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: BIRMINGHAM NEWS (Alabama) 07 July 01 State regulation to constrict snake ownership (Megan Boldt) : Alabama's exotic reptile owners and sellers could face criminal penalties later this month. : The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has issued a state regulation effective July 25 to pro hibit the possession, sale, importation or release of non indigenous venomous reptiles, said department lawyer David Dean. : Dean said the regulation was issued in March and is unrelated to the controversy over a missing cobra in Moody. : He said the regulation came about after some legislators had been receiving complaints about increasing problems with venomous snakes. State Sen. Tom Butler, D-Madison, started working on outlawing the creatures last fall. : “They're a health threat to the public,” Butler said. “Some of these snakes are so deadly, and there's no antivenin available at our hospitals.” : In Madison County, Butler can recall at least two snake-related instances in the last year. In one case, a buyer released the deadly reptiles into the wilderness. : In another case, a child was bitten while feeding one of his dad's venomous snakes and had to be rushed to a hospital, Butler said. : Dean said the snakes also can harm native wildlife in Alabama. : In St. Clair County, residents are still unnerved as they look for a deadly black spitting cobra missing in Moody. The 5-foot snake escaped about three weeks ago. It is capable of spitting venom as far as 15 feet. : David Horsley, 35 bought the snake a year ago and housed it in a fish tank in a trailer in he Moody yard. He said he understands people are worried about the disappearance. But he said the new regulation won't keep him from owning the snakes. He also has a white spitting cobra and an adder. : Horsley said having the snakes allows him to practice his Christian religion, so he won't get rid of them. : “I don't think they have the right to do that,” Horsley said. “It's part of my religion and beliefs.” : Butler said he's received complaints from some individuals, but not pet stores, about the upcoming regulation. : Carrie Cosby, manager of Ed's Pet World in Calera said pet stores have to obtain a state license to even display exotic venomous reptiles. Ms. Cosby said it's rare for pet stores to display or sell them. : If people obtain exotic venomous snakes, “they're buying them under the table,” she said. : Moody Police Chief Bobby Clements said that once he sees the regulation and it goes into effect, he won't hesitate to report offenders to the conservation department. : Clements said Monday police had hands tied in the disappearance of the spitting cobra because there were no local, state or federal regulations prohibiting possession of the venomous snakes. : Under existing state law governing the conservation department, the conservation commissioner had the authority to enact the state regulation without legislation, Dean said. : Offenders could face up to a $500 fine and three months in jail, Dean said. In rare cases, the department might grant permission to some citizens to own the reptiles. : http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/?Jul2001/7-e344351b.html : SUNDAY OBSERVOR (Sri Lanka) 15 July 01 Cobra - the hooded snake most revered (Aryadasa Ratnasinghe) : The word 'cobra' is of Portuguese origin derived from 'cobra de capello' (snake with a hood). It is popularly known among the Sinhalese as 'naya' and they, with respectful awe, call it 'naihamy'. Tamils call it 'naga-pambu'. In Hindu mythology, cobras are divine serpents, descended to earth from the celestial abode of the nagas. The Hindus treat nagas (cobras) with utmost reverence, and they entreat and implore them with hallowedness. : Buddhist literature tells us that the serpent king Mucalinda, came out of his abode and circling around the body of the Buddha seven times, remained keeping his large hood over the head of the Buddha for seven days, to protect him from rain and cold winds that swept across passing the Buddha. : In the Holy Bible of the Christians, there is reference to the snake. “Whose breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him”. (Ecclesiastes 10:8). Again “ye, serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?” (St. Matthew 23:33) In the Bible, the snake is referred to as serpent as it was known to the Greeks. : Ancient history of Sri Lanka tells us that king Maniakkhika of Kelaniya (BC 680), was a Naga by birth, and was a worshipper of snakes before he embraced