a signed modifier of +1 for aggravating or mitigating factors.
Q.Why does Snake-Handling Pentecostals score 27 on the CLCI?
The score reflects publicly documented patterns including: Refusal of medical care after venomous snake bites; Strychnine drinking; Children present at services with venomous snakes; Severance from non-handler family. These map onto the BITE axes of behaviour, information, thought, and emotional control, and a signed modifier of +1 is applied for factors such as financial demands, leadership accountability, and exit costs. Every claim is backed by the citations in the Sources section on this page.
Q.How reliable is the Snake-Handling Pentecostals rating?
This profile is rated Medium confidence. Medium confidence means the score rests on reputable journalism plus consistent ex-member testimony. CLCI scores are not fixed — they are revised whenever new public evidence appears, and groups that reform can score lower over time.
Q.Where can I get help regarding Snake-Handling Pentecostals?
If you or someone you care about is affected by Snake-Handling Pentecostals, start with the Recovery resources listed on this page. General cult-aware support is available from the International Cultic Studies Association (icsahome.com) and the Freedom of Mind Resource Center (freedomofmind.com). CLCI Hub is an educational resource, not a crisis service — if anyone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services.
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