\n\t\t\tCite this Article\t<\/h5>\n\t
Jamie Sarafan, “The Women and the Word: Serpent Handling, Devotional Writing, and the Women of the Church of God, 1914-1936,” Journal of Southern Religion<\/em> (24) (2025): jsreligion.org\/vol24\/sarafan.<\/p>\n Introduction <\/strong><\/p>\n During a church service on a hot, humid summer’s day in August 1915, Mary Mansfield approached a small, flat, rectangular wooden box lying in the grass. During that particular service, several members of the Church of God in Crab Tree, Tennessee had successfully taken up two copperheads, but after “the devil howled” the congregants deemed the third serpent, an “old rattlesnake,” too dangerous to handle and placed it outside in a box.[1]<\/a> Mary, however, felt God’s power and knelt down beside the box in the yard. Unlatching it, she reached in and took up the rattlesnake in her hands. It “sang” in her grasp, but did not bite, convincing observers of the power of God. The believers passed the serpent around, and at one point another female member of the congregation placed it on the ground. The animal coiled up as if it were about to strike, but then God gave “the power to reach down and take it up and it was as harmless as a bird.”[2]<\/a> Energized by this experience and eager to share her testimony, Mary wrote to the Church of God Evangel<\/em>, the official newsletter of the Church of God. Her report, titled “Crab Orchard, Tenn.” can be found in the August 28, 1915 issue on the second unadorned, cramped, text-laden page alongside other “reports from the field,” personal testimonies, and prayer requests from subscribers.<\/p>\n Mary was just one of thousands who in the early twentieth century joined the Church of God, a rapidly growing southern Pentecostal group based in Cleveland, Tennessee. Unique to this church was the belief that taking up venomous serpents was an authentic sign of Holy Spirit baptisms and a persuasive evangelical tool.[3]<\/a> Between 1914 and 1936 the church accepted and promoted serpent handling and used their popular weekly newsletter, the Church of God Evangel, <\/em>to communicate this particular interpretation of emergent Pentecostal doctrine. By 1920-just five years after Mary submitted her testimony-the Evangel <\/em>had almost 16,000 subscribers across the country and was a powerful voice within the larger milieu of Pentecostal publications in the South.[4]<\/a> Although the first General Overseer A. J. Tomlinson-whose indefatigable leadership had an outsized impact on the early Church of God-expressed strong support for the sign in numerous essays he wrote for the Evangel<\/em>, the embrace of serpent handling did not come exclusively from church officials.[5]<\/a> Laymen and women eagerly joined church leaders in endorsing the sign as an authentic manifestation of the Holy Spirit, exclusive to the Church of God. Ordinary members, like Mary, expressed support for the practice by sharing reports of serpent handling in the Evangel<\/em>. This article will examine how the women of the Church of God participated in the discourse surrounding serpent handling through close readings of women-authored serpent handling reports in the Evangel.<\/em><\/p>\n Women were not just avid readers of the newsletter. Their requests for prayers, testimonies of answered prayers and miracles witnessed, and reports from evangelistic services were published in the Evangel <\/em>at double the rate of men.[6]<\/a> They also wrote forty percent of the attributable reports on serpent handling printed in the popular newsletter.[7]<\/a> By focusing on this popular newsletter and framing it as a remarkable and deeply-meaningful female religious network of communication, we can see how women became part of a larger conversation about proper modes of worship by refashioning their experiences with the controversial sign into commonly accepted devotional language in their letters. Close reading allows us to parse how and why the sign was adopted, understood, and spread by women. It enables us to uncover some of the subtle ways that women helped shape the religiosity of the early Church of God through their language in the Evangel<\/em>. Despite their lack of access to institutional power, women disciplined the religious subjectivities of themselves and others in relation to serpent handling.<\/p>\n Through their unofficial engagement in conversations about proper and improper modes of worship through the Evangel, <\/em>the women of the early Church of God helped to legitimize and normalize serpent handling in the early twentieth century. When the all-male church leadership began to distance itself from the practice in the late 1920s and ’30s, women became its most strident defenders. The women’s engagement with serpent handling can therefore also serve as a case study through which we can interrogate how individuals without full access to institutional power carve out space for themselves in the process of religious innovation, adaptation, and negotiation. Exploring the women in the early Church of God who embraced serpent handling recovers part of their history in an important southern denomination, deepens our understanding of the history of serpent handling, and challenges the “conceit of male dominance” in American religious innovation and history.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n Although there is no evidence that any other major Pentecostal group ever fully endorsed and practiced the dangerous sign, the issue of the legitimacy of serpent handling during this time period was hardly a closed one, and women like Mary became part of a larger conversation about proper modes of worship in a major American religious movement. Consequently, this article sits at the intersection between the larger history of Pentecostalism in America and the history of Pentecostal serpent handling by recovering and reassessing the role of women in those histories.[9]<\/a> In “Take Away the Serpents from Us,” Michael J. McVicar challenges the prevailing view that serpent handling was an isolated anomaly, and therefore relatively insignificant, in the larger history of Pentecostalism. Through analyzing Pentecostal periodicals, McVicar demonstrates that the process of acceptance and rejection of serpent handling actually profoundly influenced Pentecostal doctrine and practice. This process also impacted American culture more broadly by helping to define the boundaries of proper modes of religious practice in the early twentieth century.[10]<\/a> Even though the majority of Pentecostal converts during this formative period were women, and despite McVicar’s important reassessment of the place of serpent handling in American religious history, scholarly studies on the role of women in this tradition are lacking.[11]<\/a> This omission may be attributed to the exclusion of women from preaching and other formal leadership roles in historical and modern serpent handling churches.[12]<\/a> Therefore, this article aims to fill the gap by examining women’s letters on serpent handling and understanding their unique practices within the larger context of Pentecostal devotional culture as framed by R. Marie Griffith in her essay “Female Suffering and Religious Devotion in American Pentecostalism.”[13]<\/a> Griffith examined the formation and regulation of religious subjectivity through the writings of early Pentecostal women. By closely analyzing letters written by women about serpent handling, we can gain insight into the role of women in this tradition and their embrace of the sign during a significant period in Pentecostal history.<\/p>\n Women and the Church of God Evangel <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The first issue of The Evening Light and Church of God Evangel <\/em>was published on March 1, 1910. Tomlinson, the first General Overseer and editor-in-chief, shortened the name in 1911, <\/em>and by 1912 the Church of God <\/em>Evangel <\/em>had nearly as many subscribers as the church had members-2,135 and 2,294, respectively. The Church of God built a publishing house in 1913 to accommodate the rapidly growing newsletter, which by that point had transitioned from a bimonthly to a weekly publication. By 1920, the Church of God had over 14,500 members and 16,000 subscribers to the Evangel,<\/em> a full-time editorial staff of fifteen, and was constantly expanding its publishing house and office complexes to keep up with demand.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n The church employed its own members so that the “mechanical as well as editorial part of the Church literature would be done ‘by consecrated hands.'”[15]<\/a> Men and women worked furiously together to get issues out to eager subscribers. F. J. Lee, the State Overseer of Florida and later the second General Overseer, described the scene in 1919 in a rather sentimental article on the front page of the Evangel.<\/em>[16]<\/a> “On opening the door,” Lee wrote, “we hear the hum and clatter of the machinery. At once we are confronted with… Mr. Hardy, the foreman of the shop, a man of intelligence and ability as a printer. Also at another desk sits Mr. Dodd, a man of several years experience. Raise your eyes again and you see several young ladies, some setting type, some running job presses, the large press or folder.”