Buddhism, when Buddha visited the island in the 8th year after Enlightenment. At that time, the inhabitants of the island were Nagas (snake-worshippers) and Yakkas (demon-worshippers). : Cobras, not only have fascinated mankind from remote antiquity, but also have played many significant roles in mythology, legend, history, religion and folklore. Needless to say that they have also been considered with respectful awe worthy of reverence. Their association with mankind, their dignified grace and their natural habitat have made people to consider them as holy creatures. ... : CHARLESTON DAILY MAIL (W Virginia) 17 August 01 Praising God, tempting fate - Churches test power of God with acts of faith (Vada Mossavat) : Scrabble Creek: They make it seem like Mark 16:18 is the most common verse in the Bible. : “. . . They will pick up snakes in their hands and be unharmed if they should drink deadly poison.” : First in Gauley Bridge and now in the intensive care unit of Charleston Area Medical Center, these words are repeated over and over as the family and friends of Alfred Preast try to make sense of the verse in light of a severe snake bite he received while handling a timber rattler in a Pentecostal church. : Sunday, at the House of Prayer in Scrabble Creek in Fayette County, Preast was bitten by the rattler. He has been in the intensive care unit of CAMC's General Hospital since. His condition has been upgraded from critical to serious, hospital spokesman Andy Wessels said this morning. : The incident in which Preast was injured has enraged some members of his family, who have called snake handling “legal murder.” The incident also shows a division of feelings in a community with a history of snake handling. : Alfred “Pooch” Preast came from a family of snake handlers. His uncle, Elzie Preast, was prominent among area snake handlers. : Elzie Preast worshipped at a Pentecostal church where strychnine and snakes were used to test the faith of the congregation. People say Elzie Preast was bitten by snakes over 20 times and never went to the doctor. : Now, some of those familiar, even peripherally, with Sunday's incident, are trying to distance themselves from it. : Cathy Witherton, the wife of the House of Prayer's pastor, James “Buzz” Witherton, said it was not the House of Prayer that sponsored the snake handling. For the last few months, the group has agreed to let another church come in and have a Sunday service. : “It is people we know, but it's not anything we do,” she said. : She isn't sure whether the other group will be permitted to return to the church. : Marilyn Sergent, Preast's girlfriend of four months, said the members of the church shouldn't have let Preast handle snakes, but she went with him to the House of Prayer for the service with her camera to photograph Preast with the snakes. : Preast's daughter Dennell Johnson said, “I don't go to no snake handling churches.” : And Preast's grandson, Anthony Arthur, called the church a cult. : Preast was not a regular visitor to the House of Prayer. : And his family agrees that he didn't go to the church Sunday in the proper frame of mind. His brother said Preast was showing off and his girlfriend said recent strokes and heart attacks had taken a toll on his mind and had left him “like a child,” she said. : Preast's brother, Bud, does not blame the church for Alfred Preast's mishap. : “I don't like it,” Bud Preast said. “I love my brother, but he brought it all on himself.” : Bud Preast said, though he has never been a Christian himself, that snake handlers were good, hard-working people and should be allowed to worship as they see fit. : “If you don't want to get bit, stay out of there,” Bud Preast said. : Bud Preast said he used to catch snakes and sell them to the churches for $5 apiece. : He said Alfred Preast went to the church Sunday for the wrong reasons -- showing off for others -- and paid a steep price. : “Everyone who got bit was a hypocrite,” he said and added, “I hate to see him lose his life and soul over this.” : Sergent is more hopeful and said she thinks Preast will recover from his wound. : Sergent said she grew up attending snake-handling churches. When she was 8 years old, her congregation said she would go to hell if she didn't handle snakes, she said. : So, she handled snakes. : “God had to have had his hand on me, had to have,” she said. : “I can remember when they let them go on the floor,” Sergent said. “I can remember them slinging them back into the church.” : When she was 9, she drank enough strychnine to kill