A couple of posts ago I mentioned prayer and Krister's comment has prompted me to elaborate a bit more on the question of why I pray.

To start, I'd like simply like to share a bit about my journey in this regard.

I grew up in a non-liturgical tradition. So when we prayed it was largely extemporaneous and free form. More like free association. But there was a little bit of structure. You always began your prayer with an opening salutation. As a child mine was "Dear Heavenly Father." And the ending was pretty standard, "...in Jesus's name, amen." Never just "amen." It was "in Jesus's name, amen." Had to be in Jesus's name.

Between those two bookends you learned to master some stock phrases and how to string them together in a way that seemed natural and smooth. Generally, the sentiments were expressions of thanksgiving ("thank you for this day and all the blessings you have given us") and petition (as my boys pray at night "help those who are sick get well").

When I went to college a third component got added: Doxology. I was told that prayer was to be mainly about praise and worship. Which is fine, but in my tradition, where liturgical prayer wasn't used, few of the college students had mastered the language of doxology. Which meant they overused the only doxological word in their vocabulary: "Awesome." It was used over and over again. God was awesome. Jesus was awesome. The Holy Spirit was awesome. And so on. It got pretty annoying.

Right around this time I also started having faith problems. Why talk to God when you think no one is listening? As a result, my prayer life became very episodic and, truth be told, occasion driven. I prayed when it was socially appropriate to pray. But I rarely prayed on my own.

This situation bothered me so I tried to explore the prayer literature. I read Richard Foster's book Prayer and discovered this about myself: I'm not a contemplative. During periods of silence I just get sleepy. Or distracted. I even tried Buddhist meditation to help with this. (Sakyong Mipham and Pema Chodron's book Turning the Mind into an Ally is the best book I've read on the subject.) I would sit and breathe, always bringing my mind back to the breath. In and out. In and out. Sitting like a mountain...

But at the end of the day my real problem was that I didn't understand the point of prayer. God, as best I could tell, never really answered prayer. So I didn't see any point in talking into the air. And the best literature I could find on the subject, from the contemplative tradition, left me cold and frustrated.

So I stopped praying. And years passed.

But, for some reason or another, now I'm praying again. I think I had to let the whole thing stew for a time. I couldn't force it. And, most importantly, I had to find reasons to pray that were appealing and made sense to me. It took me a long time to find those reasons.

I now pray every morning (and occassionaly before I fall asleep). I've jettisoned the free association style. Specifically, I pray the Morning Office (along with the lectionary readings) from The Book of Common Prayer. If I'm under time pressure I use Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours which is based on the BCP but provides you with a shorter Order (it takes me about 20 mintues to get through the BCP Morning Order and about 5 minutes to get through the abbreviated Order in The Divine Hours). Occassionally I'll pray Compline before I close my eyes at night. Mainly because I love these words from the Compline Order:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

I love those words. I love how they pull me out of myself. How they cause me to think about all these people--happy and sad, sleeping and working--around the world. "Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night."

So the question is, how did I get to this point? How did I go from years of prayerlessness to praying everyday? As I said, I had to find some reasons to pray that made sense to me. I'll share those reasons in the coming posts.

Whatever Christopher Hitchens is, he's a good read. His most recent essay over at Slate is on the proper stance to problem of evil. The occasion of his essay is the report of the death of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only officially recognized dual survivor of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The essay ends with a meditation on the language appropriate to describing Yamaguchi's un/luck, a metaphor for Hitchens of the human condition. His conclusion (with apologies to the delicate):

It isn't my idea that these capricious catastrophes strike the just and the unjust with such regularity, or that they are soothingly explained away by the pseudo-compassionate. Of all the great cosmic questions, WTF still strikes me as one of the most pressing, relevant, and ultimately humane.

Couldn't agree more.

As a researcher and a statistics teacher I loved this. H/T the Daily Dish. If at work, beware one f-bomb:

As a psychologist I'm very interested in the way human experience and theology interact. For better or worse, I think theology is largely a sense-making activity. We are constantly trying to make sense of our experiences and weave them into a coherent narrative. And our religious experiences are no different.

So for me, the most interesting aspect of the snake handling churches is the experience of snakebite. How do these churches "make sense", theologically speaking, of that experience? Particularly when the snakebite leads to a death in the community?