[17]<\/a> Women in Lee’s detailed account of the bustling publishing house did more than set type and run the presses, however. They were involved in nearly every aspect of producing the Evangel:<\/em><\/p>\n Here comes the editor’s daughter what does she do? Most anything that is to be done-some times [sic] <\/em>the typewriter, then the addressing machine, the mailing, etc. She is capable of doing any of the office work. Now let us look into the transcribing room. Who is there? Sister Blanche Koon… It is she that looks over our letters and lovingly rewrites or corrects them if they need correction. Well, let us take another peep into Brother Tomlinson’s office before we go. This time I hear him dictating an article to his stenographer, Miss Maud Pangle… Well here comes Sister Tomlinson across the street. What does she do? Every spare moment that she can get away from her household work she is helping with the paper.[18]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The paper, <\/em>at least from the 1910s through early 1930s, was a text-heavy newsletter. Cramped and largely devoid of pictures or illustrations, the format of the Evangel <\/em>stressed utility rather than aesthetics or ease of use. The function-over-form mentality was characteristic of early Pentecostal periodicals as both publishers and subscribers “distinguished themselves as avid readers of religious books and papers” and sought to produce and consume as much about their growing movement as possible.[19]<\/a> These periodicals provided a vital medium for spreading religious news and ideas across the South and the country; they “constituted by far the most important technique for sustaining national and world [Pentecostal] consciousness.”[20]<\/a><\/p>\n The typical content of the Evangel <\/em>from 1910 through the early ’30s consisted of a few long-form theological essays or sermons; a prayer or hymn; notices about upcoming events such as General Assemblies, camp meetings, and revivals; announcements from local churches; small advertisements for items such as bibles, bible cases, songbooks, or “Jesus Only” buttons; and most importantly, letters from subscribers, which the Evangel <\/em>published to an increasing degree over the years. These reader-generated materials came from all over the country, but originated primarily in the Southeast.[21]<\/sup><\/a> The submissions varied in length-ranging from a few sentences to several paragraphs-and fell into three general, often overlapping, categories: requests for prayers, personal testimonies, and reports from evangelists or participants in evangelistic meetings across the country. The Evangel <\/em>printed hundreds of these letters a year. In 1921 alone, 2,355 submissions from subscribers were published in the weekly newsletter.[22]<\/a> Although it is unknown how many letters the staff at the Evangel <\/em>rejected, it does appear that they tried to publish as many as they could. In one issue in late April 1933, the editor printed an earnest request for subscribers to “please condense [their letters] as much as possible,” because “we would like to publish all outstanding miracles of healing and remarkable answers to prayer, as well as some testimonies.”[23]<\/a><\/p>\n Women were avid readers of the Evangel. <\/em>In thousands of letters women professed their love and gratitude for the Evangel, <\/em>its readers, and the Church of God. One such subscriber, Martha Hill, wrote, “I sure love reading the Evangel and I enjoy reading the testimonies of dear ones so much. I am glad I have lived to see the great power of God in its fullness and to be a member of the Church of God.”[24]<\/a> Others described their love for the Evangel <\/em>in metaphors: Maud Summeralls called reading the Evangel<\/em> “food to my soul,” which helped “wake me up and to get my soul on fire.”[25]<\/a> Women also dominated the reader-generated submissions. In the 1910s through 1930s, there were twice as many letters by women published in the Evangel <\/em>as by men. Between 1914 and 1936, women authored or co-signed a little over 10,200 total letters requesting prayers, delivering testimonies, and reporting on revivals, camp meetings, and services, with the vast majority of these letters authored by an individual woman. In contrast, only about 5,150 of the letters printed in the Evangel<\/em> within this twenty-two-year period were authored by men.[26]<\/a> Women in particular dominated the prayer request and personal testimony genres. In one 1921 winter issue, <\/em>for example, out of thirty total requests for prayers, twenty-five were identifiably written by a woman.[27]<\/a> In a 1925 issue, in a new, sporadically-appearing section titled “Healing Department,” every single published testimony of a miraculous healing was authored by a woman.[28]<\/a> Although the number of rejected submissions to Evangel <\/em>is unknown, the number of letters sent in by women may have been even higher, especially given broad concern by male Pentecostal leaders that the movement appeared too feminized.[29]<\/a><\/p>\n Although the exact demographics of the overall Pentecostal movement are difficult to pin down, historian Grant Wacker wrote, “we know with fair certainty that the majority of first-generation converts were female.”[30]<\/a> The Census of Religious Bodies <\/em>reported in 1916 that women made up fifty-nine percent of the three Pentecostal groups that submitted data. Ten years later the same census reported that the percentage of total female members rose to sixty-four percent, with eleven different Pentecostal groups reporting.[31]<\/a> Local and national newspapers corroborate these trends, often noting the conspicuous, enthusiastic participation of women at Pentecostal revivals and meetings.[32]<\/a> This was certainly true for the Church of God. In 1886, when the church was founded, five of the eight charter members were women.[33]<\/a> In 1907, the second year that Church of God began holding and recording annual meetings, delegates to the Second General Assembly called “special attention… to the number of women in the churches exceeding that of men.”[34]<\/a><\/p>\n Citing the fact that many women in the New Testament held prominent positions in the early church, the Church of God put their numerous female members to good use expanding and administering their growing community. Though only men could serve as bishops or ordained ministers, women were initially permitted to hold positions as deaconesses and evangelists.[35]<\/a> At the 1909 General Assembly, however, the delegates officially rejected the formal ordination of women, and the title of deaconess became one that could only be bestowed upon wives of deacons, functionally abolishing the position as an independent ministerial role available to women.[36]<\/a> Female evangelists were not subject to the same marital requirements as deaconesses and retained relative latitude as vital workers expanding the Church of God. They consistently comprised twenty-five to thirty-five percent of the first generation of evangelists.[37]<\/a> The church “was willing to acknowledge that because there were female ministers in the New Testament, the church was to continue to recognize them… women could hold an evangelist license, which would officially distinguish those women who desired to preach.”[38]<\/a> Between 1909 and 1914, the evangelist’s license was the same for both men and women and granted holders the authority “to publish, preach and defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to baptize, to administer the Lord’s Supper and the washing of the Saints feet.”[39]<\/a> Historian David G. Roebuck noted, however, that on some of the women’s licenses “various authorities [were] crossed out,” indicating they were not permitted to perform them.[40]<\/a> By 1914 the Church of God developed separate licenses for men and women. While the men’s remained the same, the women’s only “granted the bearer the authority to ‘publish, preach, and defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and do all the work that may devolve on her as a prophetess or female minister of the Gospel,'” a marked reduction in enumerated authorities on the original licenses.[41]<\/a><\/p>\n As the number of ministerial positions available to women contracted in the 1910s, Tomlinson and other male church leaders formalized the opinion that women should be excluded from church governance in essays in the Evangel<\/em> and through the formation of various ecclesiastical committees only open to ordained, and therefore male, members of the church.[42]<\/a> “Let the women preach,” proclaimed Tomlinson exuberantly in 1914, “let them sing, shout and pray, but let them be the glory of the men in silence when it comes to government.”[43]<\/a> Thus, by the mid-1910s, women’s access to formal ministerial authority within the Church of God was reduced and official ecclesiastical leadership roles in the church were simply not available to them. If women wanted to serve within the church government, they were relegated to a supportive role, like that of clerk, Sunday School teacher, or superintendent. As Lisa Stephenson explains, such positions, though technically ones of leadership, were open to women because they were “not considered an office in the church.”