The eCrozier

I feel in my heart, because God opened it up to me, if I stopped taking up serpents I would die and go to hell. It is in the Bible, and we tell people because it’s in the Bible you must believe it. – Jamie Coots, dead at age 41 from a venomous snake bite

He died Saturday night after refusing medical treatment from a rattlesnake’s deadly bite. Jamie Coots was a pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus’ Name in Middlesboro, Kentucky, a town near where I met my wife, Kelly, just a few miles away on the Tennessee side of the Cumberland Pass. It would be easy for anyone of us to condescend about Pastor Coots’ death, rolling our eyes and saying, “what an ignorant fool!” He may have been foolish, but he was true to his faith as he received it. Yet, his death has given license for people to make fun of him and his fellow travelers, and thereby also furthering a misunderstanding of what the Gospel of Jesus is all about.

So, I won’t make fun of him. I attended a snake-handling church once in the summer of 1979, north of Middlesboro in Leslie County Kentucky. Just in case you were wondering, I sat in the back of the church right next to the unlocked door (O me of little faith). It was a powerful experience and the people’s faith there was real. While I disagree profoundly with fellow disciples of Jesus like Pastor Coots, I don’t question their whole-hearted commitment to what they believe, nor their faith in God.

No, I won’t make fun of him, but I’ll certainly question his theological assumptions. As Pastor Coots said: “if I stop taking up serpents, I would die and go to hell.” Think about that statement: That’s just the same works righteousness snake oil the Church has been struggling against for centuries. There’s a clear path from Pastor Coots’ theology to the warped theology of the “prosperity gospel,” which says that if you just follow certain biblical principles and have enough faith, then God will shower you with wealth. Joel Osteen and Pastor Coots are just two sides of the same misguided, theological coin. Both hold that our particular actions can manipulate God’s decision about us in Christ.

The Gospel begins not with what we do, such has handling snakes, following biblical principles, or even trying to be a good person, but what God has done for humanity through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel isn’t primarily about what we believe, but what God in Jesus did on our behalf. Our salvation is an unmerited, free gift from God bought and paid for by Jesus on the Cross. It isn’t a reward given for any particular behavior on our part that tries to influence or force a decision by God.

So, we should be careful when rolling our eyes at the likes of Pastor Coots. Many of us have our own version of snake-handling: Proving to God we’re better than other people, showing God how we’ve achieved success in life, or believing God must share our clearly correct political convictions. While we publicly acknowledge living by God’s grace alone, many of us in the Church live as if our lives are actually in our own hands; that God must give us our desired outcome based on our performance. We’re figuratively snake-handling our own self-righteousness. Pastor Coots just did it literally.

+Scott