To start, one of the best aspects of Hood and Williamson's book Them That Believe is their exhaustive phenomenological assessment, through hours of intensive interviews, of the experience of snake handling.

Simplifying, the core experience of snake handling is a Death/Victory motif. As the people in the church move toward the snakes and reach into the boxes they report a keen awareness of death. As their preachers repeatedly say, "There is death in these boxes." In short, the act of snake handling is an eschatological act, the demonstration of victory over death. Death is the real enemy being confronted. The snakes and the poisons are just manifestations of Death.

Pausing for a moment, I would like to note that in this emphasis--victory over Death itself--the snake handling churches have much in common with the Greek Orthodox. Latin Christianity has tended to focus on justification, being saved from the consequences of sin. Thus, in Latin Christianity salvation tends to be reduced to being saved from hellfire. But for the Orthodox Death is the soteriological focus. This is clearly seen in the Orthodox Easter icons which focus on Christ's Harrowing of Hell, his decent into hell after his death to free Adam and Eve (and those who died "in Adam") from Death. Snake handling churches are similar to the Orthodox in that they place victory over Death at the center of their soteriological experience.

But the trouble is, people do die in snake handling churches. How is "victory" experienced in those instances? And it is not just death. Many snakebites are extraordinarily painful and lead to lasting tissue damage. Practitioners survive but they may go through hours and days of excruciating pain. How do they make sense of that pain?

In Appendix 1 of Them that Believe Hood and Williamson document the number of deaths associated with snakebite in the snake handling churches. According to their tally, from 1921 to 2006 there have been 90 documented deaths associated with snake handling worship. That averages out to about one death per year. Which might not seem like a lot, but these are very small and tight knit communities. One death a year is pretty significant.

So how do you experience victory over death in the face of this experience when you, annually, witness or hear a report about a death within the church?

First, the snake handling churches fairly quickly abandoned a triumphalistic stance toward snake handling. An overrealized eschatology was quickly jettisoned. It quickly became clear that "the anointing", the prompt of the Holy Ghost to move forward in worship to take up serpents, did not confer immunity to snakebite or snake venom. People got bit, people suffered from the venom and some people died. So the "victory" could no longer be associated with miraculous immunity. How to make sense of this experience?

The first way of making sense is to blame the snakebite on some moral or spiritual failure. Common attributions are spiritual pride (being cocky in handling the serpents), disobedience, an unconfessed sin or a misinterpretation of the anointing.

But this route to sense-making runs dry after awhile. It is difficult to keep a congregation motivated if you keep blaming them for snakebite. Again, the experience to be preserved is one of victory. Not just individually, but communally.

In light of this the snake handling churches have centered their interpretation of victory upon the act of obedience. And, interestingly, their plain-sense hermeneutic helps them here. Examine the exact wording from the key text of Mark 16.17-18:

And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.

Notice anything? There is no promise of immunity. All the text says is that them that believe shall "pick up snakes with their hands." That's it. That is the sign. It's not immunity. It is, rather, simply picking the snakes up. Even if you get bit. Even if you die.

The victory here is in the act of obedience. The sign to the unbeliever is the act of faith and obedience, the eschatological fearlessness in the face of Death.

In short, the miracle here isn't external, it's internal. It occurs within the heart of the believer, in the collective testimony of the community that death has no hold on them. They, in light of Christ, have no fear of death. And this isn't a theological abstraction, it's demonstrated in flesh and blood during every worship service. It is the sign of them that believe.

What I find very, very interesting about all this is that I can see parallels between my religious journey and the journey of the snake handling churches.

First, I resonate with the shift in the snake handling churches from metaphysics to obedience. The "signs" from God are experienced through obedience to the Way. This is, interestingly, a move growing more and more common within Christianity. Scot McKnight has summarized this impulse in the emergent church movement:

The emerging movement's connection to postmodernity may grab attention and garner criticism, but what most characterizes emerging is the stream best called praxis—how the faith is lived out...

A notable emphasis of the emerging movement is orthopraxy, that is, right living. The contention is that how a person lives is more important than what he or she believes...

My second similarity with the snake handling churches has to do with their embrace of fearlessness in the face of Death as a sign of the church. Consider the words of William Stringellow:

Resurrection, however, refers to the transcendence of the power of death and the fear or thrall of the power of death, here and now, in this life, in this world. Resurrection, thus, has to do with life and, indeed, the fulfillment of life before death.