three grown men, she said. She stopped attending those services when she was 17, she said. : She said she went with Preast to the House of Prayer on Sunday because he was bent on going. She hadn't been back to a snake handling church in 31 years. : “He wanted to go up there. I just wanted to see it because I hadn't seen it in so long,” she said. : At Sunday morning's service, two men handled the snakes and put them back in their boxes, she said. The pastor of the House of Prayer played guitar. : Preast then went to the front of the church, handled the rattler and was bit on the soft part of his hand between his thumb and forefinger. : “It is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God,” Sergent said. : She has spent her nights sleeping on the floor of the intensive care unit, and she wants to know where the members of the church are now that Preast is so sick. : Sergent said she told a member of the church, “Go heal him. That's what the Bible said. You're supposed to be a disciple -- go heal him.” : Going to the doctor after receiving a snake bite during a service is frowned upon by snake handlers, she said. : “I told them all, you're all going to hell. It ain't nothing but the devil. You're gonna bust hell wide open,” Sergent said. : Ron Moore, who lives next door to the House of Prayer, said he attends services there, but not when they are handling snakes. : Preast's bite was the second in four months at the church, he said. Ed Miller, also of Scrabble Creek, had been bitten too, but didn't require any treatment for his wound. : Miller wouldn't comment on Sunday's incident. : “When you reach in that box, you better know you're living 100 percent right,” Moore said. : He said only God and Preast knew where Preast's heart was that day. : “The Bible didn't say they wouldn't bite you,” he said. “God expects you to use some common sense. If the Lord asked me to reach down, I'd grab him. But I'd better know it was God saying it.” : http://www.dailymail.com/news/News/2001081726/ : REUTERS 10 September 01 Praise the Lord, Pass the Serpents in Georgia (Paul Simao) : Kingston, Georgia: The congregation was on its feet singing the old Gospel favorite “I Saw The Light” when Rev. Carl Porter put aside his Bible and reached behind the pulpit for the wooden snake box. : The 56-year-old Georgia preacher slipped his weathered hands inside and, moments later, lifted a 4-foot timber rattlesnake into the light. Stroking his deadly cargo, Porter began to hop and strut across the altar. : “Save me, Jesus,” shouted a worshiper, his face streaked with tears. Several others, sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit, uttered strings of indecipherable sounds, a practice known as speaking in tongues. : Porter, too, was shouting praises and singing, even as the rattler slithered in between his hands, darting its head back and forth in menacing fashion. Several minutes passed before another worshiper stepped forward to receive the snake. : Returning to the pulpit, the preacher wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and grabbed a mason jar full of strychnine-laced water. He swallowed a mouthful of the clear liquid and smiled. : “I felt the Spirit move on me,” Porter explained hours later as he stood in an empty pew in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in Kingston, Ga., one of about 40 churches in the southeastern United States that actively practice snake handling. : “God was in the house tonight,” the bearded preacher said in his soft Georgia lilt. : An estimated 75 people have died in the United States from handling snakes during religious services in the past 80 years. The practice has so unnerved authorities that it has been banned in every Appalachian state except West Virginia. In Georgia, it remains a misdemeanor to handle a snake without a permit, but the law is rarely enforced. : A retired long-distance truck driver who was known on the circuit by the radio tag “Sneaky Snake,” Porter began handling serpents about 30 years ago after becoming disenchanted with mainstream Christianity. : He found comfort within the Holiness Church, a charismatic Christian sect that is home to the estimated 2,000 worshipers who regularly attend snake-handling services in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. : “THEY SHALL TAKE UP SERPENTS...” : Founded in the 1920s by George Hensley, a Tennessee preacher who split from the Pentecostal church when it stopped embracing snake handling, Holiness churches sprung up among the poor, uneducated farmers of backwoods