RT Article
T1 “You Will Not Surely Die”: The Pentecostal Aesthetics and Ethics of Serpent Handling
JF Journal of religious ethics
VO 52
IS 2
SP 189
OP 208
A1 Kamenicky, Michael Austin
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1891098950
AB This paper is an aesthetic analysis of the practice of serpent handling by Christians in the Appalachian region of the United States. The purpose of this analysis is to understand serpent handling's aesthetic relationship to the Pentecostal tradition and exposit the implications of this relationship for the practice's legal status. The first section examines the history and defining characteristics of serpent handling and introduces the controversial problem of whether the practice can be categorized within the Pentecostal movement. The second section argues that serpent handling can be understood as belonging within the broader global Pentecostal tradition through engagement with the Pentecostal aesthetics of Nimi Wariboko. The final section concludes that if serpent handling is legible according to the aesthetic norms of Pentecostalism, a now broadly tolerated religious tradition in the United States, then this necessitates a wholesale reconsideration of antiserpent handling legislation.
K1 Nimi Wariboko
K1 Pentecostalism
K1 Appalachia
K1 Aesthetics
K1 serpent handling
DO 10.1111/jore.12469