A Kentucky pastor who co-starred in the TV show Snake
Salvation has died of a snake bite, police in Middlesboro said.
Emergency
personnel received a call Saturday night that someone at a church, Full Gospel
Tabernacle in Jesus Name, had suffered a snake bite, Police Chief Jeff Sharpe
said in a statement. He said an ambulance crew went to the church, but the Rev.
Jamie Coots had left. The crew went to Coots’ home and found him suffering from
a bite to the hand.
“After a brief examination and discussion of the
possible dangers if the wound was not treated, treatment and transport to the
hospital was refused,” Sharpe said.
An hour later,
police, emergency officials and a deputy coroner returned to the home to find
that Coots had died, Sharpe said.
Coots, who was
profiled on The National Geographic show featuring Pentecostal,
serpent-handling preachers, pleaded guilty last year to violating Tennessee’s
exotic animals law and agreed to surrender his snakes.
Coots and the
Rev. Andrew Hamblin believe in a bible passage that suggests a poisonous
snakebite won’t harm them if they are anointed by God's power. They said they
believed that, if they did not practice the snake-handling ritual, they would
be condemned to hell.
Since the early
1900s, a small number of believers in Tennessee, Kentucky and other parts of
Appalachia have practiced the so-called signs of the gospel, found in a
little-known passage in the King James Version of the Gospel of Mark:
“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.”
While other churches ignore this passage or treat it
metaphorically, serpent handlers follow it literally. Their intense faith
demands sinless living and rewards them with spiritual ecstasy — the chance to
hold life and death in their hands.
The Snake
Salvation Facebook fan page featured a “Rest in Peace” cover photo on Sunday. A
Day Of Support and Remembering of Pastor Coots was announced for Tuesday.
“I am so sorry for the family’s loss,” Janet Ellison
posted. “He died doing what he felt led to do by God. Heaven gained a true
warrior tonight!”
USA Today.
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