Appalachia. : Early followers were suckled on the teachings of the traveling preachers of the late 19th century and were attracted, like their descendants, to ministers who preached of miracles and summoned the Holy Spirit. : The Holiness Church, as it did in its infancy, still encourages its worshipers to lay hands on the sick, speak in tongues and provide testimony of miracles. It has no central governing body and does not train its preachers formally. : When they gather in the converted filling stations and other dwellings that often pass for churches, the faithful tend to adhere to strict dress codes -- uncut hair and ankle-length dresses for women; short hair and long-sleeve shirts for men. : But it is their rigidly literal interpretation of the Scriptures, in particular a passage in St. Mark's Gospel, that sets the Holiness apart from Christians elsewhere in the world: : “They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them...” Mark 16:18 : Those words, attributed to Jesus, are seen as an unequivocal commandment by many of the Holiness faithful. Although no one is required to handle snakes, a traditional symbol of Satan, or drink poison, many eagerly do so. : “I'm hungry to pick up that thing because Jesus told me to do it,” Rev. Junior McCormick, who preaches alongside Porter, told the congregation during a Saturday night service last month. : McCormick was pointing at a rattlesnake that only moments before had been draped around his neck. “You can call me a holy roller, but I would rather roll for God than roll for the Devil,” he said. : SOMETIMES THE DEVIL BITES BACK : Snake handlers are not oblivious to the risks of their faith. McCormick has been bitten 14 times by a variety of rattlesnakes and copperheads, while Porter has been struck roughly a dozen times. : Both men have fingers are that twisted grotesquely from the neurotoxic venom of such encounters. : Occasionally the practice exacts a heavier price. : Hensley, the man christened as the founder of modern snake handling in America, died vomiting blood from a snakebite in 1955. : “I don't believe it's God's will that people get bit. Maybe the Holy Spirit wasn't upon them at the time,” says Porter, who watched one of his own congregants die from snakebite during a 1990 service. : The Spirit certainly appeared to be missing in action one night in 1998 when John Wayne Brown Jr., a rising star on the snake handling circuit, was preaching to the faithful in Alabama. : The rattlesnake that Brown was handling turned, sinking its fangs into his flesh. Five minutes later, the preacher's five children were orphans. Their mother, Melinda, had succumbed to snakebite during a service three years earlier. : Police rarely bother the handlers and emergency personnel only intervene when called to do so. Medical attention is always offered to those bitten by snakes, but in most cases it is refused. Antivenom is generally not kept on hand in snake handling churches. : Many handlers will happily endure hours, even days, of swelling, nausea, vomiting and debilitating pain that often accompanies snakebites. : “God didn't say it wouldn't hurt,” said Marie Hobbs, a 45-year-old Georgia woman who was bitten by a snake three years ago while in church. “I count it an honor to die for the Lord.” : http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010910/lf/religion_snakehandlers_dc_1.html : BATON ROUGE SUNDAY ADVOCATE (Louisiana) 11 June 00 The Serpent Handlers *** Book on snake sect fascinating yet full of gaps : The Serpent Handlers: Three Families and Their Faith : By Fred Brown and Jeanne McDonald : (John F. Blair Publisher, $19.95) : I've never read a book so engaging, yet so exasperating. : Snake handling began early this century in small, mostly Pentecostal churches in rural Appalachia, and it remains on the fringe of Christianity. : Small wonder. Occasionally, a snakebite death suffered in such a church hits the news, causing more conventional believers and non-believers to shake their heads and ask: What's with these people? : If that is your only question, this is your book. : The Serpent Handlers tells of three families who take quite literally the biblical message of Mark 16: 17-20 - "And these signs shall follow them that believe ... They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ..." The authors spent years winning the trust of people suspicious of nosy outsiders. In the process, Brown and McDonald clearly developed an affection for their subjects. : There are no attempts to parody. On the contrary, the authors bend over