[Christ's] power over death is effective not just at the terminal point of a person's life but throughout one's life, during this life in this world, right now. This power is effective in the times and places in the daily lives of human beings when they are so gravely and relentlessly assailed by the claims of principalities for an idolatry that, in spite of all disguises, really surrenders to death as the reigning presence in the life of the world. His resurrection means the possibility of living in this life, in the very midst of death's works, safe and free from death.

The point that Stringfellow is making is that true life--deeply ethical humane life--cannot be experienced when we live in the thrall of Death. When we fear things like economic downturns or government imprisonment (think of Mandela in prison). Victory over Death isn't simply about life after death. Victory over Death involves eschatological fearlessness in this life. For it is only though such fearlessness that our humanity can be rescued and embraced. Otherwise our lives are pushed and pulled by our survival instincts, our needs for security or a pay check or protecting my place in the world. We become hoarding, aggressive Malthusian creatures.

In short, although I'll never take up serpents, I resonate with the eschatological focus of the practice. I understand that the fear of Death is what cripples humane and ethical living. Consequently, in my own way I also try to "take up serpents" in my life, embracing victory in the face of Death. Maybe the serpent is a job, a professional reputation, a house, or a bank account. Things we strive to hold onto and protect because these things represent "life." But they are not life, they are, rather, manifestations of death and fear.

So when I pick up my paycheck or pink slip I have to take it up like the snake handlers take up their serpents. I have to say to the paycheck: "You are not life. And my fear of losing you is Death." I have to absorb the snakebite of the pink slip and say: "You are not Death. My fear of you is Death."

So the preacher calls to us to come forward. Fear rises in the heart. The preacher reminds, "There is death in these boxes." It takes faith to move into that eschatological fearlessness. To look Death in the eye. But there is victory in the fearlessness.

And it is a sign following them that believe.

Texas lost the National Championship game. Congratulations to Alabama.

What is going to be discussed for a long time here in Texas is "What if?" Specifically, what if Colt McCoy wasn't knocked out of the game after only four plays? And so the question will be asked, was Alabama truly the better team?

Here's my take on that question.

The question about who is the better team is a Platonic question, a metaphysical question. It's a question that asks what if we could get the perfect expression of Texas and Alabama to play under perfect conditions in some heavenly realm--the Platonic ideal of the BCS Championship Game--who would win that game? Texas or Alabama?

The trouble is football isn't a metaphysical dispute. The categories of better or worse don't apply. Football is a game. That means it generates winners and losers. Not better or worse. That might be dissatisfying, but a Platonic search for the perfect is futile. Call it the sports version of the problem of evil. Alabama won. Are they better? That's a religious question and, of course, true believers on both sides will have their answers.

In short, football isn't a Platonic competition. It isn't played on Olympus by demigods who can't get injured. It is, rather, a game played with human bodies and minds. Bodies that can feel pain and get injured. Minds that can get confused or rattled. In short, football is drama. Not philosophy. And the drama that unfolded in the second half was pretty riveting.

So, congratulations to Alabama. They won the game.

But I still think Texas is the better team...

Just got back from Avatar and wanted to jot some reflections before I forgot things from the movie.

There has been a lot of conversation about the religious imagery in Avatar. Is it pagan? Native American? Eastern? Christian?

Answer: Yes.

There is a great deal of Mother Earth religion mixed in with hints of Native American spirituality. There is also a great deal of Hindu spirituality. The avatars of Vishnu are important in Hinduism. Vishnu's avatars are blue, the color of the divine, just like the Na'vi. In light of these overtones there is a great deal in the movie about interconnection and interdependency, particularly with the earth.

But I also saw a lot of Christian motifs in the movie as well.

Spoiler Alert!