[44]<\/a><\/p>\n The published materials in the Evangel <\/em>then reveal the existence of an extensive sanctified network of female religious life-largely separate from that of the exclusively male leadership-where women developed and maintained a rich devotional culture and set of practices revolving around reading and writing to the Evangel<\/em>. The newsletter provided a weekly forum for ordinary women: anyone who could read, write, and afford postage could join to share their sorrows and worries, ask for prayers to alleviate physical or emotional afflictions, and testify to the power of God through recounting answered prayers, stories of salvation and healing, Holy Spirit baptisms, and other signs and miracles.[45]<\/a> The practices around prayer and testimony in the pages of the Evangel <\/em>allowed for, as Griffith put it in her study of Pentecostal women’s devotional writing, “the formation of a Pentecostal community, composed predominantly of women, that transcended ordinary bounds of geography and social location and imparted comfort, benevolence, and recognition to the suffering hopeful across the land.”[46]<\/a><\/p>\n Reading the Evangel <\/em>was a devotional act that the women of the Church of God understood had to be completed with the utmost care. Letter-writers expected their submissions to be read carefully, deliberately, and prayerfully; Christian sisters wrote to the Evangel <\/em>with the knowledge and understanding that prayer requests were not to be sympathetically skimmed, but seriously and earnestly read and prayed upon to help enact divine intervention into the lives of their fellow subscribers. Women wrote to the Evangel <\/em>with testimonies crediting the prayers of their fellow sisters for the positive results. “I praise God for what He is to me,” testified Exie Hunt, “about one month after I requested the saints to pray, I received the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Bless His name.”[47]<\/a> Another woman, Mrs. C. B. West, wrote to the Evangel<\/em> explicitly attributing the healing of her child to the prayers of readers and begged for their continued prayers. “Dear Evangel Readers,” she wrote, “I thank God for giving me faith in Him to believe and trust Him for His healing power. My little boy who the doctors claim had a tumor on the brain is getting better. Priase [sic]<\/em> the Lord!…Saints, I don’t know how to thank you, for I believe it was your prayers that has helped my boy…Please continue to pray for us.”[48]<\/a> In this theology of prayer, which sought to “nudge God into fulfilling scriptural promises of happiness and healing,” individual women had the opportunity and power to effect real and lasting change in the lives of their sisters.[49]<\/a> Personal testimonies, like the ones excerpted above, were intimate, emotional narratives that toggled between accounts of suffering, sickness, and sorrow, and joyous tales of troubles alleviated by God’s grace and mercy, perhaps in large part due to their sisters’ prayers on their behalf. Readers thus expected the letters in the Evangel <\/em>to look and sound a certain way. Prayer requests had to be recognizable as prayer requests and testimonies had to be recognizable as testimonies; the women of the Church of God who wrote to the Evangel <\/em>had to refashion their lived experiences to write in a way that maintained their community of the written word.<\/p>\n The relationship between communal religion and personal faith is an important reciprocal dynamic that gains even greater salience for the study of female religious subjects who often did not have full access to formal ecclesial authority and whose daily lives were constrained in a multitude of different ways because of their gender. Examining this dynamic, what Griffith calls the “refreshing [of] the subjective through common practice,” is one way to begin to understand the role that marginalized individuals play in the maintenance, authentication, and evolution of a religious tradition.[50]<\/a> Newsletters like the Evangel <\/em>played a critical role in fostering the interplay between religious subjectivity, practice, and institutions. During the frenetic years of the early Pentecostal movement, as many doctrinal issues-especially surrounding which signs followed believers-remained unresolved, the practice of witnessing and testifying to various signs, miracles, and personal religious experiences in the pages of newsletters and magazines was a way that ordinary Pentecostals, and especially women, could participate in religious discourse through offering their support for and validation of one interpretation of scripture over another. [51]<\/a><\/p>\n The Church of God, Pentecostalism, and Taking Up Serpents <\/strong><\/p>\n During this time, Pentecostalism was rapidly expanding across the South as new churches opened or existing churches refashioned themselves as Pentecostal. This first generation of Pentecostals “yearned physically to enter the apostolic world, to breathe the air, feel its life, see its signs and wonders with their own eyes,” and carefully studied the Bible to construct “their own lives as transparent appropriations of the New Testament pattern.”[52]<\/a> Based upon an interpretation of Acts 2:1-4, Pentecostals believed that speaking in tongues always followed possessions by the Holy Spirit and initially served as the authenticating, supernatural sign of one’s baptism.[53]<\/a> What became known as “the four-fold gospel” of Pentecostal faith comprised Holy Ghost baptisms evidenced by tongues; a personal, heartfelt salvation through accepting Jesus Christ as one’s savior; a belief in divine healing of the physical body; and anticipation of the Lord’s imminent return.[54]<\/a> The Pentecostals’ emphasis on concrete, embodied signs such as glossolalia and faith healings created a legible typology of signs by which other Pentecostals could read, interpret, and authenticate each other’s Holy Spirit baptisms. Energized by the manifestations of the Spirit among their ranks, early Pentecostals, among whom the Church of God counted, yearned to “recover the supernatural power and miracles of the New Testament,” and “expected that the ‘former rain,’ the signs and miracles described in Acts, would soon be fulfilled by the ‘latter rain,’ a final outpouring of the Holy Spirit’s glory at the close of history.”[55]<\/a> Consequently, first-generation Pentecostals vigilantly and eagerly awaited new, tangible supernatural gifts among their brothers and sisters. Turning to the Bible for more signs beyond glossolalia that may accompany the Holy Spirit, they found Mark 16:17-18, which reads:<\/p>\n 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.[56]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Mark 16:17-18 was quickly adopted as another passage that enumerated and authorized additional signs beyond those in Acts. Manifesting the greatest number of the signs in Mark-exorcisms, speaking in tongues, and faith healings-emerged as an essential symbol of one’s membership among southern Pentecostal communities.<\/p>\n This emerging Pentecostal doctrine explicitly included women as potential recipients of the Holy Spirit. “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God,” quoted the Apostle Peter in Acts, “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” [57]<\/a> Women and men thus could equally be filled with the Spirit and blessed with supernatural gifts as the Kingdom of God began to break into the present age. Signs served as a way to signify the authenticity of one’s spirit baptism experience, express their individual, spiritual empowerment, and advertise which church they belonged to, for the “manifestation of signs not only created distinctions between Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals, but also between competing Pentecostal groups.”[58]<\/a> In this highly competitive, excited religious atmosphere, only one community accepted the third sign in Mark 16: The Church of God.<\/p>\n In 1914, during the Tenth Annual Assembly, the Church of God officially adopted serpent handling and claimed it as exclusive to its members, positioning it as a vital evangelical tool for the growing church. At this important assembly, 133 of the 538 attendees were women.[59]<\/a> Through this exclusivity, Tomlinson wasted no time in elevating the church above others in the area as it “surpass[ed] all others in miraculous signs and wonders.”[60]<\/a> The signs in Mark 16:18 thus coalesced into “a reservoir of spiritual and social power for the members of the rapidly growing Church of God.”[61]<\/a> Practicing all the signs enumerated in Mark 16 increased the number of legible supernatural signs-and spiritual power-potentially available to them, and helped distinguish Tomlinson’s followers from the growing number of Pentecostal groups. The acceptance of serpent handling as a legitimate sign that manifested exclusively to members of the Church of God coincided with a remarkable period of growth: in just five years, the denomination doubled in size from 6,159 in 1915 to 14,606 in 1920.[62]<\/a> By 1925, Church of God membership in the United States sat at nearly 25,000 across the country.