backward to portray these believers in the most positive light possible. They mostly allow the subjects to tell their own stories in their own words. The families come across as kind, God-fearing, salt- of-the-earth people who simply have a religious practice most of us cannot fathom. : It would take a confirmed cynic not to be moved at the depth of their faith. Having decided that the Bible tells them to handle snakes, they do so despite bites that occasionally kill and maim, usually rejecting medical help when offered. : The book opens with a vivid account of the death of evangelist John "Punkin" Brown, whose wife, Melinda, had also died from snakebite. A photograph shows how a snakebite destroyed a man's finger, which eventually fell off. : But the more I read, the more questions I had. The biblical passages on which they base their beliefs assure "nothing by any means shall hurt you." How do they reconcile this with deaths and maimings from handling snakes and drinking poison? Other than "following the signs," do their beliefs differ from other Christians? What do they believe about Christians who don't handle snakes? : Comments by the subjects sporadically touch on these issues, never definitively. It is not clear whether the questions were even asked. : Even if the book's purpose is to tell personal accounts rather than explain the snake-handling phenomenon, there are other nagging holes. A photograph shows an adolescent girl and a boy she would eventually marry - twice. That part of her life, however, never is explained. It seems the authors, having decided to write an upbeat story of these people, cannot bring themselves to reveal anything that might reinforce negative stereotypes. : The Serpent Handlers will teach you a lot about this fascinating subject - just not as much as you'll want to know. : http://envirolink.yellowbrix.com/pages/envirolink/Story.nsp?story_id=11180506&ID=envirolink&scategory=Environment : LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER (Kentucky) 05 October 98 Snakebite kills Tennesse minister : The husband of the last woman to die in Kentucky from a snakebite received in church has himself been killed by a rattlesnake bite. : John Wayne “Punkin” Brown Jr., 34, was bitten on the hand Saturday night while handling a 3-foot-long yellow timber rattler at a church in northeastern Alabama, said Dave Kimbrough, an author who has studied religious snake handling. : Kimbrough, of Stanford, Ind., was not at the service, but got reports from people who were. Jackson County, Ala., Coroner Jim Grigg confirmed the death and the circumstances. : Brown's wife, Melinda, 28, died in Middlesboro on Aug. 8, 1995, two days after she was bitten on the arm by a large rattlesnake during a church service. She had refused medical attention, as people who handle snakes in church often do, relying instead on prayer and faith for healing. : The Browns were from Parrotsville, Tenn., but visited often at snake-handling churches in other states. : John Wayne Brown Jr. was preaching at the Rocky House Holiness Church in rural Jackson County on Saturday and handling a rattlesnake when the snake bit him on the middle finger of his left hand, Grigg said. : Kimbrough said he was told the snake sank only one fang into Brown, but apparently injected a large load of venom. : Brown continued preaching but, 10 or 15 minutes after the bite, stepped away from the pulpit and fell. He died quickly, Kimbrough said. : They said his body just started swelling,” Kimbrough said. “It was just a killer bite.” : Kimbrough said Brown, who had survived more than a dozen previous bites, had dreamed earlier that if he went back to Alabama to preach, he would die. : Grigg said he understood there were 50 to 100 people at the service. Someone called 911 about the snakebite just after 10 p.m. CDT. : The bite may have happened up to an hour earlier, Grigg said. : Grigg pronounced Brown dead at the hospital. : The Browns had five children. : Melinda Brown's death in 1995 touched off an unusual custody battle. Days after she died, her sister and brother-in-law, Angela and William Ashe of Cleveland, Tenn., won temporary custody of the children, arguing that the children were at risk because of their father's snake-handling beliefs. Brown later regained custody of the children. : Handling snakes in church is a practice confined largely to a handful of fundamentalist churches in Central and Southern Appalachia. Those who practice snake handling believe the Bible commands them to do it as evidence of their faith. : Mainstream