Specifically, the movie centers upon the dramatic tension existing between the two "lives" of Jake Sully. At the start, in the "real" world Jake is:

• Small (humans are much shorter than the Na'vi)
• Crippled (obvious if you've seen the movie)
• Stupid (Neytiri's first descriptions of Jake)
• Violent (Jake begins his work on Pandora aligned with the military forces)
• Cannot breathe (Humans can't breath the Pandora atmosphere)
• Consumeristic (At one point Jake says that the Na'vi are not going to give up their world for "light beer and jeans," a clear commentary about Western consumerism)
• Emotionally empty (Jake begins the movie with no emotional attachments)
• Individualistic (Jake begins the movie as a self-interested individual)

In his avatar Jake is:

• Larger
• Able to walk
• Knowledgeable
• Peaceable (well, until the action sequences start)
• Can breathe
• Ecological
• In Love
• Communal

And remember the Hindu associations here. The avatar, being blue, is a manifestation of the divine. So as Jake spends more and more time in his avatar he begins moving from the "real" to the truly Real. As Jake says, his "real" life starts to feel like the dream. Readers of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce will see a lot of similarities here, the contrast between the reality of hell and heaven. Recall how the bus travelers in that book were mere shadows (less "real") in heaven.

And most importantly, in the final scene Jake talks about his "birthday." Baptism symbolism Resurrection. Jake's "physical" body dies and is exchanged for a Real one. Death into New Life. A violent, crippled and ignorant reality is exchanged for a Reality of love and community. The lame man can walk again.

There is a wonderful review of George Lindbeck’s classic The Nature of Doctrine over at The Fish Tank blog (H/T to Inhabitatio Dei).

While reading the review this quote from Lindbeck struck me as forcefully as it did the first time I read it:

To become a Christian involves learning the story of Israel and of Jesus well enough to interpret and experience oneself and one’s world in its terms.

My skeptical students on the edge of faith often ask me, "Dr. Beck, why to you pray?" They can't understand why a seemingly smart guy like me would engage in such hocus pocus.

Lindbeck's quote is about the best answer I could give.

Following Brad's blog got me interested in reading some of Wendell Berry's poetry.

Last night, before bed, I read a poem of Berry's that, in light of my recent posts about hell, perfectly captures my sentiments on the subject. The poem, entitled Dante, is very short. Here it is:


Dante

If you imagine
others are there,
you are there yourself.

The Christmas season is over. The twelve days of Christmas end today with the Feast of the Epiphany when the church celebrates the visit of the Magi to Mary and the baby Jesus.

While I was doing some research about Epiphany I found a couple interesting things:

First, in some places around the world Epiphany is called "Little Christmas" and people exchange small gifts to mark the end of the Christmas season. (So you might want to do that today. Buy a small gift for your kids and say "Merry Epiphany!" Go ahead, let Christmas live one more day. And tell the Advent story to your kids one last time this season.)

Second, as the end of the Christmas season Epiphany also marks the day to take down the Christmas greenery. (I like this idea. We leave our tree up way after Christmas. Now I can claim it's not from laziness. We are simply following tradition.)

And finally, in parts of Ireland Epiphany is called "Women's Christmas." To celebrate the honoring of Mary by the Magi the husbands of Ireland do the housework for the day.

This last struck me for two reasons. First, Jana has some Irish blood in her. I know this because Lucky the Leprechaun comes to our house every St. Patrick's day. As our boys sleep, Lucky turns the house upside down. Pictures are upside down. Chairs are overturned. Things are out of place. Bananas are found in odd places. And the boy's underwear is often found hanging from the lamps or overhead fan. Lucky is quite a character. But Lucky also leaves behind a treasure hunt to find a Pot 'O Gold. And our boys often wonder, "Why doesn't Lucky visit my friends at school?" And the answer is, "Because your mother is Irish, and so are you. Lucky visits the Irish."

So I was intrigued by how the Irish celebrated Epiphany.

The second reason I was intrigued was because I hate Mother's Day. Note, I don't hate my mom or Jana. What I hate are the retail-driven holidays that are not, in fact, holy days. These are largely creations of the marketplace and card manufactures. They are not holy days, they are Hallmark Days. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, etc. It's not that I think the sentiments are wrong, just the implementation and consumer-driven side to it all. I've always found the scheduled romance of Valentine's Day to be a little thin, perfunctory and stress-filled. Same with Mother's Day. I'm sure you can identify.

So when I saw how the Irish celebrated Epiphany I was intrigued. Here was a day that was like Mother's Day but actually was a holy day! It's a day when men bring gifts to a mother. Further, there are no Hallmark Epiphany cards. I checked. So in addition to buying a card and making lunch reservations at a packed out restaurant on Mother's Day I can do what the Irish men are doing today: Clean the house. I don't have to buy anything at all. It's a holy day free of the marketplace. As I scrub the toilet today it will be liturgical, not commercial.