[63]<\/a> This is not to say that there was a direct correlation between this explosion of membership and the church’s embrace of serpent handling. At worst, serpent handling had little effect on membership, and at best, it positively impacted the Church of God’s growth as it competed with dozens of other Pentecostal denominations for adherents by positioning itself as spiritually superior and distinctive through serpent handling.[64]<\/a><\/p>\n Reporting on Serpent Handling <\/strong><\/p>\n Out of the 106 subscriber-generated reports about serpent handling that appeared in the Evangel, <\/em>eighty-eight were published during this period of remarkable expansion between 1914 and 1925. These reports were relatively frequent, with multiple reports occasionally appearing within a single issue of the Evangel. <\/em>The large majority of the reports came from the Southeast, with the most instances of serpent handling occurring in the Appalachian regions of Tennessee and Alabama.[65]<\/a> Of the 106 total reports published between 1914 and 1936, forty were either written or co-signed by a woman.[66]<\/a> From 1928, when the male leadership of the Church of God began to downplay and criticize serpent handling, to 1936, when the final serpent handling report appeared in the Evangel, <\/em>only four of the fourteen reports published were authored by a man. As serpent handling became increasingly marginalized within the church, letters about the practice came to by increasingly dominated by women. The final three reports were all written solely by women and the last report, authored by a female serpent handler herself, offered a powerful endorsement of the practice in defiance of male leadership.[67]<\/a> The final positive mention of serpent handling in the Evangel <\/em>was in 1943 and was also written by a woman, Myrtle Whitehead, a prominent evangelist. In her essay titled “Signs,” Whitehead advocated for serpent handling by citing the Church of God’s standard justification for serpent handling-a literal interpretation of Mark 16, which included taking up serpents as a legitimate sign of Holy Spirit baptisms-which by 1943 was no longer considered mainstream Church of God doctrine.[68]<\/a><\/p>\n The women who submitted reports on serpent handling to the Evangel<\/em> were committed members of the Church of God, and their interest in the sign that clearly outlasted that of the men. Of the twenty-eight reports signed by an individual woman, fifteen of the authors had at least one other letter published in the Evangel, <\/em>and three of these women submitted more than one report of serpent handing.[69]<\/a> Most of the co-ed, co-signed reports were from traveling teams of husbands and wives or fathers and daughters evangelizing together, and many of the individually authored reports were also by female evangelists or women who served clerks for their local churches. Even those who wrote letters about serpent handling but did not hold formal roles within the Church of God were a part of a committed group of women members who could afford to subscribe to the publication as well as the cost of postage, and went out of their way to attend church services, meetings, and revivals. This dedicated group of women demonstrated and disseminated their acceptance of serpent handling by participating in a familiar venue: the sanctified network of woman-letter writers in the Evangel. <\/em>Their embrace of serpent handling was not just reflected in the sheer number of their reports, but also through the language they used to describe instances of serpent handling as participants in the community of female religious meaning and power. By examining how women wrote about serpent handling in the Evangel, <\/em>we can explore how they interacted with, understood, and integrated the controversial sign of serpent handling into their devotional writing practices and begin to get at the role women played in the solidification and propagation of the Church of God’s most dangerous sign.<\/p>\n Aside from one letter praying for serpent handling, reader submissions to the Evangel<\/em> favorably mentioning instances of the sign typically fell into the genre of evangelistic reports.[70]<\/a> These reports came from across the country and recounted events set within the context of evangelistic services during a revival, camp meeting, or church homecoming or reunion. Tent revivals and camp meetings in particular were large, joyous, highly-anticipated and multi-day outdoor events that brought together communities of Pentecostals. People traveled for miles to see old friends, meet church leaders and evangelists, go to picnics, attend “songfests,” and participate in multiple services a day that sometimes lasted into the early hours of the morning.[71]<\/a> Even if a report was not about a large event like a revival, instances of serpent handling in the Evangel <\/em>occurred almost exclusively within the context of a worship service.[72]<\/a> Most serpent handling reports-whether written by a man or a woman-followed the same basic narrative structure and contained the same general elements: an emphasis on the labor or battle that the Church of God was “pressing”; expressions of triumph and victory over Satan when signs manifested and convinced people of God’s power; and feelings of personal joy, gratitude, and certitude in God.<\/p>\n The basic narrative structure of male- and female-authored serpent handling reports remained remarkably stable between 1914 and 1936. A letter by Bettie Teems from 1915, which also happens to be the first woman-authored serpent handling report in the Evangel, <\/em>exemplifies the main characteristics and basic structure of serpent handling reports, but also highlights a few of the differences between male- and female-authored reports.<\/p>\n Dear Bro. Tomlinson,<\/p>\n Greetings in Jesus’s dear name. I am praising the Lord for salvation that keeps folks from sin.<\/p>\n I received the Holy Ghost three years ago for I spoke in other tongues as the Spirit gave utterance.<\/p>\n We had a meeting at my home not long ago and the power fell and O such shouting and dancing and handling fire. On Sunday afterwards serpents were handled. I want the saints to pray for me that I may stay humble at the feet of Jesus. Praise God.<\/p>\n Your sister in Christ,<\/p>\n Bettie Teems[73]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n First, like Teems’s, most-but not all-reports opened by praising God’s power. This was slightly more common in female- than in male-authored letters, but was still a standard part of serpent handling reports. Male witnesses to a meeting more frequently jumped right into an account of specific events with little or no introduction.<\/p>\n Next, the author would retell the events of the meeting or worship service with varying degrees of detail and emotion, including instances of taking up of serpents and other signs. Teems followed this structure almost exactly by detailing a meeting that occurred “at my home not long ago” where “the power fell and O such shouting and dancing and handling fire. On Sunday afterwards serpents were handled.”[74]<\/a> Finally, the author would close the report with a prayer request for themselves, their community of Pentecostals, or for continued manifestations of signs and evangelistic success as Teems did when she requested “the saints to pray for me that I may stay humble at the feet of Jesus. Praise God.”[75]<\/a> Sometimes reports would also close with continued praise of God, as Teems’s did. If the report was about a meeting or revival, expressions of gratitude for the evangelists in charge might also be included. If the author was an evangelist, updates on where they would travel next, contact information, and requests for prayers or aid-whether for specific items or for monetary support-might be included toward the end of the report as well.[76]<\/a><\/p>\n A short report by Will Fish published just a few months after Teems’s exemplifies the similarities as well as the key differences between male- and female-authored reports. In his report, which is quoted in full, Fish jumped straight into the action, writing, “We have just closed a meeting at Emory Gap. Two saved and sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost and two reclaimed and one sanctified. The copper head snake was handled and the hot lamp chimney too. Pray for us. The meeting was concluded by Bro. Taylor.”[77]<\/a> Although Fish’s and Teems’s short reports were both about a meeting where serpent handling occurred and were similar in length and structure, Fish’s report jumped straight into the action with no salutation, contained less overt praise of God, no personal information or details about himself, and no “I” statements. Although Fish concluded his report with a prayer request, it was quite general and brief compared to Teems’s. This was representative of male-authored reports overall; men tended to include fewer personal details about their lives or their emotions in their reports of the sign. Men would also occasionally write in the third person or write for the entire group present as “we,” rather than themselves individually in the first-person. This was less common in woman-authored reports; women primarily wrote first-person accounts.