Protestants believe handling snakes is wrong -- a misinterpretation of the Bible. : It is a misdemeanor to handle snakes in church in Kentucky. Serious efforts to enforce the law, however, ended in the 1950s because of reluctance to prosecute people for their religious beliefs. : The last death in Kentucky from a snakebite suffered in a religious service was that of Daril R. Collins, 23, of Barbourville on Dec. 16. It was the sixth such death in Kentucky since 1980. : Kimbrough has documented more than 75 snake-handling deaths in the United States this century. : ST LOUIS POST-DISPATCH (Missouri) 06 October 98 'Punkin' Brown Succumbs To Snake Bite : Knoxville, Tenn.: Practicing a deadly balance between religious fervor and the laws of chance, John Wayne “Punkin” Brown Jr. was struck down by the bite of a rattlesnake Saturday night in a snake-handling worship service on Sand Mountain in Alabama. : In the end, the East Tennessee minister died the way he preached, flat out and flying for the biblical words in the Book of Mark he believed so strongly. : “Punkin was the man,” said Dr. David Kimbrough, a biblical scholar and author on snake-handling religions. “Brown was solid in the faith. Lots of people say they believe, but Punkin said it, he believed it and he practiced it.” : The snake-handling faith, born in Southern and Central Appalachia around 1910, is based primarily on a passage in Mark that says believers “shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them.” : Brown, 34, one of the leading evangelists in snake-handling churches across the Southeast, died shortly after being bitten at the Rock House Holiness Church in rural northeastern Alabama 10 miles from Scottsboro. Brown, father of five children, was bitten while preaching a revival service for the Rev. Billy Summerford's congregation in the Macedonia church. : Eyewitnesses said Brown, of Parrottsville, Tenn., died about 10 minutes after he was bitten on the left middle finger between the knuckle and first joint by a 3-foot-long yellow timber rattler. : He was taken to Jackson County Hospital in Scottsboro where he was pronounced dead at 11:12 p.m. CDT, according to Jackson County Coroner Jim Grigg. : Brown's wife, Melinda, died three years ago when she was bitten by a timber rattlesnake during services at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name Church in Middlesboro, Ky. : Punkin, who grew up in the church and began handling snakes at age 17, had been bitten some 22 times before the fatal bite. : After the death of his wife, he went through a fierce custody battle for the children with his wife's family. A juvenile court in Newport awarded the children to Brown. The children range in age from 14 to 3 years old and are with their grandmother and grandfather, John and Peggy Brown in Parrottsville. Brown's father is a snake-handling minister of his own church in Marshall, N.C. : In his best-selling book “Salvation on Sand Mountain,” author Dennis Covington called Brown the “mad monk,” of the snake-handling preachers. : “Of all the handlers I'd run into, Punkin Brown seemed to be the one most mired in the Old Testament, in the enumerated laws and the blood lust of the patriarchs. His sermons (were) preached in guttural monotone while he stalked in front of the congregation with a rattlesnake draped over one shoulder...” : Witnesses said Brown was handling his own timber rattler, one he had handled numerous times since the summer. : He had been preaching in his usual robust, roundabout style with the familiar rattler when it sunk only one fang into the finger. : Brown, witnesses said, emerged from behind the pulpit, stepped down onto the church floor and toppled over. : In a written statement to Grigg, Summerford said Brown had been preaching for about 30 minutes when he opened his own snake box and took out the long, menacing rattler. : “He walked around with it in his hand. I didn't see when it bit him. (After Brown was bitten) we prayed for 20 to 30 minutes. He was asked if he wanted to go to the doctor and he said no. I went outside and called 911,” Summerford said in the written statement. : The Rev. Jamie Coots, minister of the Middlesboro, Ky., church where Melinda Brown was bitten Aug. 6, 1995, is Punkin Brown's lifelong friend and was at the fatal worship service. Coots, also a rising name in the snake-handling religion, said in a statement to the coroner that he did not see the snake bite Brown. : “I only saw him flinch. Another man put the snake up. He was down on the floor about three minutes. After he