Tag: snake handling

From the Augusta Chronicle comes one of the best opening lines of the year:  “Spencer Evans was consumed in the Spirit when the snake struck.”  And the second sentence is a stunner too:  “The 4-foot timber rattler sank its fangs into the 23-year-old preacher’s left wrist as he rejoiced in God.”

While the story’s accredited to “staff photographer,” it’s an example of what great religion writing can be, full of the magic of good prose and wonder at the limits of faith.  From Ephesus, Georgia, the writer accounts the near-death experience of the “serpent”-handling pastor of one of the 35 or so Holiness Churches “tucked neatly away in the pockets and hollows of the Appalachians.” Continue Reading →

From the Augusta Chronicle comes one of the best opening lines of the year:  “Spencer Evans was consumed in the Spirit when the snake struck.”  And the second sentence is a stunner too:  “The 4-foot timber rattler sank its fangs into the 23-year-old preacher’s left wrist as he rejoiced in God.”

While the story’s accredited to “staff photographer,” it’s an example of what great religion writing can be, full of the magic of good prose and wonder at the limits of faith.  From Ephesus, Georgia, the writer accounts the near-death experience of the “serpent”-handling pastor of one of the 35 or so Holiness Churches “tucked neatly away in the pockets and hollows of the Appalachians.” Continue Reading →

From the Augusta Chronicle comes one of the best opening lines of the year:  “Spencer Evans was consumed in the Spirit when the snake struck.”  And the second sentence is a stunner too:  “The 4-foot timber rattler sank its fangs into the 23-year-old preacher’s left wrist as he rejoiced in God.”

While the story’s accredited to “staff photographer,” it’s an example of what great religion writing can be, full of the magic of good prose and wonder at the limits of faith.  From Ephesus, Georgia, the writer accounts the near-death experience of the “serpent”-handling pastor of one of the 35 or so Holiness Churches “tucked neatly away in the pockets and hollows of the Appalachians.” Continue Reading →