<\/p>\n A key element that both Teems’s and Fish’s letters exemplify, however, is the frequent use of the passive voice in serpent handling reports, particularly when an author discussed how serpents came to be at service and who exactly handled them. More often than not, serpents “were brought in” by unnamed individuals, whose affiliation with the Church of God was unclear, but often seemed antagonistic. Other times, like in Teems’s and Fish’s reports, serpents simply appeared with little other information.[78]<\/a> The phrase “serpents were handled,” as seen in Teems’s letter, was quite common in both male- and female-authored reports, which unfortunately obscures the identities and number of saints who manifested the sign.[79]<\/a><\/p>\n As noted, Fish’s identity is almost completely absent from his short report; there is no use of the singular first person anywhere in his letter and he gave no background on his own previous religious, authorizing experiences, a common omission in male-authored reports. Women, however, frequently did. Before summarizing the meeting, Teems specifically mentioned when her Holy Spirit baptism occurred-implicitly drawing on the established reservoir of spiritual power -and which validating signs followed, a notable addition in such a short report.<\/p>\n Even if they did not include the exact signs that accompanied their spirit baptisms, women frequently alluded to their sanctification and membership to the church by including, and often opening their letter with, phrases like “I praise the Lord for saving, sanctifying and filling me with the blessed Holy Ghost,” or thanking “our heavenly Father this morning that I have the assurance that I am one of His children.”[80]<\/a> Women might have felt they needed to preface their reports with sources of their religious authority before reporting on the sign, where men did not. Invoking weakness was not a helpful rhetorical tool for women when reporting a sign. Weakness and the “traditional trope of female self-abnegation” were notably uncommon in woman-authored serpent handling reports, given what defining elements these are for Christian women’s religious writing as a whole.[81]<\/a> Instead, woman reporters sought to project authority and certainty to give credibility to what they had witnessed through reiterating the sources of their personal religious authority. Aside from her request for saints to help her stay humble, there are no other references to weakness or self-abnegation in Teems’s report; she recounted her own Holy Spirit baptism experience and the meeting she held at her house with confidence. In this genre of writing, the author’s own strength and certitude served to emphasize God’s power and helped validate the practice of serpent handling.<\/p>\n Reports of serpent handling by men and women were primarily joyous in tone because the authors were sharing the news of a special sign that manifested exclusively to members of the Church of God, confirmed God’s power, and led to the conversion of unsaved souls. Although most Church of God members most likely never witnessed serpent handling themselves, reports in the Evangel<\/em> of the successful manifestation of the special sign, and the conversions that often followed, helped to increase church members’ collective certitude in their status “as some of the most sanctified and blessed people on earth,” and were presented as causes for joy and celebration.[82]<\/a><\/p>\n Despite this, women’s letters about serpent handling sometimes possessed notes of sorrow and hints of suffering-a notable divergence from their male peers-because they integrated elements from another popular, female-dominated genre into their reports of serpent handling: personal testimonies. Women wrote letters that blended stories of serpent handling with personal testimonies because, unlike men, they were participating in and conforming to the expectations of letter writers set within the female community of Evangel<\/em> readers. <\/em><\/p>\n Mrs. Alice Newell’s report exemplifies the almost exclusively female practice of combining testimonies with serpent handling reports. Published in the fall of 1922, Newell’s letter to “Brother Tomlinson, and All of God’s Children Everywhere” possessed the main elements of a serpent handling report-praise and glorification of God’s power, a summary of a meeting where serpent handling occurred, and a generally joyous, triumphant emotional tone-but the sign itself was deemphasized and decentered within her narrative in favor of other components of personal testimonies.[83]<\/a> Newell’s report blended these two genres of woman-authored submissions to the Evangel<\/em>, producing a highly emotional narrative of personal joy, sorrow, and serpent handling that was saturated with words of praise for God’s glory and expressions of certainty in his power. Serpent handling appeared toward the end of her account as just another sign of God’s power among many already known to her. Instead, and as in other personal testimonies, Newell skillfully wove an intimate narrative focused on her relationship with God, past and current trials, divine healing, and miracles.<\/p>\n Newell opened her report with an expression of gratitude for the Church of God: “Oh, how glad I am that I am a member of the great Church of God. I love her teachings and praise God for her rules and government. I can never thank God enough for what He has done for me.”[84]<\/a> Newell then recounted her Holy Spirit baptism and detailed her relationship with God:<\/p>\n One year ago in August He wonderfully saved and sanctified me and filled me with the Holy Ghost which still abides. I am praising God for the joy and happiness that I have had since I took Jesus as my Savior.<\/p>\n He is my great healer and when I get sick and I am trusting Him for both soul and body. One reason that makes me know that I am right is the Bible evidence that we have that our loved ones will forsake us, but praise the dear Lord, we can give them up for Him. I feel the sweet peace flooding my soul.<\/p>\n Sometimes I feel like my trials are more that I can bear but I go to God in prayer and let Jesus fix it for me. It seems like the enemy has tried me in every way but I am holding to God’s unchanging hand.[85]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Like other testimonies and prayer requests written by women, Newell’s report toggled between joy and sadness. Because her submission was a report of serpent handling, praise and joy were the dominant themes; but throughout her letter, Newell hinted at past problems with her health and familial relationships as well as current financial difficulties, for “the enemy had put my husband out of work several times.” [86]<\/a> Newell remained optimistic, however, because “he [the enemy-perhaps Satan] can’t discourage him.”[87]<\/a> The assertion of continued trials, with accounts of female sickness and suffering alleviated by divine intervention, was a common element specific to women’s testimonies. Newell’s mentions of previous illness, familial estrangement, and financial difficulties fit well within the genre of personal testimonies. One of the essential elements of a woman-authored testimony, according to Griffith, was “ceaseless denials of the pain to which they simultaneously confessed.”[88]<\/a> Newell’s report offered examples of this narrative convention by expressing absolute certainty in God’s goodness, love, and power, while at the same time hinting at past and present trials.<\/p>\n Newell’s account of the meeting where serpent handling took place did not appear until the final full paragraph of her letter, where she wrote somewhat maternally that “the Word was confirmed here by Brother G.G. Williams handling a small serpent. The saints surely did dance and talk in tongues. I am praising the Lord for our little pastor.”[89]<\/a> A report of serpent handling thus was folded into a rich, intimate, first-person account of joy, suffering, and religious power and meaning. In this last paragraph serpent handling was listed alongside another sign-speaking in tongues-and occurred during a worship service with their regular pastor. Newell’s letter demonstrates how women displayed ownership over the sign by integrating it into one of their favored genres of devotional writing, and in turn representing serpent handling to their fellowship of women quite differently than their male peers. To Newell, serpent handling was just an occurrence during a meeting, a commonly held event, unimportant enough to mention in a single sentence at the end of her letter.<\/p>\n In reports authored by men, serpent handling far more frequently stood as the confident, sometimes dramatic, center of their almost exclusively triumphantly-toned letters; men often gave serpent handling more attention in comparison to other signs enumerated and frequently placed it at the heart of their reports. C. T. Morgan’s short letter serves as an excellent example of this. In the first paragraph of his two-paragraph submission, he wrote that during “the best meeting we ever had… the sick were healed and devils cast out. Five were saved, nine sanctified, and six received the Holy Ghost. Eighteen were added to the Church of God.”