Perfect! Jana is Irish and I've found a way to celebrate her motherhood independent of the Hallmark days. I've found our holy day.

Have a Blessed Epiphany!

And, if you'll excuse me, I have a house to clean.

In our analysis of the snake handling churches we have focused on their interpretation of Mark 16. And, given that the key verses 0f 17-18 were most likely not a part of the original text of the gospel of Mark, it would seem that snake handling has tenuous and dubious biblical support.

And yet, if you pause to consider, the practice of snake handling actually has a rich theology. In fact, a richer and deeper theology than what we find for many more mainstream church practices.

Consider.

The serpent appears at the very beginning of Scripture as the prime mover in the Fall. And after the Fall there is this notion that the offspring of Eve will have victory or power over the snake. These events in the Garden set up the soteriological trajectory of Scripture and the serpent is mixed in with all of it.

Genesis 3.1-5, 13-15
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
....
Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.

And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."

The Hebrews were similar to many other cultures in this regard, finding the serpent to be a powerful (if malevolent) spiritual symbol. Consider how Moses and Pharaoh use power over serpents in their dual to free the children of Israel from bondage:

Exodus 8.7-12
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "When Pharaoh says to you, 'Perform a miracle,' then say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,' and it will become a snake."

So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.

In short, power over snakes becomes a sign of God's liberating and salvific action. Power over snakes is one of the signs of God's Exodus. This soteriological theme finds its way into the New Testament by connecting the cross with power over snakes. Specifically, in Numbers 21, as a punishment for unfaithfulness, the camp of the wandering Israelites becomes overrun with poisonous vipers. Many die. To save the community Moses approaches God for help and he gets a curious, but effective, response:

Numbers 21.8-9
The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.

What is striking about this story is that Jesus uses it in the gospels, comparing his death on the cross to the bronze serpent:

John 3.14-15
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

In all of this we continue to see power over snakes as symbolic of the saving actions of God, the breaking in of the Kingdom of God. Thus, manuscript evidence aside, it is not, from a theological stance, surprising to see serpent handling as one of the signs of the Kingdom of God. There is biblical evidence that leads us to expect just such a sign. We've seen how the serpent is a motif of the Fall, the Exodus, and the Crucifixion. In short, power over serpents is a powerful soteriological symbol.

And there is more. The book of Acts includes a story where survival from snakebite is taken as a sign of the gospel. The story recounts events shortly after the apostle Paul and his associates were washed ashore on the island Malta after a storm at sea:

Acts 28.1-6
Once safely on shore, we found out that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said to each other, "This man must be a murderer; for though he escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live." But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and said he was a god.

For the snake handling churches Acts 28 corroborates their interpretation of Mark 16. Immunity to snake venom is a sign of the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. And, as a final biblical thread, there are the eschatological themes from Revelation where victory over the Serpent of Eden is recounted:

Revelation 20.1-2
And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

What I find interesting in all this is that the snake handling churches are often considered to be hermeneutical and exegetical naifs. Witness their nonsensical enshrinement of the King James Version and their simplistic plain-sense hermeneutic. In short, we wouldn't expect the snake handlers to be particularly keen on theology. But here's the interesting thing, to me a least. If the snake handlers did go in for academic theology I think they could make a respectable case. I've just sketched how such a project might look. There are rich soteriological and eschatological themes associated with power over serpents. The serpent is implicated in critical soteriological events--The Fall, the Exodus, the Crucifixion. Power over serpents is a sign of the proclamation of the gospel (Mark 16 and Acts 28). The serpent is there in the beginning scenes of Genesis and in the final events of Revelation, dramatically linking the two.

In short, although the snake handling churches might look like biblical simpletons, from a theological stance, if you step back and look at it, what they are doing seems very consistent, fits right in, with the biblical narrative. That is, you couldn't, on biblical grounds, win an argument with them. If anything, they would have you biblically and theologically cornered.