was unconscious I told the pastor to call 911.” : Grigg said the 911 emergency number was dialed at 10:07 p.m. (CDT). He said he thinks Brown was bitten about an hour earlier. : “He was DOA at the hospital,” Grigg said. “Because of the unusual circumstances, I have ordered an autopsy. : “If you have been bitten 22 times by venomous snakes, you should be fairly immune. We heard that he died within 10 to 15 minutes of the bite and that is why we ordered the autopsy. I have been a coroner for 16 years and this is the first death (in these circumstances) since I became coroner.” : The autopsy was performed Monday. Chuck Phillips, Jackson County Sheriff's Department chief investigator, said no charges will be filed. : “The only thing we did was write this up as a matter of record. It is not against the law in Alabama to handle snakes in church,” he said. : It is a misdemeanor in Tennessee and Kentucky to endanger others with a deadly animal in church services. : Phillips said the sheriff”s department confiscated a video of the event that had been taped by a church member. He said the video will be returned to the owner and will not be released to the public. : “I saw the video this morning. He (Brown) went down on the floor and never got back up. He was really up there preaching and handling the snake. I'm sure his heart was racing pretty good and that may have had something to do with (the fact he died so quickly),” said Phillips. : Brown's family members said they are not sure it was the snake bite that killed him. Some of his family think his death could have been the result of a heart attack. : ASSOCIATED PRESS (USA) 07 October 98 Church to continue snake-handling services despite preacher's death : Macedonia,, Ala. (AP): No one will stop handling snakes at the Rock House Holiness Church, despite the fatal bite that caused the death of the Rev. John Wayne Brown Jr. : “We still believe in the same thing,” said the Rev. Billy Summerford, pastor of the little Jackson County church. : Brown, 34, of Parrottsville, Tenn., was bitten Saturday while preaching at a revival. The 4-foot timber rattler, which he owned, sank its fangs into the middle finger of his left hand, but Brown kept on preaching. : He lasted 15 minutes before he faltered, then collapsed and eventually died, worshippers gathered around him. : As the basis for their practice, snake handlers cite Mark 16:17-18: “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.” : A Georgia preacher who was standing next to Brown when he was bitten, the Rev. Gene Sherbert of Temple, Ga., said many people don't understand the practice. : “We are just normal people but we believe God's word,” he said. : Brown, known as “Punkin,” had been bitten 22 times through the years before the final strike. His wife Melinda died in August 1995 after being bitten while handling a snake at a church in Kentucky. The couple leaves five children. : “It was the hand of God. It was his time to go,” said the Rev. Carl Porter, a serpent-handling pastor of a church in Kingston, Georgia., who came to Rock House Holiness within hours after Brown died. “He was really looking forward to that day anyway.” : Brown was holding the snake in his right hand when it bit him on his left, said Jackson County Sheriff's Chief Investigator Chuck Phillips. Authorities have videotapes of Saturday night's service but are not releasing them. : Sherbert exchanged a glance with Brown after the snake attacked. “He looked at me and I knowed he was bit, and I put it (the snake) back in the box,” he said. Brown continued to speak but faltered about 15 minutes later, Sherbert said. The 50 to 75 people attending the service gathered around Brown, prayed and tried to make him comfortable by putting an electric fan above him, he said. : Brown died within minutes, and no criminal charges will be filed, Phillips said. “It's not illegal. It's part of a religious service. ... It was his own snakes that bit him,” he said. : Brown was known throughout the Southeast as an evangelist who had been handling snakes since he was 17. Brown's father also is a serpent-handling preacher. : Porter, who took home Brown's two snakes, said he plans to give them to Brown's brother, who lives in Newport, Tenn. : Sherbert, who said he has been bitten 23 times and often attends the Jackson County church, doesn't believe Brown's death will faze members. “I think they will be more careful about handling serpents. I think they will wait until the Lord moves on them,” he said.

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