[90]<\/a> Rather than listing serpent handling alongside these other signs, however, Martin made a new, separate paragraph-which further emphasized it-before recounting the instance of serpent handling with more specificity and emotionality than he did the other signs: “On the last night of the meeting there was a rattlesnake brought in and handled by a number of saints. Oh thank God! This makes me feel so good. The signs are truly following the Church of God.”[91]<\/a> Some men went even further in centering the dangerous sign in their writing. In 1916, Pastor W.H. Rogers submitted a long letter detailing a single Thursday evening when,<\/p>\n … they brought a rattle snake pilot in a box and they put a chicken snake in with the pilot so the pilot would be good and mad and would be sure and bite whoever picked him up.<\/p>\n The power fell and such shouting and praising God you never heard and the saints began to say “bring him in.” They were afraid to bring the snakes in at first but after a while they brought them in. Brother Cleve Vaughn broke the box open and the old serpent came out and bit him twice on the hand. His hand swelled just enough to know the poison was there… The devil said his arm was swollen twice its size but thank God, he came back to meeting Sunday with out [sic] <\/em>a hurt. His hand was not even swollen.[92]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rogers concluded his report by quoting Mark 16-further tying the event to Scripture-and briefly detailing an additional manifestation of a sign when a woman received the Holy Ghost and was healed of madness. In an almost total inversion of Newell’s letter, Roger’s triumphant report centered around a rich, lengthy narrative of serpent handling and concluded with a shorter account of an instance of divine healing, whereas Newell’s letter was a long, personal testimony of past trials, suffering, and healing with her short report of serpent handling left until the final paragraph.<\/p>\n By decentering the specific instance of serpent handling in her submission and combining it with a personal testimony, Newell demonstrated that she was an appropriate, reliable letter-writer to other women, versed in the rhetorical structures of the female community of the written word that expected deeply intimate and highly emotional narratives that toggled between accounts of suffering and reassurances of joy. Letters like Newell’s had the effect of normalizing and authenticating serpent handling to all readers of the Evangel, <\/em>but in particular to women. Newell understood her testimony would be carefully read and taken to heart by multitudes of other women within their network of female religious devotion; perhaps some would also be influenced to integrate serpent handling into their own understandings of the signs that follow.[93]<\/a> By refashioning her experience with serpent handling to fit within-and therefore maintain-the existing narrative structures and expectations of prayer, testimony, and joyful reports of successful meetings and revivals, Newell confirmed her membership to the network of female religious power in the Evangel. <\/em>She thus helped regulate what forms of worship were available to members of the Church of God, shaping-and disciplining-the religious identities of all.<\/p>\n This is not to say that women were any less concerned with statistical details or less interested in fully reporting on specific meetings and revivals than men. The women of the Church of God were deeply invested in evangelism and those who witnessed or participated in meetings where serpent handling took place strove to accurately report to the Evangel<\/em> the number of people converted, the number baptized by the Holy Spirit or by water, and other important evangelistic statistics.<\/em> Women’s reports, however, still contained a higher degree of personal commentary and emotive language than men’s, even when they were more focused on the events themselves. Ida McCoy’s two lengthy serpent handling reports from 1916 exemplify woman-authored, highly specific narratives of events where serpent handling took place.[94]<\/a> In her September report, McCoy carefully recounted a meeting in Helicon, Alabama that lasted for fourteen days. During that meeting, McCoy reported that<\/p>\n Five were reclaimed, five converted, one sanctified, nine added to the church and twelve baptized in water. The baptismal service was very impressive. Four strong and handsome young men went in first hand in hand, next came four little girls from ten to fourteen years old and next came four ladies as they sang ‘I Will Follow,’ one other came at last. We had the Lord’s supper and feet washing at the church this seemed the best of all. The church has been edified and the gospel seed sown in hearts that has [sic<\/em>] never gotten the light before.[95]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n McCoy’s joyous report continued for several more paragraphs, flowing into the next column with similar levels of detail and personal commentary. McCoy was clearly interested in accurately recounting a single event; she carefully detailed the exact numbers of individuals reclaimed, converted, sanctified, and baptized-and how these achievements were accomplished-for readers of the Evangel.<\/em> Optimistic personal opinions like McCoy’s comment that “the baptismal service was very impressive,” or evaluative statements like “this seemed the best of all,” were unusual in male-authored reports and spoke to the more emotional style of writing expected by and for women.[96]<\/a><\/p>\n Relatedly, McCoy’s report also possessed three other elements that were more common in female-authored than in male-authored serpent handling reports. First, McCoy decentered serpent handling in her account of the large meeting in Helicon. Serpent handling did not appear until the second-to-last paragraph of her lengthy report and was again listed alongside the sign of divine healing as she triumphantly paraphrased scripture: “the signs are following. Some have prayed for the sick and they have been healed. Some have taken up serpents. Praise our God for the precious apostolic way. Hallelujah!”[97]<\/a> Serpent handling to McCoy was decidedly a part of the “apostolic way.” Within that quote, another common element of woman-authored serpent handling reports was present: copious praise of God’s power and glory. Finally, although McCoy’s report was mostly triumphant in tone, she expressed a type of bittersweet sorrow for the meeting’s end, which male writers generally did not. At the close of the meeting “the goodbyes were said,” she wrote, “and oh, how our hearts ached as they rolled away shouting and singing with victory in their souls.”[98]<\/a><\/p>\n McCoy’s serpent handling report also contained a postscript that spoke to the sanctified network of female religiosity within the Evangel<\/em>. After she concluded her letter, McCoy added a brief note addressed to another female reader of the Evangel<\/em> which read, “P.S. If sister Franklin of Dora, Ala. wishes to correspond with me, my address is Arely Ala., R.1.”[99]<\/a> Through this postscript we can glimpse how the community of female Pentecostals may have extended to relationships outside of the Evangel, <\/em>but still relied on the connections formed and maintained within the pages of the newsletter.<\/p>\n Female Serpent Handlers and Its Last Defenders<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1923, one of serpent handling’s most strident champions, General Overseer and editor-in-chief of the Evangel, <\/em>A. J. Tomlinson, was impeached for fiscal improprieties and discontent with his leadership style.[100]<\/a> The new General Overseer, F. J. Lee, began to downplay the importance of serpent handling but did not totally outlaw the practice.[101]<\/a> Aided by other church leaders, Lee and his successors helped usher in a new era of the Church of God, working in earnest to bring their church into greater alignment with the teachings of mainstream Pentecostalism, which never accepted serpent handling as a wholly legitimate practice.<\/p>\n In 1928, S. J. Heath, an outspoken member of church leadership who served on the governing Council of Elders and the Executive Committee, published the first essay in the Evangel <\/em>that took an anti-serpent handling stance.[102]<\/a> Since the earliest manifestations of the sign, other prominent members of the Church of God and male leaders had written about it with measured caution, but still felt compelled to acknowledge its legitimacy due to the primacy of Mark 16. The first report on serpent handling, published in the spring of 1914 by J. B. Ellis-a state overseer, elder, and future superintendent of education-exemplified this wary stance. Even as he dutifully described the practice to readers, Ellis expressed deep reservations. Writing that “All do not work miracles,” he urged believers to pursue signs that could benefit all, heavily implying that serpent handling did not;<\/p>\n I have seen some with swollen limbs. Others have taken up a great number of snakes and been bitten over a hundred times by all sorts of serpents and felt no harm. These, no doubt, have the gift of miracles, and could as easily command the lame to walk, the blind to see, and the deaf to hear if they would only use their gifts to profit withal. Let us get the gifts and use them as God directs and be sure we are in the more excellent way; for if we had all gift and not charity we would amount to nothing.