On to Part 4

From the NY Times editorial page yesterday regarding the failure of the Judicial Branch to do its job in applying checks and balances to the Executive Branch:

President Obama, much to his credit, has forsworn the use of torture, but politics and policy makers change and democracy cannot rely merely on the good will of one president and his aides. Such good will did not exist in the last administration. And the inhumane and illegal treatment of detainees could make a return in a future administration unless the Supreme Court sends a firm message that ordering torture is a grievous violation of fundamental rights.

Anyone who doubts the degree of executive branch pliability in this realm needs to consider this: The party that urged the Supreme Court not to grant the victims’ appeal because the illegality of torture was not “clearly established” was the Obama Justice Department.

Tired of social networking? Want to get your real life back? Try the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine:

web 2.0 suicide machine promotion from moddr_ on Vimeo.

To kill yourself go to to the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine website. From their FAQ page:

If I kill my online friends, does it mean they're also dead in real life?
No!

If I start killing my 2.0-self, can I stop the process?
No!

If I start killing my 2.0-self, can YOU stop the process?
No!

What shall I do after I've killed myself with the web2.0 suicide machine?
Try calling some friends, take a walk in a park or buy a bottle of wine and start enjoying your real life again. Some Social Suiciders reported that their lives has improved by an approximate average of 25%. Don't worry, if you feel empty right after you committed suicide. This is a normal reaction which will slowly fade away within the first 24-72 hours.

The snaking handling churches of Appalachia are a part of American Pentecostalism. Most church histories trace the modern Pentecostal movement to the Azusa Street Revival.

The Azusa Street Revival, led by William J. Seymour, was a Pentecostal revival that took place in Los Angeles, California at the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The revival began in 1906 and lasted for almost ten years. During that time thousands of people made the pilgrimage to participate in the nightly worship services, services characterized by emotional worship and ecstatic spiritual experience such a speaking in tongues. The particular theological innovation at Azusa Street was the explicit teaching that speaking in tongues (glossolalia) was the definitive marker of Holy Ghost baptism. This teaching became one of the defining features of American Pentecostalism. A contemporary example of the experience can be seen here on YouTube, where the description of the clip reads: "Brother H.M. receives the holy Ghost baptism, with the evidence of speaking in tongues."



The rise of the Pentecostal snake handling sects is generally credited to George Went Hensley. As we saw in the last post, Mark 16 explicitly cites speaking in tongues as one the the signs that should mark the church. But Mark 16 also mentions serpent handling. What about that sign? It was Hensley who demanded hermeneutical consistency in the interpretation of Mark 16, teaching that serpent handling was a sign of the Spirit along with the other Pentecostal experiences, speaking in tongues in particular.

According to Appalachia oral tradition, around the year 1910, a few years after his 1908 Holy Ghost baptism at the Church of God at Owl Hollow in Tennessee, Hensley climbed White Oak Mountain to confront his growing disillusionment that Pentecostal preachers were preaching only three of the five signs mentioned in Mark 16. As reported by J.B. Collins the following events transpired on White Oak Mountain:

[Hensley's] decision was to risk his life in order to have rest from his spiritual burden. Thus it was that he set out on probably the first religious snake hunt in modern civilized history.

In a great rocky gap in the mountainside he found what he sought, a large rattlesnake. He approached the reptile, and, disreguarding [sic] its buzzing, blood-chilling warning, knelt a few feet away from it and prayed loudly into the sky for God to remove his fear and to anoint him with "the power." Then suddenly with a shout he leaped forward and grasped the reptile and held it in trembling hands.

Hensley descended the mountain, snake in hand, and launched his first snake handling revival meeting in the community of Grasshopper Valley. So powerful were these revivals in their demonstration of the Holy Spirit that snake handling began to spread throughout the Appalachia region and, for a brief time, was endorsed by the Churches of God.

George Went Hensley died in 1955 at the age 75 from a snakebite during one of his revivals in Florida. Having been bitten by snakes at least 446 times, this bite on the wrist from a five foot rattlesnake proved fatal. As he lay dying Hensley reportedly said, "The snake would not have struck--if fear had not come over someone here."

Hensley's death was ruled a suicide by the Calhoun County sheriff.

I'd like to make a few observations about religious experience in light of the Azusa Street Revival and Hensley's experience on White Oak Mountain.

