Summerford, a preacher at a prominent snake-handling church, had allegedly attempted to murder his wife by using the snakes usually reserved for church services. Covington’s exploration of these events goes far beyond anything I can offer here, so for those more interested in the details of these services I highly recommend reading his book.Ĭovington began his journey because of the trial of Reverend Glenn Summerford. The sections of the service where snakes come out usually begin with live music, which crescendoes with people bringing snakes out to exercise their faith.
There are rarely programs or strict schedules, and it’s common to have multiple sermons or messages in any given service. Snake-handling churches, aside from handling venomous creatures, have much in common with modern-day Pentecostal services. The power of God, these people reasoned, would protect them from harm. People in the churches that Covington visited took poisonous snakes out of cages and handled them without using any form of protection during services. Luke 10:19 for example, states: I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy nothing will harm you (NIV). These churches incorporate snakes into worship services out of reference and obedience to New Testament verses that mention giving disciples power over such creatures.
Salvation on Sand Mountain is an in-depth exploration of snake-handling churches in the American South. Salvation on Sand Mountain does a masterful job of showing parts of Alabama (and the entire region) that are worth showing and remembering. I bring up the election to underscore the main point of what I want to say in this quasi-review of Covington’s work: there are weird, borderline-crazy, and beautiful parts of the South that will never make the front page of national publications. Covington wrote about obscure religious sects in rural parts of the state, and published his findings more than 20 years ago. These are all important stories, and the fate of Alabama in late 2017 has much to say about the fate of the United States as a whole.Īn Alabama special election in 2017 has little to do with Dennis Covington’s seminal work, Salvation on Sand Mountain at first glance. Perhaps more importantly though, it showed the general ugliness of Southern politics and how contentious nearly anything can be in Alabama. That election, which prompted an almost-unheard-of Democratic victory by Doug Jones, is still in the headlines due to one candidate’s refusal to concede. A quick Google search for “Alabama” brings up a Wikipedia page, the state’s official website, the webpage for the University of Alabama, and then several articles about the recent Senate special election.
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