[103]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Fourteen years later, Heath, like Ellis, acknowledged that legitimate manifestations of serpent handling could occur, but his letter was fundamentally different in tone and emphasis and he took a far more unambiguous stance against the sign. While early leaders like Ellis framed the issue as one of misapplication-a legitimate spiritual gift used improperly or perhaps for selfish means-Heath condemned serpent handling as fanaticism.<\/p>\n In his thundering essay, Heath admonished members of the Church of God for deemphasizing the other signs in favor of serpent handling. “There is not very much stress upon casting out devils, speaking in tongues, and laying the hands on the sick for their recovery,” he wrote.[104]<\/a> Instead, “many have gone into rank fanaticism, and false teaching, bringing reproach upon the Church and disgust to intelligent people over the handling of serpents.”[105]<\/a> Rather than simply warning against misuse or misinterpretation, Heath presented serpent handling as a shameful practice that damaged the church’s reputation, endangered lives, and brought public embarrassment. Heath’s forceful critique thus marked a turning point: although he did not fully disavow the sign-he could not fully ignore scripture-he no longer treated it as a spiritual strength but as a dangerous and socially damaging spectacle that caused more harm than good for the church.<\/p>\n Heath’s forceful critique of serpent handling was an almost complete reversal of Tomlinson’s initial endorsement. By 1928, serpent handling was no longer the special, exclusive sign that elevated the church above all others in the area. Heath articulated a growing belief among the male leadership that serpent handling was a dangerous, damaging, and frankly embarrassing practice that caused “much suffering to the victims, and many times has taken much prayer to save a life, then we are made a laughingstock to the world and reproach for the cause.”[106]<\/a><\/p>\n During the Twenty-Third General Assembly, just a few months after Heath’s essay, leaders and delegates refused to “make handling a test for fellowship” but did not ban the practice outright.[107]<\/a> Although Tomlinson had never advocated that serpent handling should be a requirement for membership in the Church of God, his messy dismissal from the church, coupled with this official declaration just five years later, marked the beginning of the end of serpent handling within the Church of God. Although historians Charles W. Conn and Mickey Crews claimed that 1928 was also the year that the church formally prohibited the practice, McVicar, Ralph W. Hood, Jr., and W. Paul Williamson repudiate that claim, pointing out that the church never made an explicit statement against the practice or banned it. Instead, male leadership increasingly criticized it and downplayed its importance as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.[108]<\/a><\/p>\n Between 1928, when the Evangel <\/em>published Heath’s letter, and 1936, of the fourteen total reports of serpent handling, <\/em>only four were written by a man. Of the remaining ten, one was co-signed by a husband and wife in 1929, and the rest were written by an individual woman.[109]<\/a> Over the broader twenty-two-year period when the Evangel <\/em>published serpent handling reports, only five were by women recounting their own experiences taking up serpents, with the final firsthand account-published in 1936-also serving as the Evangel<\/em>‘s last report on serpent handling by any author.[110]<\/a> Between the 106 different serpent handling reports in the Evangel <\/em>and Tomlinson’s first essay in 1914 about serpent handling, “Sensational Demonstrations,” where he recounted several specific instances of serpent handling,<\/em> there are forty-eight named individuals who took up serpents. Of those forty-eight, fourteen were women.[111]<\/a> If unnamed but identifiably female individuals are counted, the number of female serpent handlers rises to twenty.[112]<\/a> As mentioned in the previous section, however, due to reporters’ propensity for the passive voice, the actual number of female serpent handlers in the early Church of God is likely to have been larger.[113]<\/a> During the period when the Church of God endorsed serpent handling, women and men viewed serpent handlers of both genders as a normal part of their church; serpent handlers were ordinary brothers, sisters, and saints, not a separate group of special worshipers. Male and female serpent handlers almost exclusively manifested the sign when possessed by the Holy Spirit during evangelistic meetings or church services.[114]<\/a><\/p>\n All of the woman-authored first-hand accounts of serpent handling largely mirrored female eyewitness reports in structure and purpose-praise for God, an account of the instance of serpent handling, and a request for prayers, with elements of personal testimony incorporated- but with two key differences. First, female serpent handlers centered the act of serpent handling itself in their letters far more than female eye-witnesses. Second, their accounts lacked the notes of sorrow or claims weakness often found in eyewitness reports, instead emphasizing personal empowerment and feelings of overwhelming joy. Women serpent handlers, however, more frequently incorporated the “traditional trope of female self-abnegation” in their writing.[115]<\/a> Unlike female witnesses, woman serpent handlers might have felt compelled to balance the awesome power they wielded when taking up dangerous serpents with gendered expectations of appropriate feminine behavior. Regardless, their accounts ultimately served not only to normalize and legitimize the controversial sign, but also to assert their own religious authority within the Church of God community.<\/p>\n As the practice declined, women proved its most enduring defenders. Because of power differentials between men and women in the Church of God, women relied more on Holy Spirit baptisms and accompanying signs for religious authority. Serpent handling represented an expansion of the number of signs available to them, which is perhaps why they remained committed to reporting on and endorsing the practice even as male leaders increasingly rejected it. A sense of urgency in women’s accounts after 1928 is apparent when examining one of the first, first-hand accounts from a serpent handler alongside the last.<\/p>\n Returning to the report that opened this article, Mary Mansfield’s letter contained all the core elements of a woman-authored, first-hand account of serpent handling-praise for God, feelings of power, and heightened joy without notes of sorrow-but possessed a heavy emphasis on divine authority; Mansfield framed each encounter with a serpent not as moments of personal triumph, but as a demonstration of God’s total power. Mansfield opened her report with a statement of praise for God’s “full and free salvation. I want to praise Him for victory over sin.”[116]<\/a> “We have been tried by two copperheads,” she continued, “but glory to God He gave us the power to take them up.”[117]<\/a> After her successful handling, “some were convinced while the old rattler sang in our hands.”[118]<\/a> In her single-paragraph report, she stated that God “gave the power” three separate times. Although this power flowed freely through Mansfield to the others, Mansfield was careful always to attribute it to its proper source: God. Mansfield called the experience “wonderful” and worked to rhetorically authenticate serpent handling by directly and repeatedly connecting it to God’s power, and, to a lesser extent, by noting an instance of successful evangelism sparked by the sign. In this letter, there was no question of whether or not serpent handling was a legitimate sign or not; taking up serpents was both an undeniable sign of God’s power working through Mansfield and her fellow saints as well as a persuasive evangelical tool.<\/p>\n Mansfield refashioned her experience of serpent handling to fit within the traditional convention of female self-abnegation-but not that of weakness-through her writing. Through her denials of personal empowerment, she hinted at the strength of the power for which she became a conduit. Mansfield, an ordinary woman, not a female evangelist or a male member of the Church of God, took up the rattlesnake initially deemed too dangerous to handle by her community without injury, which led both to more Holy Spirit possessions and to more conversions-clear and undeniable victories for the Church of God. Mansfield’s account, then, served not only to legitimize serpent handling as an authentic sign of Holy Spirit baptisms, but also to both subtly emphasize the accessibility of awesome power that was available to all members of the Church of God, male or female. However, by denying personal empowerment, she also positioned herself as an unexpected vessel that God was, remarkably, able to work through. Mansfield’s report recounted her lived experience in a way that reinforced the limitations of female religious authority in the world she lived in; her access to spiritual power was firmly and exclusively rooted in the Holy Spirit that poured into her body and manifested in taking up serpents in such a way that both empowered and constrained her.