First, whatever you think about George Went Hensley you have to admire his hermeneutical consistency! We all pick and choose from the bible. My tradition, the Churches of Christ, pride themselves on restoring primitive, 1st Century, New Testament Christianity. But we don't speak in tongues. Which is curious, given our commitment to mimicking the New Testament pattern of worship, as the early church clearly spoke in tongues. But this isn't too surprising as every faith tradition reads the bible selectively. Even Pentecostals. Just ask George Went Hensley.

But my more important observation has to do with religious experience. Ecstatic experiences have always been a part of Christianity. And outbreaks of charismatic fervor seem to sweep across the faith in waves, the pathos of the Spirit waxing and waning. I see this on my campus. In the last ten years of teaching at ACU I've seen two distinct charismatic waves wash over the student body.

No doubt there are a variety of explanations for these charismatic outbreaks. Whatever the explanation, I think it clear that many people crave ecstatic religious experience. It is my assessment that this craving is particularly acute during modernity. During this Age of Reason it is particularly difficult, on intellectual grounds, to be a person of faith. Consequently, I think many people seek out religious experience as a form of apologetics, as a first-person (and, thus, irrefutable) experience with God. Pentecostalism provides that experience. And its anti-intellectualism is its virtue in this regard. It is a way toward belief when truth-claims are hard to come by.

But it is hard to maintain the fever pitch of Pentecostalism. Many, over time, become disillusioned. Some wander from church to church looking for the something new, some form of worship that can rekindle the emotions and fire the passions. In this, I can see the attraction of snake handling. I doubt it ever gets old or boring. Maybe it does, but I'd expect facing death every worship service takes awhile to get used to.


On to Part 3

Happy New Year!

It's the time to make New Year's Resolutions. So how about having people over more often this year?

Many of you have seen the Panera Bread ad. It's an open letter to all kinds of people in conflict--serious, humorous, and even fantasy conflict--from Panera Bread. The letter itself is only two words for these warring factions:

Break Bread.


(Click on the ad to so you can read who it was addressed to.)

There is something healing about breaking bread. And yet, fewer and fewer people entertain in the home anymore. According to the book Bowling Alone in the 1970s Americans entertained people in their homes 14-15 times a year, a little over once a month. In the late 1990s that number had dropped to eight times a year, a decline of 45%. I'm sure this trend has continued over the last decade.

But there are glimmers of hope. The movie Julia & Julia made entertaining in the home seem hip. Obama held a beer summit. So maybe we can all break bread or share a pint a little more often this year.

In light of this, please surf over to read Sara Dickerman's wonderful article Tuesday Night Dinner Party: 16 Key Lessons Learned From Slapdash Entertainment. Dickerman set herself the goal to entertain at home every week on Tuesday. Her goal was Walden Pond-esque:

My goal with Tuesday was to see whether I could strip entertaining down to its hospitable essence and stop worrying about all the things that were imperfect about my home, my cooking, and my behavior.

After eight months of this practice the lessons and advice Dickerman shares is both helpful and inspirational. Here are some of my favorite lessons and advice:

2) Don’t forget Julia Child’s adage “Never apologize.” Much of this year has been about reducing the line between “company food” and “food” as we eat it from day to day. As much fun as cooking is, it’s important to remember that dinner parties should also be about making a connection with friends, even if the food isn’t that polished. That means that it’s OK to serve your friends a bowl of chili, or a grilled cheese sandwich, or even order out for pizza if everything else is just too much.

3) Chaos is OK. This is the great humbling lesson, of course, of parenthood—not everything can be controlled. If you invite families into your house for dinner, bedtimes will be stretched, toys will be snatched, and popsicles will occasionally make an unholy mess. I learned that it’s more important to check in with our friends over dinner than it is to have a perfectly timed meal, or impeccably sourced organic carrots, or an uncluttered dining room table.

15) Say yes to help. You don’t have to make it a potluck, but willing friends can make it easier for you to entertain. It’s in their interest. So say yes to the proffered wine, or dessert, or best of all, dishwashing help.

16) And the most important thing I’ve learned this year is to carry on. I started entertaining on Tuesdays, admittedly because it is an inconvenient day, but in a funny way, it’s often less complicated to get people to commit to a weeknight dinner party—there are fewer out-of-town trips and conflicting events. No matter what day you plan to have people over, do it ever so slightly more often than is convenient. Entertaining definitely gets easier with practice.

You can find more of Sara's writing at her blog.