<\/p>\n After the two reports in 1915, which included Mansfield’s, there were only two other first-hand accounts by a woman serpent handler published in the Evangel <\/em>in 1918 and 1930, respectively, before Sarah York’s letter.[119]<\/a> Published in 1936, York’s submission served as both the last first-hand account of serpent handling and the final report of the practice in the Evangel.<\/em> In her short but commanding letter, York wasted no time cutting to the heart of why she was writing. “Dear Evangel readers,” she began, “as I have heard so much talk against taking up serpents I feel led by the Holy Ghost to write. Read Mark 16: 17, 18. There is no difference is [sic; <\/em>in] taking up serpents and laying hands on the sick. God can use both to His glory.”[120]<\/a> As with other first-hand accounts written by women, serpent handling was the central focus of her letter. Unlike the earlier writers, however, York’s letter was prompted by serious concern about continuation the sign within her church.[121]<\/a> Similarly to Mansfield, and perhaps to temper her direct challenge to male leadership, York downplayed her own agency, instead stating she was “led by the Holy Ghost” to write.[122]<\/a> “About twelve years ago,” York continued,<\/p>\n I was at church one night, at prayer meeting. They brought in a big rattlesnake. I began to pray and started to read and see what the Bible said about taking up serpents. The power came on me and I didn’t fear. They laid it on the table and it coiled and stuck its head up, and when the power came on me I patted it on the head and it dropped its head. I put my hands under it and held it out and praised God with the snake in my hands. Then Brother J. H. Brooks’ wife took it out of my hands and danced around until she dropped it. It crawled under a bench. I guess there were a hundred people there and some said they were convinced. Praise God, I am willing to do anything God wants me to. I am in His hands. Alleluia.[123]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Like Mansfield nearly two decades before her, York and another female member of the Church of God successfully handled a serpent without harm, which converted nonbelievers. York’s account also followed the same general structure and possessed the essential elements of a woman-authored report of serpent handling-including gratitude and praise for God, an emphasis on his power, and feelings of personal empowerment. Unlike Mansfield, however, York urgently felt she needed to directly defend and advocate for the practice as a legitimate sign, warning readers that<\/p>\n If we try to shirk when hard things come, we are liable to lose out. Be sure God is leading. There’s nothing impossible with God. He delivered Daniel out of the lions’ den, the Hebrew children from the fiery furnace… His power is not limited… Jesus said lay hands on the sick He also said take up serpents. Let’s keep prayed up and listen to that sweet, small voice. Obedience is better than sacrifice.[124]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n York’s personal experience of serpent handling empowered her to become an authoritative defender of serpent handling, and allowed her to go against the growing negative consensus about serpent handling among male leadership. At the same time, however, York downplayed her own power as an individual, Spirit-filled woman, and instead emphasized the highest authority, God, to both shield and bolster her critique, and to fit within the gendered expectations of behavior within the Church of God. She leveraged feminine piety to emphasize God’s unlimited power and the importance of obedience to the Word of God to strengthen her defense of serpent handling. She framed this defense as virtuous and humble, rooting it in her moral authority as a woman who was concerned-fearful even-for the spiritual well-being of the church as a whole. This type of humble fear for those who did not accept all of the Bible modulated her religious authority, which was made undeniable through serpent handling, and invoked the worn trope of female self-abnegation. Her strong critique transformed into a loving, almost-maternal expression of concern for the church and its male leadership if Mark 16:17-18 were to be disregarded. York strove to protect and strengthen her community’s relationship to God through the special sign that, at least at one point, was thought to elevate Church of God above all others.<\/p>\n This is not to say, however, that York’s letter was weakly formulated. Rather, she mounted an overt resistance to doctrinal changes promoted by the male leaders of the Church of God. York used all the rhetorical tools developed over two-decades of women reporting on serpent handling to craft a well-articulated, biblically-based argument that taking up serpents must be considered a legitimate sign of Holy Spirit baptisms, or they would all be at risk of ignoring scripture and disobeying God. Although York’s letter ultimately marked the last recorded instance of serpent handling in the Church of God, the practice went out with a final, resolute defense by a defiant Pentecostal sister.<\/p>\n As subscribers to the Evangel <\/em>read York’s defense of serpent handling in the pages of their beloved newsletter, they also read increasingly negative coverage of the practice in other printed sources. In the late 1920s through the 1930s, attention from the secular media intensified and “church leaders came to regard the once-perceived evangelistic benefits of the practice as liabilities.”[125]<\/a> This attention only increased beginning in 1941, when Kentucky-followed by Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama-passed legislation “banning the use of ‘any kind of reptile in connection with any religious service.'”[126]<\/a> Serpent handlers subsequently came into conflict with the law, and local and national newspapers turned their trials into media spectacles.[127]<\/a> Coupled with a series of highly-publicized deaths from snake bites in connection with religious services, by the close of the 1940s, serpent handling had turned into a sensational, criminalized, and profoundly other practice in the minds of the American public, and the Church of God wanted nothing to do with it.[128]<\/a><\/p>\n Conclusion <\/strong><\/p>\n In a way, Sarah York’s letter at the end of the serpent handling movement in the Church of God exemplified much of what woman serpent handlers and female witnesses to serpent handling accomplished when they wrote to the Evangel<\/em>. Through their reports about serpent handling, highly committed female members of the Church of God played an active role in the propagation, legitimization, and-most obviously in York case-defense of the sign, while navigating an uneven balance of power between themselves and their male peers.<\/p>\n Although the basic narrative structure of the women-authored serpent handling reports was flexible, women were still bound to include the standard elements of the genre in their writings: an emphasis on evangelism; exhortations of God’s power when it manifested in the form of serpent handling and other signs that follow; and the individual reporter’s feelings of joy, happiness, victory, and certitude. The women who “participated in the highly expressive practices of Pentecostal worship” such as the revivals and worship services where serpent handling typically took place were “compelled to reconstruct their life stories and refashion themselves according to the available vocabulary of experience.”[129]<\/a> Reports had to sound more or less like reports, and their submission to the Evangel <\/em>had to be prompted by an instance of serpent handling they had personally observed or taken part in.<\/p>\n The general rigidity of serpent handling reports served, as Griffith wrote, “to sustain the authority of Pentecostal theology, elicit correct attitudes and feelings, and produce disciplined religious selves.”[130]<\/a> The three vital elements and narrative structure of a serpent handling report served two primary purposes, each related to Griffith’s observation: to directly and repeatedly connect it with the Church of God’s specific interpretation of scripture, God’s power, and evangelistic usefulness; and to help elicit and sustain the proper emotions of joy and victory among Evangel <\/em>readers when the sign manifested, which helped to discipline their religious selves. The reports helped foster relationships among church members and with the divine; sustain religious devotion; and provide a blueprint to understand highly emotional, perhaps sometimes confusing, even frightening, religious events. Over the course of over twenty years, the women-authored reports in the \n\t\t\tOpen-access license\t<\/h5>\n\tThis work is licensed CC-BY<\/a>. You are encouraged to make free use of this publication<\/a>.
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